Are you mean to your computer?

[Tinner]

I case modded mine. I cut a special hole in the side just so I could bugger it properly.
/me is very cruel to my PC. (And it pays me back in kind.)

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

Mine is a very naughty computer. It gets yelled at often. But, my computer broke down about a month ago and I've been dealing with my wife's computer. That has made me long for my windows 98 Frankenputer.

 

[Del]

My PC is almost two years old, and it has hardly ever been turned off during that time. It's two hard drives have only been defragged a couple of times, and never has it been formatted since I got it.

The PC is virus free though, and has only had a couple of virii during that whole time, to which I am thankful.

Mine is a similar story to yours. Except that it was in storage for most of a year in 2004. I re-formatted just before I left.

Virus free, I'm conscious of internet security in most manners.

 

[Del]

Welcome to my .sig, Del.

w00t!

I don't think that after 6 years online I have ever been sigged.

 

[ssampier]

I'm good to mine (well mostly). My car on the other hand....(1)

I'm an Internet junkie, so I like to defrag monthly and formatly semi-annually. My computer old hard drive was acting funny, taking a long time to bring up simple information. I thought I heard it click, so I didn't want to take any chances. I bought a brand new hard drive for it.

Since then I've left the side case off.

(1) anyone else give their car "encouragement"? Especially when the automatic transmission does not want to switch gears?

 

[Algolei]

I'm very mean to my computer. I yell at it for being so slow. "Why can't you be like other computers?" I berate. "Now what are you doing? Did I tell you to do that? No I did not!"

Plus I don't approve of some of the websites it likes to hang out on.

I'm not against corporal punishment, either. Whenever it blanks out on me, or freezes up when I'm asking it something, I'll smack it. "One of these days," I'll say, "I'll slap you right back to the stone age!"

Last week, I was so cross with it, I felt compelled to send it to bed without supper.

 

[Steve Jung]

I'm fairly nice to my machine. I've had it for 6 years and I shut it down when I'm not using it.

 

[Rel]

I'm fairly nice to my machine. I've had it for 6 years and I shut it down when I'm not using it.

I was under the impression that letting it stay on was a good thing. Is this not true?

 

[francisca]

Unless I am installing hardware or the power is out, all of my work and home machines are always on, the only exception being my laptop.

Leaving them on is good, as one of the most stressful times for electronic compnenents are when they are first energized, before they reach steady state.

Oh, and machines which fail usually get taken out to the range and filled with .223 and .30 calilber holes before being disposed of properly.

 

[buzzard]

I was under the impression that letting it stay on was a good thing. Is this not true?

Yes and no.

Hard drives undergo the most wear when spinning up, so not staring up a hard drive often is a good thing. However, keeping up the low level spin does some wear and tear. It's really a matter of how often you turn it on, and how often you use it. Also if you put the HD into sleep mode, that's no better than turning it off.

Most of the hardware failures in computers are HD related (the primary problems encountered in computer support are user error, and OS problems caused by said user error), so that's the primary concern. I've worked in desktop machine repair and support a fair amount, and I can tell you that the solid state electronics are very rarely the culprit when it comes to computer problems. Actually I guess the power supply is probably the next most likely thing to kick off on PCs, and they are probably a bit sensitive to a lot of on/off. However they are even more sensitive to power surges, so a good surge protector is far more important than you leaving it on.

Another thing to consider is if you leave a machine on all the time and it is connected to the internet, you could be courting trouble. I leave my Mac on all the time connected to the internet, but it is behind a firewall (or two), and I keep it very patched. They are appreciably more secure than your average XP box, so I don't feel there is much risk in that. My XP games box (games being the proper use for a widoze based machine) turns off when I'm not using it, and rarely if ever is used for web browsing or checking email.

buzzard