Leaving the PC on all most of the time

Once upon a time there was a big on-going debate if one should leave a machine run 24/7 or shut it down - was the stress of starting a computer more than the stress of running it all the time or not?


That issue is probably unresolved (though I would side with the shut it down crowd). Anyway at one time I did tech support for Windows and I had a guy call in. He was a 24/7 believer, and came home one day to find his machine off, and it would not start. I checked it out as best I could (over the phone) and determined that he was looking at a complete reformat and reinstall (which was always a last ditch option - unlike many software companies or techies who dispense that solution as if it were asprin). (He either had a power outage or a storm surge - either way his hard disk was toast - maybe a hard disk recovery company might have been able to recover something, but short of that ....) Anyway, if you decide to go 24/7 with a desktop, do yourself a favor and get a UPS and surge protector with shutdown software in case you get a power outage/surge. Set up a laptop to go into hibernation mode if the battery is dying.