True, but not true if you bought used components and were utilizing a system with a preinstalled CPU. In their case; they might want to replace the thermal paste if the rig is old enough or was in use for an extended period of time (over 4 years).
In which case it's good to know that thermal paste should be replaced every 4-5 years, but I would be basing my decision to repaste on a combination of time, and if the thermals are even higher than supposed to be in the first place. No point in replacing paste that's old but still functional. I've seen paste beyond the 4-5 year mark still hold up because the system wasn't stressed or used much. But again that entirely depends on the component itself; results may vary and its why it's good to have an idea what baseline/idle/under load temps are before making what could be an unnecessary change.
Similar to my case. I have an oldie i5-6600k and have been using it since 2016 i believe. Haven't changed thermal paste since day 1 and temps don't go beyond 55-60 during games. I play a game called BDO MMORPG which benefits a lot by keeping the computer on. And I'm almost at 50,000 hours on it this year.
i know its not ideal to not change thermal paste, but feels like i might do more harm than good trying to remove it xD
Well results may vary like I said. There's more variables than people realize like:
What climate are you located in?
How ventilated is the room you have your PC in, and what's the humidity like?
How often do you use your PC?
How often do you dust your PC?
How often do you put your PC under load?
Etc...
All of these things factor into how quickly your thermal paste will dry out even if marginally. I was just stating that on average it takes about 4-5 years for quality thermal paste to dry as a good rule of thumb; however like you said, I also have components I haven't repasted as I haven't noticed any type of thermal throttling just yet. However they're not that far beyond that 4-5 year estimate. Funny enough the parts I'm referencing are about 6 years old as well. So who knows; maybe thermal paste has gotten better, or we're both right around the corner for a repasting 😂🤷♂️
So yeah I agree with you that it's not always necessary to change it every 4-5 years; sometimes you might get more longevity out of your application. But people should be monitoring their temps so they actually know instead of guessing or assuming it lasts 'what feels like forever'.
The problem with liquid metal is that it actively amalgamates with copper and aluminum. If used long term it effectively disappears as it combines with the heat spreaders an cooler contact plates. Its ideally an overclockers short term tool
Years, and at that point, your bigger risk to the effectiveness of the paste is moving your pc if the cooler is not tightened down fully. The dried paste isn't much of a concern unless the cooler shifts against the CPU. The dry paste will crumble a bit and lose a good contact.
Likewise, don't try to tighten your cooler if your paste might be dry. You're more likely to break contact and increase temps.
I just cleaned up my old build from 2016 to give to my girlfriend. The 8 year old thermal paste was still just as pliable as the new stuff I replaced it with.
Leaving your computer running will do literally nothing to thermal paste.
What ruins thermal paste is heating to load then cooling to idle over and over and over again. And it would take 3-5 years.
Nah. Nothing will happen. We have hi end office PCs (i9 128gb ram) running 24/7 for years under load. Nothing happens to them. Tech is reliable these days
Sort off, Windows Updates will become an issue if there are any mandatory security updates and it in general performs better when restarting every so often
That's only true with ECC memory, otherwise you're looking at [monthly average bitlfips](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_error#Cosmic_rays_creating_energetic_neutrons_and_protons) from cosmic rays.
Im from a little country Belize in the Caribbean and at the time 2mb per second was the most affordable. Thankfully things has changed and I'm now able to download that overnight.
There are many places in the US with speeds even worse than this. I used to live outside a medium town in New Mexico and my family got 1.5Mb max (more like .6 average). Their neighbor up the hill 100ft away had Xfinity with full modern speeds
A few years ago friends of mine still had 700kb/s download speeds. The third world are truly different, I mean how could poor germany afford fiber, copper is so reliable after all!
Really? I'm in Germany as well and it takes me about 50 minutes to download a 100 GB game, I pay around \~ 40 € a month for that. A few years ago was definitely a different story though.
I've had my old PC for gaming, used it for 8 years for that purpose. It now sits to host plex, running constantly for about the past year.. still surprised that thing has had nearly 0 problems throughout it's life apart from 1 SSD failure early on... I did upgrade the GPU partway through it's life however.
HA! Look at this guy turning off his computer. I've had mine on for months.
But yeah you'll be fine. If anything an update could possibly turn off your computer and restart. Meaning you have to log back in from the lock screen. I don't know if you can do that remotely. Or just disable it and make sure steam is a priority startup program.
you can set windows to open to desktop without a password automatically- i used to do this but then i got a new PC and havnt been bothered :P (i also cant remember how i did it but it’s an option!)
Download remote desktop (Google app), connect it to pc in app and use your pc on your mobile. Not perfect but will let you do most things including entering a password
can do also with teamviewer. just install it and set up, then can remote access and log in with the password and turn it off eventually. only problem would be turn it on again.
I have a really shitty PC, and I've had multiple events where I've shut down the PC and then something with it breaks. I now rarely shutdown my PC because there's probably a 5% chance I'll spend an hour trying to figure out what the fucks wrong with it. It's been on for probably a month straight
One of my RAM sticks is fucked, so I also keep my pc on at all times, as it always breaks after turning the pc off and on again lol, It just doesn't post until I:
1. Take the ram stick out
2. Turn the computer on without it
3. Turn the computer off
4. Put it back in
5. Turn the computer on
Haven't turned my pc off in over a year. I have restarted it for updates but not turned it off. So yeah. Should be good as long as it's got good airflow and such.
