I work for a company that has over 100 computers in its offices. And one of our Computer support people tells me that is not a good idea to turn our computers off during the night and on weekends because it puts extra stress on them to turn them off and on, that you are shortening the life of a computer and monitor by repeatedly starting it. Do you know if this is actually true?Your Computer support people are wrong. You're not going to wear out your computers prematurely by cycling them off/on overnight and on weekends. Yes, you might wear out a computer by turning it on and off all the time, but doing it once a day -- or even twenty times a day -- is nothing. The useful life of a computer these days is only a few years anyway. The computer will become obsolete long before you wear it out, no matter how often you cycle it. Something else to consider is that all devices eventually wear out after running for a long period of time. Keeping your computer on constantly means it's running four times longer than normal. This extra running time is at least as likely to wear out your computer as turning it off at night. For the monitor, it'll definitely wear out quicker by keeping it on rather than turning it off. Even if turning a computer off once a day shortened its overall life by a few days, it wouldn't pay to keep it on all the time. The computers are costing your company several hundred to several thousand dollars a year in energy costs if they're not being turned off at night. If a computer is used from 8:00 to 5:00 on weekdays, then it's not being used for 16 hours a day during the work week, and 48 hours for the weekend. That's a total of 128 hours a week, or 6656 hours a year. At an estimated 25 watts/hr. in sleep mode, that's 6656 x 25 = 166,400 watt-hours per year, or 166.4 kilowatt-hours per year. At $0.10 a kilowatt-hour, that's $16.64/year. That's for just one computer. For a hundred computers it would be $1664/year. If the computers aren't in sleep mode, then at 150 watts/hr. it's more like $9,984/year. And then there are the hidden costs. Computers generate heat, and your company is paying a pretty penny for air conditioning to remove all the heat generated by computers that should be off when they're not being used. And if the AC doesn't run overnight and on weekends, running the computers in a hot environment will do more to shorten their lives than turning them off once a day. Bottom line: Turn your computers off at night, and don't worry about it.
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