April 1 conficker worm protection

[D]

I never ever turn my computers off, work or home. Some of them are well well over 4 years old. You really do not need to turn them off and I agree with D on this one. Our computer techs say the same thing.

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question328.htm

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000390.htm

And add to the 'power saving' stuff, what I said about 'wear and tear' on the moving parts, as well as the fact that leaving a computer ON ²⁴⁄₇ bakes the components over time.

It's a long standing argument and people will continue to disagree about it. Sure, computers CAN run for years being left on, but I've also had to work on a LOT of computers with parts that failed from overheating, or friction over time, or a myriad of other things. The fact is, computers DO wear out and using up those 'running hours' is just taking chances.

If you set up your power saving features PROPERLY, it *IS* better to leave your system on 24/7. Period. As long as you make sure your HDD, monitor, and what not all shut off after a period of inactivity (I usually do 10 minutes on HDD, 5 on monitor) and have a system standby or hibernate set for after say a half hour, you're fine. Of course, thats assuming you don't leave them all on to RUN things like I do, in which case you want them to have NO power saving setups.

And FYI, that 486DX is COMPLETELY ORIGINAL except I ADDED a T-Base10 NIC to it. Sure, you couldn't do that with modern components because the quality just isn't there anymore. But I can take current stuff and get 5 years or so of constant running out of it. With a 2 years swing either way. So, bite me. Leave your stuff on at least from the first time you get up in morning until you go to bed. And if you only sleep 4-6 hours like me, may as well leave it on ALL the time.