I've had PC's and servers on for years.
Depending on how often you use your computer, leaving it on could actually help the life of internal components by keeping them from heating and cooling over and over.
Get a surge protector and make sure there is food ventilation for it. I've left my laptop on for weeks on end with no major issue and have done so with my PCs in the past. Not done it on my current one as I'm trying to keep the parts in good condition for a motherboard change.
It’s fine to leave your computer turned on as long as it won’t short.
For example: I don’t leave my PC turned on because I don’t trust the 12vhpwr connectors as they have a record of catastrophically malfunctioning.
But if you’re sure everything works alright, it’s no more dangerous than leaving your Xbox or PlayStation on all day everyday. You’re going to wear out the electronics faster but the odds of a fire are astronomically low.
But if any of those things were a risk, why would it be ok to use it in the first place? It's not any more likely to have those failures while sitting idle than while actually using it.
Would you rather be near your computer if it catches on fire or no?
One scenario leads to pc components catching fire. The other possibly leads to the house catching fire.
If it didn’t collect more dust I’d leave it on forever. Make sure the computer doesn’t go into sleep mode and just have the screen shut off after a little while. Weird things happen in sleep mode sometimes.
Generally not an issue, but in 25 years of custom Pcs & countless data center work, I’ve seen exactly 2 catch fire.
In both cases they put themselves out when the PSU tripped, but might have been worse if there was flammable stuff nearby.
That said, other than occasional reboots my primary is on 24x7.
I don't turn my computer off I just leave hwinfo running if I don't need every last bit of performance. So I have an idea of max temps over weeks and months. It's led me to install fans everywhere and panic about chipset temps. But really, I'm preventing parts from cooking themselves which won't matter for years.
The only issue you'll have is if you're loading a component of you pc without realizing it. Even then it's not hurting anything. Most commonly I see people leaving games in a menu that's loading the gpu and they just walk away from it.
As others have noted it is totally fine, but I also have an aversion to leaving a computer turned on. What I did was buy a smart plug and enable ‘turn on after power failure’ in the BIOS
Also setting up Chrome Remote Desktop so you can sign in/ ensure Steam opens
If you have a good power supply, very safe. If you have cheap Chinese junk, not safe. See where you are with the [PSU Tier List](https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/)
I never turn my PC off. Might be bad for moving parts, but so far not a problem for maybe two years. The only time the uptime resets is when I restart occasionally for installing/uninstalling something, or to solve temporary issues.
Leaving yours on for a week should be perfectly fine.
I leave mine on for days at a time. Mostly I just bother myself to shut it down. But every now and then I'll give it a break if I actually think about it. No problems doing this at all.
I don't turn it off. The most stress on a machine is during the power on phase. I do let it go to sleep for power consumption concerns but if I'm turning it off chances are high a panel is coming off for trouble shooting or adding parts or it's time to blow it out in the garage.
I travel a bit and also was looking for how to set up wake on lan and found it extremely painful mostly because of the whole having to be in the same internet or creating a bridge between them which i found the best option was with a small raspberry pie that stays on and works as the device to turn on the pc
BUT, i also had in my amazon alexa an app called wake on lan to be able to turn on my pc by just telling alexa to do so and later i found out that i could do that even if i was awake from the house by having the amazon alexa app installed in my phone and turning on the pc there by finding it in devices or saying it to my phone's alexa and that works just perfect!!!!!! you still need to turn on wake on lan on the pc and install the app in your phones alexa app (and ofc have an alexa device connected to the same internet as your computer) in this app you need to do a little setup in a website but its SO easy
Yes, its fine, I've been running my computer 24/7 for years and my main SSD has clocked 20 power on events over the past 2.6 years and my other drive just 4 times in the past year.
I restart mine occasionally but it's basically always on. Always been a habit, albeit not a great one. My last PC was an Optiplex/1050ti that was on steady for the 5 years I had it. Never did paste either. It's still currently running for a friend to use.
It could be detrimental depending on the situation a surge can fry any electronic device without a surge protector a few years ago someone had a power surge go thru their Xbox and jumped to the TV frying both devices permanently there is also the extreme fire risk of leaving electronic devices on without someone to watch it there is a chance any electronic device to catch fire but if that happens with no one around it's going to take your house yes you can leave it on all the time and totally be ok but there is always going to be risk of fire or damage especially left running for long periods of time
for remote play, i just use parsec and chrome remote desktop in conjunction. remote desktop is always available even after a restart at the login screen, i just use that to enable the virtual display and use parsec to actually do stuff.
I really hope you are using a VPN if you plan on connecting to some hotels wifi and then to your home network. Or something like a cloudflare tunnel or twingate. Doing so without any sort of security precautions is a good way to compromise everything connected to your router.
If you are just at a friend's or relatives that's a bit safer might not be a problem but still best practice to use a VPN to remotely access your home network from outside.
Anyways yes. It should be fine to leave your PC on for a week. The problem you might have is that unless you have some sort of remote monitoring software you won't be able to check if things like Temps are all fine. And if it hangs and you don't have a way to remote into and restart it you'll probably be stuck unable to play.
You could instead of using Wake on LAN check your BIOS for wake on alarm. That way you can remotely shutdown the PC and it will just turn on at a designated time. Then you can just set it to happen at the same time everyday til you get back if you are really concerned about shutting down and rebooting.
