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Originally Posted by Nafod81
Eh, depending on the computer: Restarting provides a surge of electricity and doing so frequently generally wears out components quicker than continued use. I typically only turn mine off if I won't be on for a day or longer. Your electricity bill will improve if you practice this however.
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Sorry being an electrical engineer I just have to jump in here and call BS.
Yes there is an inrush when the computer is started. It lasts approximatly 10 cycles out of 60 cycles per seconds so approximatly 1/60th of a second. After that it is a steady state draw which flucuates to some degree depending on how hard your system is working. Regardless of what the state of the computer... even in "sleep" mode, the power supply is still drawing current.
The inrush of a incandescent light bulb is probably on the order of 1,000 times that of your computers power supply but falls off much more quickly in only a few cycles. In fact when power is first applied to a cold filament it is literally a dead short circuit. When the filiment gets hot the current draw falls dramatically due to the increased resistance of the hot filiment.
Now is it more energy efficent to turn your lights on and leave them on or cut them off when not in use ?
Also consider while the computer is on the fans are constantly running and pulling in dust and debrie. Eventually the heat sinks will become plugged up and require cleaning. If there not cleaned eventually you will have catastrophic faiure. The more the machine runs the sooner the heat sinks get choked up.
As to component failure this is a wives tale which dates back to the days (circa 1950-1970) when electrolytic capacitors were made of wax paper and aluminum foil (sometimes mica would be used). They would indeed fail eventually and frequent inrushes made the problem worse. Modern components are designed to withstand inrush currents to avoid these problems. The biggest thing to remember is that if you do cut the power off to your machine wait a few moments before re-applying power. Doing so allows the caps to bleed off there current charge. Banging a fully charged capacitor with an inrush is not good for their health but they only take a few seconds (10 or so) to bleed off.
Now dont get me wrong you dont want to cut your machine off when you get up to go to the bathroom or whatever but leaving it on all night when not being used is just a waste of money.
Hows that for an off topic rant !
