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In this long thread , we discussed when to reboot XP, and then whether it was even necessary at all, on a well tuned system.
I am trying an experiment. Uptime, so far, 46 hours. Yesterday I ripped 20 audio cds and burnt 6 MP3 cds. I did my usual hammering before, during and afterwards... Let's see how long this thing can go! Anybody want to join me? Dave? Martin? PeteC? BillyBob? Any takers?
Johanna
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While there's no doubt in my mind that this machine would tick away for days, weeks, maybe months on end without needing a reboot, it wouldn't be a very good one to base anything on. It's not taxed the way alot of people's machines are. Primary purpose is education, mine and the kids. Surfin, a few games here and there. A few CDs here and there. Little photo editing and printing.
Now if I run off my test drive, where there's all kinds of questionable software loaded for experimentation, my guess is that it wouldn't go too long without one. But who knows, it might just fool me.
Not me, Johanna, too power conscious besides which I have an inbuilt distrust of most things electrical since a washing m/c caught fire many years ago and not a single fuse blew. Since that day I will not go out and leave it on, just the freezer and burglar alarm left on 24/7 - oh - and the alarm clock
What I got out of that long thread was that the issue was more about power issues, ie, do you shut down the system and how often rather than rebooting.
For me, the issue is moot anyway, because I switch between OSes, so end up rebooting more than once a day. Even if I didn't have that config, I would shut down overnight anyway.
Not chicken reboot, just don't have the need. BTW, I agree with you fully. If it's stable and not running junk software, rebooting is rarely needed. I have had mine up for four days before, run it down to a crawl, then just closed some apps., and all was well again. I normally shut down every night, but reguardless of what I do during the day, with the exception of switching drives, I don't ever have to reboot to clear out the system, or refresh it.
I'm with Pete on this one. I've got 7 fans running in my system, so I'd rather save power as well as the slight fire risk, not to mention wear and tear on the mechanical components (such as fans). If I needed to run it 7/24 OK. But I don't, so she gets powered down after a few hours or so. Never had a hardware failure in 7+ years of switching on/off my PC's, sometimes a few times a day.
We run many W2K PC's at work 7/24 (Radio/TV station) and yes they are reasonably reliable, but get occasional reboots so they don't fail at a critical time. They certainly arn't any more reliable at the end of the 3 year lease. To the contrary, these never switched off machines occasionally have fans and HD's that fail. (mechanical wear!) more so than the one's that are powered down daily.
Still up, Reboot, got a smooth machine, no software conflicts, reasonably current hardware... I've had to "fight the urge" a few times, but I'm leaving this puppy ON. I use this comp hard (mostly because I fix other people's comps with it!)
I do want to say, that before I began this journey, I did thouroughly clean out the fan and and mobo with air, and Q-tips and alcohol elsewhere. I'm still running with the side off, so crud gets in there fast. I also defragged, did all my backups, weekly maint. and then shut down for an hour, for a nice clean cold boot. A little over 78 hours, now...
I said it in the other thread, and I'll repeat it here:
"In the final analysis, whether you run your system 24/7, or shut it down when you're not using it, it all boils down to how you use your system and what you're comfortable with."
If you need to be up 24/7, fine ... leave it running. BUT ...
If you feel the need to reboot, do so.
If you feel the need to shut down every night, or when you're going to be away for more than a few hours, do
so.
And, don't let ANYone tell you that you're doing things the wrong way.
Just had a look at the site posted by dobhar Whilst the figures seem a little over the top at 372 watts (probably more like +- 200w?) for my system by way of example, I definately would rather switch off my PC and save some dollars in the power costs rather than have the equivilent of 2 100w light bulbs burning continuously. Obviously you 24/7 pundits (Those not running a WEB server or other legitimate reason for running 24/7) must have shares in your local power company to even consider leaving it on continuously.
Not wishing to flog a dead horse (well maybe just a little )
I've just had a look at an NT4 service pack 0! PC here at work used for recording 6 channels of audio 24/7 overwritten every 6 weeks, and it's system idle process has 6542 hours which equates to 272 days. Actually it would be well above that when you factor in the non idle usage. So probably well over 1 year without a reboot! The CPU usage is around 20% continuously, as it's writing to 4 9 GIG hard drives, and only has 64 MB of system RAM. Not bad for NT4 without any service packs! The screen burn on the CRT monitor looks cool as well.
Hi All: Johanna, I would like to take you up on your challange, but since I am constantly installing/uninstalling programs, most of which, as I remember, require reboot, especially on uninstall, I'd be a sure loser in this contest.
For me, an even worse contest would be: How long can you run continuously without a crash? I'd be a sure looser in that contest as well.
Been thinking of changing my experience to: "King of BSOD"
Well, my experiment didn't last as long as I hoped it would. Frigging Indiana sent us a windstorm that knocked out the power, and my UPS shut my system down in an orderly manner, as it is supposed to do...sigh...
But, I must say that in the time w/o a reboot, and despite all the use my comp got, the comp didn't slow or falter- which tells me that Reboot is likely quite correct that on a well running system, rebooting shouldn't be necessary (my qualifier here) unless major changes are made. Rebooting is not needed to "refresh" the comp, or to clear the memory or to speed things up. XP does it all, on the fly.
Before the storm, in addition to the usual work on this comp, I ripped 50 cds, burnt audio and MP3 cds, did a thousand page print job, resized the pics and then reorganized a huge pic folder, updated websites, closed out the quarter on the accounting program I use for work, etc etc..no heat issues, no slowdowns, no problems. I will be less inclined to reboot "just because" after this test!
Martin, I hope you don't mind, but I worked on a comp this weekend that was a mess, and had to do a reinstall, and I named the comp "Train Wreck" (taken from you!) because the owner is a model train enthusiast who knows nearly nothing about his comp, and is ALWAYS having problems. He thinks the name is great, and I told him I got the idea from a friend!