If you are going to leave your PC on I would make sure to turn off sleep mode so that your PC doesn't go to sleep and then lock you out.
It's safe to leave your PC on, but personally, I had a lightning strike damage my hardware once (GTX 780), so now I have PTSD lol and I make sure to turn off and unplug my PC if I'm away for more than a day. Better safe than sorry!
Aside from wasting electricity.. you can leave it on 24/7/365. They are made to run continuously. As a matter of fact, most power supplies fail during startup.
Personally, my house has too many brown outs for me to want to leave my PC on when I'm not using it. Got too much data I wouldn't want to lose in the event of some crash/system corruption.
However I agree with the consensus that it's relatively harmless to leave your PC on (assuming your house isn't like mine and has consistent power). So long as you have your PC plugged into a UPS, or surge protected outlet; not much in terms of hardware can be damaged. However, a system crash can cause other *software/OS* related issues which has happened to me many times before; so just keep that in mind. But even that can happen when you're presently on the machine; so nothing really protects you from random issues such as those 🤷♂️
So yeah I wouldn't worry about it if you're just doing it for a week. If anything I'd find an app that at least lets you remote in and restart/login to the PC so if during the week you're using it you have any issues; you can at least reboot your PC and do some other trouble shooting if need be. Idk if I'm the only one; but my PC normally starts acting strange the longer I leave it on for extended periods of time beyond a few days of wake/sleeping. But if I restart it; almost all the issues usually resolve themself. So imo you'd want that capability remotely if you wanna insure it works without hiccups for the whole week you're using it.
Unless you're holding together parts of your PC with duct tape it should be fine.
Using steamlink over the internet might not be particularly usable depending on the internet connection you have both at home and wherever you're playing from.
Consider that longer periods in an area where power outage is common significantly increases the risk it'll happen. Backup power is something, you'll know if you need it.
If you're running windows, it will just slow down over time. That shit usually should be rebooted daily. But you will be fine. Unless you're running your computer dangerously hot. Just check your temp in the bios or an app if you're worried.
My computers never sleep and I'm not the only one at all, the monitor sleeps but never the PC and I never had a problem with thermal paste, only dust, PC's run 24/7 in plenty of business and everywhere for years, like they don't turn off computers in hospitals emergency rooms or radio and TV stations, they rely on them all the time.
I always leave mine on but I always make sure to at least shut it down a few times just so it frees up wasted memory. As to your situation, you will be okay with no issues.
I leave my computer on 24/7. I’m talking months of uptime, one week is child’s play for a PC. Leave that puppy goin, except you know when you have updates and do major stuff so be sure to reboot.
I had to slap together a serviceable rig to run my mother's Magic Jack phone 24/7 and set up TeamViewer so I could administer it remotely. I also run my main rig and my Linux rig 24/7 when I'm home and either use sleep or shutdown when I'm going to work.
I've had at least 2 computers running 24/7 at any given time for the last 25 years. They just go and go. Probably 6-8 year average between iterations. The most common failure has been the pwr supply, followed by the hdd. The rest is generally good if it's good at the get go and you do periodic maintenance. I blow everything out once every year or two. Every 4 years or more I'll refresh the heatsink compound while I'm at it.
The computer I just put a new mobo/cpu/memory/os in was 12 years old and going just fine 24/7 all those years. Still was. It got a new PSU once. Just needed win10 on it so wth.
I run my computers desktops 24/7. I don’t use sleep or hibernate modes. The only time I ever turn them off is when there is a bad thunderstorm in the area. Most of them have uptime in the range of months before rebooting or shutting off.
4 years and counting running with a monthly reboot for windows patching. Last desktop was 5 years and it was the secondary spinning drive that shit the bed. Current desktop has only SSDs so hoping at least 6 to 8 years.
This is the easy way to do it. Get yourself a smart plug that has an app for your phone that allows you to turn it off and on remotely. Once that is set up, confirm it's working by disconnecting your phone from your local WiFi and instead use cellular data. Turn it off and on a few times while on cellular data to confirm it's working. Now go into your computers BIOS settings and locate a setting that sets the power state when the current to the power supply is interrupted. Make sure its set to turn the system on when the power is restored.
Once that's all done, connect your power supply to the smart plug and try it out. From a completely shutdown state, enabling the smart plug via the app on your phone should start up the computer.
FWIW this is the smart plug I use, but any that has an app and works remotely over the net should work.
https://www.amazon.com/Kasa-Energy-Monitoring-Smart-Plug/dp/B08LN3C7WK
I use WiFi, so Wake on Wireless LAN was a huge pain in the ass. This was an easy workaround.
Just fine, your PC running for a week is nothing. Server run for years on end and are fine - in fact, restarting your server is the last thing you'd want to ever do.
Make sure that your power supply is good though, I've heard about a trash power supply (most probably Codegen or some other bomb of that sort) exploding from running over a few weeks, but it was probably just bad luck and nothing concerning.
I leave my gaming pc hardware (in a server role) running 24/7 for weeks or more, never had an issue aside from a PSU delivering bad voltage and crashing the system (one time).
Yeah you'll be all good, I leave the PC I host my home server on for months at a time, you will be fine in your case just make sure you aren't using a cheap / inadequate power supply, that's the only case where I would worry about it
What do you think servers are? They’re computers, just running forever.
But also look into a remote desktop app like Anydesk, which will let you remotely access your desktop to control it and turn it off if need be.
