What is best for your PC? Off, On, Hibernate?

[Anphrax]

Basically, do what you wanna do. I myself will only leave the computer on overnight if im downloading something rather large... even then I dont turn it on and start downloading until I crash for the night.

 

[Trotter]

If you leave it on, be sure to occasionally shut it down... Windows is not perfectly stable, ya know...

 

[IBMan]

I usually do a hibernate and do a retsart/full shutdown one to two times a week to clean it up, this makes clearing the pagefile at shutdown much more bearable, makes most "bootups" faster and i can keep my system relatively clean.

 

[vaderpro]

I turn it off if im not going to be using it. Definatley off at night.

 

[dnoch]

I restart it when windows starts running slow, or the system crashes

 

[JamesR]

I restart it when windows starts running slow, or the system crashes

me too.
i leave my pc running 24/7.
sometimes it lasts upto a week without being restarted.

 

[KorKwin]

Mine is always on unless I'm downloading massive files like everyone else.

 

[Darybart]

I leave it on the whole day and turn it off at night not because of all the problems above but because my computer has three fans in it and it make a huge noise so i cant sleep

 

[lazerman]

I personally turn mine off at night so I can sleep (Vantec Tornado full blast for cpu). It is best to leave it on because when you turn it on it expands and when it cools off after being shut down it contracts. Figure this a few thousand times and your PC has started to deteriorate. That is my theory anyways. I would rather not have the ginormous electric bill... I don't keep the same components for more than 2 years so I will never see the effects of it... It would be several perhaps 10 years before anything bad started to happen.

Also when you shut off, it releases built up volatile memory (RAM), and windows runs faster and smoother with less errors than when it has been on for weeks or months.

 

[Locutus]

Having the computer in Hibernate mode is not a good thing. Majority of the people that has hdd failure to often becayse of that. Speacially if you do it everyday. If you think about it. Your HDD spins around 7200 rpm. When the computer goes not hibernate mode. It stops. When you touch the mouse, your hdd has to spin at 7200 at instant from the start.Thats not a good thing. Leave the computer on, keep the screen saver or turn of monitor. Turn off once a week for few hours, to clean the ram memory and let the computer cool down.