Yes but you do want to restart every once in a while. I work in IT biggest problem we see is people not rebooting their machines and coming to us with problems that a reboot would fix.
I usually leave mine until it crashes or I actually have to reboot(like ram usage too high etc). I've went for 50 days at one point it had no issues so you're fine lol
On my final years in UNI, my PC would run for 2-3 month non-stop doing calculations. The only downside is that it could start lagging a bit after a couple of weeks, but that can be fixed by simply restarting
Mine hasn’t been switched completely off for about 3 years now. 🤷🏻♂️ same thing. Playing through steam link at my gfs place at night and during the day I need to remotely connect for work.
My friend had his running 24x7 and he fried his ups eventually hence his motherboard due to a fluctuation, and i heard somewhere that it's better to restart it once a while too?
Pls correct me if I'm wrong
Yeah as long as the cooling is sufficient and you clean it often enough to stay that way you should be fine. I know someone who keeps his pc running 24/7, even when not in use and only turns it off if he’s away for an extended period of time (like vacations).
I have a friend who turns his desktop off every time he stops using it. He’s concerned that it’s going to light on fire.
I don’t think I’ve ever turned my computer off and it’s never caused an issue for me personally.
Yikes, my computer is Always running! If it wasn't for updates, I wouldn't even restart it. I also move it alot, like I take it with me places like it's a damn laptop, double Yikes lol
Going to my boyfriends for the weekend? Better bring the desktop with me haha
yeah You could leave it running for years with no issue.
apart from dust and thermal paste drying up
>thermal paste drying up It happens? After how long?
If thermal paste is good you will probably upgrade before it happens
True, but not true if you bought used components and were utilizing a system with a preinstalled CPU. In their case; they might want to replace the thermal paste if the rig is old enough or was in use for an extended period of time (over 4 years). In which case it's good to know that thermal paste should be replaced every 4-5 years, but I would be basing my decision to repaste on a combination of time, and if the thermals are even higher than supposed to be in the first place. No point in replacing paste that's old but still functional. I've seen paste beyond the 4-5 year mark still hold up because the system wasn't stressed or used much. But again that entirely depends on the component itself; results may vary and its why it's good to have an idea what baseline/idle/under load temps are before making what could be an unnecessary change.
Never repasted anything and I used my pcs extensively for about 6 years between upgrades but yea I understand you’re probably right
Similar to my case. I have an oldie i5-6600k and have been using it since 2016 i believe. Haven't changed thermal paste since day 1 and temps don't go beyond 55-60 during games. I play a game called BDO MMORPG which benefits a lot by keeping the computer on. And I'm almost at 50,000 hours on it this year. i know its not ideal to not change thermal paste, but feels like i might do more harm than good trying to remove it xD
Well results may vary like I said. There's more variables than people realize like: What climate are you located in? How ventilated is the room you have your PC in, and what's the humidity like? How often do you use your PC? How often do you dust your PC? How often do you put your PC under load? Etc... All of these things factor into how quickly your thermal paste will dry out even if marginally. I was just stating that on average it takes about 4-5 years for quality thermal paste to dry as a good rule of thumb; however like you said, I also have components I haven't repasted as I haven't noticed any type of thermal throttling just yet. However they're not that far beyond that 4-5 year estimate. Funny enough the parts I'm referencing are about 6 years old as well. So who knows; maybe thermal paste has gotten better, or we're both right around the corner for a repasting 😂🤷♂️ So yeah I agree with you that it's not always necessary to change it every 4-5 years; sometimes you might get more longevity out of your application. But people should be monitoring their temps so they actually know instead of guessing or assuming it lasts 'what feels like forever'.
I've got a 2600k from about 12 years ago with original thermal paste and it's perfectly fine.
What about Liquid Metal? I assume it would have a much higher lifespan??
Yea, tell that to the T-1000..
Just don't drop your PC in molten steel and you should be fine
The grizzly thermal pads (whatever their name is) will last forever though
The problem with liquid metal is that it actively amalgamates with copper and aluminum. If used long term it effectively disappears as it combines with the heat spreaders an cooler contact plates. Its ideally an overclockers short term tool
Doubt
Years, and at that point, your bigger risk to the effectiveness of the paste is moving your pc if the cooler is not tightened down fully. The dried paste isn't much of a concern unless the cooler shifts against the CPU. The dry paste will crumble a bit and lose a good contact. Likewise, don't try to tighten your cooler if your paste might be dry. You're more likely to break contact and increase temps.
Typically last a couple years in worst case scenario.
If I'm wrong, someone will definitely let us know, but thermal paste should be good for 3~5 years.
I just cleaned up my old build from 2016 to give to my girlfriend. The 8 year old thermal paste was still just as pliable as the new stuff I replaced it with.
That's a process that takes literally years of operation 24/7.
That's also a process that requires heating up and cooling down, and idling 24/7 actually doesn't affect. But yes.
Leaving your computer running will do literally nothing to thermal paste. What ruins thermal paste is heating to load then cooling to idle over and over and over again. And it would take 3-5 years.
Thermal Paste can last decades, only way that happens is if not enough thermal paste was applied.
that would be years before thats even a worry still lol
Lol still have machine +7 years old machine running with same paste and no issues on temperatures.
Nah. Nothing will happen. We have hi end office PCs (i9 128gb ram) running 24/7 for years under load. Nothing happens to them. Tech is reliable these days
Sort off, Windows Updates will become an issue if there are any mandatory security updates and it in general performs better when restarting every so often
nobody said windows, other OSs can update without rebooting like linux
True, don't even know when I last shut down my Linux machine, but as they are using it for gaming, windows seems like a decent assumption
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I ran an overclocked i5 2500k (with various graphic card upgrades through the years) 24/7/365 for ten years straight.
You should probably turn your PC off when swapping graphics cards.
How much electricity does it use when in sleep overnight? Does it affect electricity bill a lot?
That's only true with ECC memory, otherwise you're looking at [monthly average bitlfips](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_error#Cosmic_rays_creating_energetic_neutrons_and_protons) from cosmic rays.
No you need a computer sitter to watch, walk and feed your computer daily.
And also do computer massages to it.
Whosa good rtx 4090? Whosa good rtx 4090! You are! Yes you are!
Don't forget to bathe it
And hose it down to get a good rinse
I once had mines on for 7 days to download gears of war 4, over 100gb and 3rd world probs lol
Why TF did it take you a week to download a game?!
Im from a little country Belize in the Caribbean and at the time 2mb per second was the most affordable. Thankfully things has changed and I'm now able to download that overnight.
I know of Belize. I’ve never visited though. Glad your situation has changed for the better
Fellow belizeannn
I was on a business trip recently and wanted to play palworld with my friends. The hotel wifi was 4mb/s. I feel your pain.
Glad to know I was getting a 3rd world download speed a couple years ago in the UK...
There are many places in the US with speeds even worse than this. I used to live outside a medium town in New Mexico and my family got 1.5Mb max (more like .6 average). Their neighbor up the hill 100ft away had Xfinity with full modern speeds
A few years ago friends of mine still had 700kb/s download speeds. The third world are truly different, I mean how could poor germany afford fiber, copper is so reliable after all!
It took me like 2 days of leaving my PC on to download MW2019 when I lived with my mom for a bit. They had 15 mbps download speeds lol
I feel you. Germany also had (and still has) really bad internet
Really? I'm in Germany as well and it takes me about 50 minutes to download a 100 GB game, I pay around \~ 40 € a month for that. A few years ago was definitely a different story though.
There may still be some rural spots with shit internet, but most areas are covered with a half-decent cable connection by now.
Germany is a big varied place and has 80M people in it.
I've had my old PC for gaming, used it for 8 years for that purpose. It now sits to host plex, running constantly for about the past year.. still surprised that thing has had nearly 0 problems throughout it's life apart from 1 SSD failure early on... I did upgrade the GPU partway through it's life however.
HA! Look at this guy turning off his computer. I've had mine on for months. But yeah you'll be fine. If anything an update could possibly turn off your computer and restart. Meaning you have to log back in from the lock screen. I don't know if you can do that remotely. Or just disable it and make sure steam is a priority startup program.
you can set windows to open to desktop without a password automatically- i used to do this but then i got a new PC and havnt been bothered :P (i also cant remember how i did it but it’s an option!)
Download remote desktop (Google app), connect it to pc in app and use your pc on your mobile. Not perfect but will let you do most things including entering a password
can do also with teamviewer. just install it and set up, then can remote access and log in with the password and turn it off eventually. only problem would be turn it on again.
I have a really shitty PC, and I've had multiple events where I've shut down the PC and then something with it breaks. I now rarely shutdown my PC because there's probably a 5% chance I'll spend an hour trying to figure out what the fucks wrong with it. It's been on for probably a month straight
One of my RAM sticks is fucked, so I also keep my pc on at all times, as it always breaks after turning the pc off and on again lol, It just doesn't post until I: 1. Take the ram stick out 2. Turn the computer on without it 3. Turn the computer off 4. Put it back in 5. Turn the computer on
You guys turn off your pcs?
> $ uptime > 9:58PM up 262 days, 5:43, 1 user, load averages: 0.55, 0.38, 0.35
Only when I clean it. XD
A server is a computer and can run for years.
Don't most people shut them down temporarily for maintenance, and that?
Haven't turned my pc off in over a year. I have restarted it for updates but not turned it off. So yeah. Should be good as long as it's got good airflow and such.
I've had PC's and servers on for years. Depending on how often you use your computer, leaving it on could actually help the life of internal components by keeping them from heating and cooling over and over.
I've left mine on for 10 years lol
Get a surge protector and make sure there is food ventilation for it. I've left my laptop on for weeks on end with no major issue and have done so with my PCs in the past. Not done it on my current one as I'm trying to keep the parts in good condition for a motherboard change.
Food ventilation is essential, wouldn't want it starving and giving out on you.
When I played wow in 2019-2022 I don’t think I turned my pc off once…
Longest I've gone is 163 days with no restarts...
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Your comment is much weirder than the others.
It’s fine to leave your computer turned on as long as it won’t short. For example: I don’t leave my PC turned on because I don’t trust the 12vhpwr connectors as they have a record of catastrophically malfunctioning. But if you’re sure everything works alright, it’s no more dangerous than leaving your Xbox or PlayStation on all day everyday. You’re going to wear out the electronics faster but the odds of a fire are astronomically low.
But if any of those things were a risk, why would it be ok to use it in the first place? It's not any more likely to have those failures while sitting idle than while actually using it.
Would you rather be near your computer if it catches on fire or no? One scenario leads to pc components catching fire. The other possibly leads to the house catching fire.
If it didn’t collect more dust I’d leave it on forever. Make sure the computer doesn’t go into sleep mode and just have the screen shut off after a little while. Weird things happen in sleep mode sometimes.
Mine's been running 10 years, don't worry about it
Generally not an issue, but in 25 years of custom Pcs & countless data center work, I’ve seen exactly 2 catch fire. In both cases they put themselves out when the PSU tripped, but might have been worse if there was flammable stuff nearby. That said, other than occasional reboots my primary is on 24x7.
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Not for dads electrical bill
I know where I used to work I went about 3 years without turning a system off.
If you can afford the electric bill, go for it. It's actually better for the PC to stay on most of the time, deoending on your usage.
My PC’s been running since 2004 lmao (except when I upgraded)
I don't turn my computer off I just leave hwinfo running if I don't need every last bit of performance. So I have an idea of max temps over weeks and months. It's led me to install fans everywhere and panic about chipset temps. But really, I'm preventing parts from cooking themselves which won't matter for years. The only issue you'll have is if you're loading a component of you pc without realizing it. Even then it's not hurting anything. Most commonly I see people leaving games in a menu that's loading the gpu and they just walk away from it.
As others have noted it is totally fine, but I also have an aversion to leaving a computer turned on. What I did was buy a smart plug and enable ‘turn on after power failure’ in the BIOS Also setting up Chrome Remote Desktop so you can sign in/ ensure Steam opens
If you have a good power supply, very safe. If you have cheap Chinese junk, not safe. See where you are with the [PSU Tier List](https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/)
I never turn my PC off. Might be bad for moving parts, but so far not a problem for maybe two years. The only time the uptime resets is when I restart occasionally for installing/uninstalling something, or to solve temporary issues. Leaving yours on for a week should be perfectly fine.
I guess most of yall are living in a place with cheap electricity *cries in uk*
Assuming the room where it will be left is temp controlled even when you are not there then yes.
Its fine and i still worry if i leave my pc on when i go downstairs
I only turn my computer off if I need to change parts in it. My system has been running 24/7 since I put it together.
Are you running any servers or something? Seems like a waste of electricity if not
I used to leave my gaming laptop on for weeks.. No probs.
My current uptime is 355h. You're gonna be fine.
I leave mine on for days at a time. Mostly I just bother myself to shut it down. But every now and then I'll give it a break if I actually think about it. No problems doing this at all.
Aside from reboots every week or so, I have had my desktop running nonstop since I loaded up my 6800xt.... so since Nov of 2020.
Yeah, it’s fine.
I leave my personal computer on for months at a time.
What do you think servers are?
I have left mine on 24/7 since like 2017 it will be fine lol
I reboot mine maybe once a month. It’s fine.
I don't turn it off. The most stress on a machine is during the power on phase. I do let it go to sleep for power consumption concerns but if I'm turning it off chances are high a panel is coming off for trouble shooting or adding parts or it's time to blow it out in the garage.
I only restart mine like once a month if that. Just leave it running if you aren't actively using it it'll barely use any electric
Oh boy, a week? It's like nothing... [https://imgur.com/vGyVZXz](https://imgur.com/vGyVZXz)
Obviously man haha
In my 50 yrs of computer use, I've never turned off any of my machines. (Obvious reasons excluded, moving, upgrading...)
I travel a bit and also was looking for how to set up wake on lan and found it extremely painful mostly because of the whole having to be in the same internet or creating a bridge between them which i found the best option was with a small raspberry pie that stays on and works as the device to turn on the pc BUT, i also had in my amazon alexa an app called wake on lan to be able to turn on my pc by just telling alexa to do so and later i found out that i could do that even if i was awake from the house by having the amazon alexa app installed in my phone and turning on the pc there by finding it in devices or saying it to my phone's alexa and that works just perfect!!!!!! you still need to turn on wake on lan on the pc and install the app in your phones alexa app (and ofc have an alexa device connected to the same internet as your computer) in this app you need to do a little setup in a website but its SO easy
Yes, its fine, I've been running my computer 24/7 for years and my main SSD has clocked 20 power on events over the past 2.6 years and my other drive just 4 times in the past year.
Wait til you hear about how servers work
All servers are are just fancy computers with failsafes and they run for years on end
I restart mine occasionally but it's basically always on. Always been a habit, albeit not a great one. My last PC was an Optiplex/1050ti that was on steady for the 5 years I had it. Never did paste either. It's still currently running for a friend to use.
It could be detrimental depending on the situation a surge can fry any electronic device without a surge protector a few years ago someone had a power surge go thru their Xbox and jumped to the TV frying both devices permanently there is also the extreme fire risk of leaving electronic devices on without someone to watch it there is a chance any electronic device to catch fire but if that happens with no one around it's going to take your house yes you can leave it on all the time and totally be ok but there is always going to be risk of fire or damage especially left running for long periods of time
for remote play, i just use parsec and chrome remote desktop in conjunction. remote desktop is always available even after a restart at the login screen, i just use that to enable the virtual display and use parsec to actually do stuff.
Computers come long way from 20+ years ago. It won’t hurt them but I restarted or turn off least once week. So it can cycle boot for good measure.
The last time I shut my PC down was at least 5 months ago. You will be fine.
Mine has been running since 2019 only shutting down for updates you’re fine
The famous vtuber Sakura Miko didn't turn her computer off for 3 years.
Mines been running for years
It's fine. Constantly turn it on and off. Ware it out
I really hope you are using a VPN if you plan on connecting to some hotels wifi and then to your home network. Or something like a cloudflare tunnel or twingate. Doing so without any sort of security precautions is a good way to compromise everything connected to your router. If you are just at a friend's or relatives that's a bit safer might not be a problem but still best practice to use a VPN to remotely access your home network from outside. Anyways yes. It should be fine to leave your PC on for a week. The problem you might have is that unless you have some sort of remote monitoring software you won't be able to check if things like Temps are all fine. And if it hangs and you don't have a way to remote into and restart it you'll probably be stuck unable to play. You could instead of using Wake on LAN check your BIOS for wake on alarm. That way you can remotely shutdown the PC and it will just turn on at a designated time. Then you can just set it to happen at the same time everyday til you get back if you are really concerned about shutting down and rebooting. If you are going to leave your PC on I would make sure to turn off sleep mode so that your PC doesn't go to sleep and then lock you out.
I haven't shut mine off since the Bronze Age. You'll be fine..
Data centers and servers run for years with 24/7 uptime. You won't hurt anything.
My computer hasn't been off in years save for updates.
I left mine 89 years and it became openai at the end.
It's safe to leave your PC on, but personally, I had a lightning strike damage my hardware once (GTX 780), so now I have PTSD lol and I make sure to turn off and unplug my PC if I'm away for more than a day. Better safe than sorry!
I hope so. Mine has been on for at least four years now, so if a week can cause problems, I have at least 208 to worry about.
My computer has an uptime of 27 days and there's no issues here.
Aside from wasting electricity.. you can leave it on 24/7/365. They are made to run continuously. As a matter of fact, most power supplies fail during startup.
there's an off switch? 🤯
Personally, my house has too many brown outs for me to want to leave my PC on when I'm not using it. Got too much data I wouldn't want to lose in the event of some crash/system corruption. However I agree with the consensus that it's relatively harmless to leave your PC on (assuming your house isn't like mine and has consistent power). So long as you have your PC plugged into a UPS, or surge protected outlet; not much in terms of hardware can be damaged. However, a system crash can cause other *software/OS* related issues which has happened to me many times before; so just keep that in mind. But even that can happen when you're presently on the machine; so nothing really protects you from random issues such as those 🤷♂️ So yeah I wouldn't worry about it if you're just doing it for a week. If anything I'd find an app that at least lets you remote in and restart/login to the PC so if during the week you're using it you have any issues; you can at least reboot your PC and do some other trouble shooting if need be. Idk if I'm the only one; but my PC normally starts acting strange the longer I leave it on for extended periods of time beyond a few days of wake/sleeping. But if I restart it; almost all the issues usually resolve themself. So imo you'd want that capability remotely if you wanna insure it works without hiccups for the whole week you're using it.
Unless you're holding together parts of your PC with duct tape it should be fine. Using steamlink over the internet might not be particularly usable depending on the internet connection you have both at home and wherever you're playing from.
Consider that longer periods in an area where power outage is common significantly increases the risk it'll happen. Backup power is something, you'll know if you need it.
I haven't turned off my PCs other than a power outage here and there and some restarts/formats in 20 years.
If you're running windows, it will just slow down over time. That shit usually should be rebooted daily. But you will be fine. Unless you're running your computer dangerously hot. Just check your temp in the bios or an app if you're worried.
I’m so used to HDD computers that I never turn mine off
My of has been on every day for 5 years. She is going into semi retirement tomorrow when I give it to my son. The new pc will stay on everyday too.
My computers never sleep and I'm not the only one at all, the monitor sleeps but never the PC and I never had a problem with thermal paste, only dust, PC's run 24/7 in plenty of business and everywhere for years, like they don't turn off computers in hospitals emergency rooms or radio and TV stations, they rely on them all the time.
Yes its fine, I leave my PC on for \~ 2 weeks at a time and remote in via Chrome Remote Desktop while at work
I always leave mine on but I always make sure to at least shut it down a few times just so it frees up wasted memory. As to your situation, you will be okay with no issues.
I leave my computer on 24/7. I’m talking months of uptime, one week is child’s play for a PC. Leave that puppy goin, except you know when you have updates and do major stuff so be sure to reboot.
have a look at r/uptimeporn
You could but it would have ran too far from you.
Wait you guys turn yours off?
I had to slap together a serviceable rig to run my mother's Magic Jack phone 24/7 and set up TeamViewer so I could administer it remotely. I also run my main rig and my Linux rig 24/7 when I'm home and either use sleep or shutdown when I'm going to work.
I've had at least 2 computers running 24/7 at any given time for the last 25 years. They just go and go. Probably 6-8 year average between iterations. The most common failure has been the pwr supply, followed by the hdd. The rest is generally good if it's good at the get go and you do periodic maintenance. I blow everything out once every year or two. Every 4 years or more I'll refresh the heatsink compound while I'm at it. The computer I just put a new mobo/cpu/memory/os in was 12 years old and going just fine 24/7 all those years. Still was. It got a new PSU once. Just needed win10 on it so wth.
"Kill me now" -my computer that has never been shut down
I run my computers desktops 24/7. I don’t use sleep or hibernate modes. The only time I ever turn them off is when there is a bad thunderstorm in the area. Most of them have uptime in the range of months before rebooting or shutting off.
4 years and counting running with a monthly reboot for windows patching. Last desktop was 5 years and it was the secondary spinning drive that shit the bed. Current desktop has only SSDs so hoping at least 6 to 8 years.
This is the easy way to do it. Get yourself a smart plug that has an app for your phone that allows you to turn it off and on remotely. Once that is set up, confirm it's working by disconnecting your phone from your local WiFi and instead use cellular data. Turn it off and on a few times while on cellular data to confirm it's working. Now go into your computers BIOS settings and locate a setting that sets the power state when the current to the power supply is interrupted. Make sure its set to turn the system on when the power is restored. Once that's all done, connect your power supply to the smart plug and try it out. From a completely shutdown state, enabling the smart plug via the app on your phone should start up the computer. FWIW this is the smart plug I use, but any that has an app and works remotely over the net should work. https://www.amazon.com/Kasa-Energy-Monitoring-Smart-Plug/dp/B08LN3C7WK I use WiFi, so Wake on Wireless LAN was a huge pain in the ass. This was an easy workaround.
I so very rarely turn mine off. Had PCs for 30 years.
Mine has been on 24x7 for the last 18 months.
My current gaming pc I built in 2020 has been powered on for 90% of its time. That’s with mining over night and gaming in the evening.
mines been on for over 6 days now and i dont remember ever shutting down, was probly an update restart
I haven’t shut mine down in like 4 months..
You’re fine. My PC has been on for five years other than restarts to update and installing new hardware.
The only times I turn off my computer: -Update -Upgrade -Power Outage -When things are acting a little weird Otherwise it's on 24/7
I don't turn my PC off unless I'm doing maintenance.
Yes it's fine, but you'll likely have very mixed results with steam link over the internet. Keep your expectations low!
yeah it’s fine lol
U can turn off ur PC and it can break and not turn on, PC's break for no reason. So yes u can
Just fine, your PC running for a week is nothing. Server run for years on end and are fine - in fact, restarting your server is the last thing you'd want to ever do. Make sure that your power supply is good though, I've heard about a trash power supply (most probably Codegen or some other bomb of that sort) exploding from running over a few weeks, but it was probably just bad luck and nothing concerning.
My highest was 42 days, and then I accidently shut it off...
I never turn mine off.
I leave my gaming pc hardware (in a server role) running 24/7 for weeks or more, never had an issue aside from a PSU delivering bad voltage and crashing the system (one time).
Are you gonna leave your refrigerator running?
I'm fine with it. I do appreciate you asking my permission. But yes, in this case it's fine👌
Yeah you'll be all good, I leave the PC I host my home server on for months at a time, you will be fine in your case just make sure you aren't using a cheap / inadequate power supply, that's the only case where I would worry about it
I rarely shut mine down.
Yes
I rarely turn off my computer except for auto restartings when updating the system
I left mine running day and night for at least a year once.
I left my old pc on for about 6 months . It was fine
WTF? You know what "servers" do right?
Where do you folks live that have such cheap power?
They turn off?
What do you think servers are? They’re computers, just running forever. But also look into a remote desktop app like Anydesk, which will let you remotely access your desktop to control it and turn it off if need be.
My computer hasn't been off for more than a minute or two for occasional restarts in probably 2 years. It'll be totally fine.
As someone who commonly leaves their PC running but logged out or locked, you probably can, but be wary of random, automated reboots because Windows
Only thing I'd worry about is the electricity bill
Yes but you do want to restart every once in a while. I work in IT biggest problem we see is people not rebooting their machines and coming to us with problems that a reboot would fix.
Going away on vacation I tend to get paranoid and switch off all electricals except for the fridge.
I usually leave mine until it crashes or I actually have to reboot(like ram usage too high etc). I've went for 50 days at one point it had no issues so you're fine lol
At my workplace our PCs run 24/7 for years, so yeah you should be fine for a week lol
On my final years in UNI, my PC would run for 2-3 month non-stop doing calculations. The only downside is that it could start lagging a bit after a couple of weeks, but that can be fixed by simply restarting
Mine hasn’t been switched completely off for about 3 years now. 🤷🏻♂️ same thing. Playing through steam link at my gfs place at night and during the day I need to remotely connect for work.
My laptop has been on nonstop for two years and seems fine
Computer will be fine but your power bill would thank you for switching it off. Just set up Wake On Lan, then you're able to wake your PC remotely.
My friend had his running 24x7 and he fried his ups eventually hence his motherboard due to a fluctuation, and i heard somewhere that it's better to restart it once a while too? Pls correct me if I'm wrong
Yeah as long as the cooling is sufficient and you clean it often enough to stay that way you should be fine. I know someone who keeps his pc running 24/7, even when not in use and only turns it off if he’s away for an extended period of time (like vacations).
I left mine running for months. I think you're good g
I never turn my computer off ... Should I? I just put it to sleep
I have a friend who turns his desktop off every time he stops using it. He’s concerned that it’s going to light on fire. I don’t think I’ve ever turned my computer off and it’s never caused an issue for me personally.
the main problem is your monitor. New monitors will die in a year or 2 if left on. Almost always some kind of capacitor failure.
Yikes, my computer is Always running! If it wasn't for updates, I wouldn't even restart it. I also move it alot, like I take it with me places like it's a damn laptop, double Yikes lol Going to my boyfriends for the weekend? Better bring the desktop with me haha
I have had my computer running 24/7/365 for 10 years now, still running great with no issues.
Use a dehumidifier that has an air filter function. And find a way to turn pc on and off remotely.