I turn mine off every time it starts making clicking noises (laptop, HP Pavilion). About 30 hours.

I've been told that you should wait about two hours of off time to keep them from using up too much energy grinding back up and down, but I've never really heard anything about this.

Ditto

When I bought my first computer I was advised to leave it on 24/7 and only reboot if necessary, but that was 20 years ago, when I suspect none of us gave as much thought about saving energy and the environment as we do now.

The computer I am using now, which belongs to my daughter, is always shut down at night, or if we leave the house, it is over 4 years old and, touch wood, has not complained about it yet.

What Zoomba said.
I leave it on all night while I'm at work. I run Sysmetrix and every alarm and beeper uses the same sound file, a dog barking. I turn the volume way up!

I leave my computers on 24/7 unless there is a storm, only because of power outages. I should by a UPS for that, but I have other priorities at the moment.

There are several ideas on whether or not to leave the computer on. What it really comes down to is one question. Are you on your computer more than you are away from it? If you use your computer often it is better for your hardware to leave your machine on. The reason being that things like your hard drive need to spin up when being turned on, and spin down when powering off. This increases wear and tear on your moving parts and reduces their life span.

If you only use your computer for short intervals or on an irregular basis it is probably a good idea to turn it off. That will reduce your power usage and prolong the life of your hardware only as long as you are not powering on and off frequently. A computer is much like a car in this regard. It takes more juice to start your car initially than it does to idle. If you are making frequent short stops it reduces wear on your starter to leave your car running. However if you are making longer stops it is better for fuel economy and engine life to turn off your car.

Rebooting for updates is primarily a Windows function so it can make changes to the registry that directly affect the OS. Linux only needs to be rebooted if you upgrade the Kernel, or perform a major OS Upgrade such as Debian Etch to Debian Lenny or in the case of Windows, Windows XP to Windows Vista (if you consider Vista an upgrade). The majority of internet servers are Linux machines which have been known to go for periods of up to 10 years without being turned off.

same here!!!

Yes same for me to

mine only gets turned off i we are going to be away for more than 2 days, otherwise it stays on 24/7. Oh and once every 3 months i turn it off, take the cover off and give the inside a good clean out and make sure everything is seated properly and no damaged wiring etc etc.

Weekday: Awake at 4:45AM PC turned on. Turned off one hour later when leaving for work.
Come home Approx. 4:15 PC turned on. Stays on till bed (Approx 10:00-10:30)
Weekends: Stays on.
I don't use any screensavers/hibernation/powersaving options, due to the occasional running of something and problems I've had with them in the past.

I mainly work from home these days, I live alone so usually even if I'm watching tv or something I'm still sitting in front of the pc, and I usually sleep less than 5 hours a night at which time I usually leave something running about three nights a week(i.e. defrag, antivirus) so mine normally stays on 24/7.

I have it hooked up to a battery backup with surge protector so I don't usually shut it off during a storm either unless the power goes out.

I have gotten into the habit of shutting it down one night every week or two just to give it a break. Except when I go out of town 1 month every year and leave it running because I have files and such that i need and/or want to access while away.

The monitor is a different story. I don't usually like running screensavers so if I know I'm going to be away for more than 5 or 10 minutes I shut the monitor off.

Being disabled, and that I sleep several hours 3 to 4 times per day (due to the last time I was in the hospital for surgery - amputation of left great toe, IV antibiotics every 6 hours - I leave my main system on, although I turn the monitor off when I go get a few hours of sleep.

The only time I will turn the system off, is when I do a hardware upgrade or replacement, or, more importantly, a strong to severe lightning storm or MCC, or something takes the power out for more than a few minutes. Even if I am asleep, the UPS on the win98se box will wake me up with its beeping.

With a lightning storm, I will actually turn the UPS off and unplug everything from the wall outlet, disconnect the cable modem from the cable, and so on to totally isolate the system from lightning.

I go to this extreme cause my Tandy 2000 was zapped twice by lightning via the modem (both times). I had a roommate that sneered at my extreme measures. I told him that if he had his computer zapped twice by lightning he would be doing the same as I do. He stopped sneering.

My method of saving power is that I live without using electric lights, by wearing an LED headlamp and using NiMH batteries.

I think its more harmful to "Turn OFF" a monitor than it is to turn off your system....

Hibernate is basically equivalent to turning it off, except that the memory and state is saved to the harddrive before it is turned off. Standby saves power instead of turning it completely off.

Vista's "sleep" is a hybrid of hibernate and standby. It saves the harddrive to the disk in case of power failure, then enters standby.

The technical community mostly agrees that if it's in use daily, keep it on. If, however, you are away for several days or longer, turn it off.

The hard drives especially are the most fragile, and will wear out a lot more quickly with repeated on/off cycles. Motherboard and switches are fine, though, they are designed to last.

I highly recommend turning off the monitor when not in use - it's a huge power drain.

my monitor is set to turn off after 20 minutes idle!! forgot to add that !!

nasty

off every night. that includes monitor. not about saving energy, just about saving my energy bill.

Mine is on 24/7 unless I will be away for more than a day.
Sleep mode, when it works. But it seems if the Media Center processes are running it does not like to go to sleep.

It'll also get powered down if my UPS starts beeping or the network starts acting really weird.
When the network acts up I shut off both computers, the router and cable modem for a cold reboot of the entire system.

1o1

I turn if off at night to cut down on the noise in my appartement, unless I do a full Virus-scan or a defrag, which I usually let run through the night.

3 times a year...for about 4 days each....V8 Supercars, MotoGP and World Superbikes ....all at Phillip Island ....;)

+1

My machine at work is turned on when i arrive in the morning and switched off when i leave. I don't really consider shutting it down as i'm a programmer and literally spend all day using it.

The same applies to my home machine, i turn it on when i get in (if i need to use it) and off at night before i go to bed.

Just went Thur this a hour ago!!! I shut down for this more then any thing else I think !!!!

I'll second that. These are the only times I turn my system off also. When I'm not working or playing on it I log off and unplug my modem and Philly I read that same stuff about the LCD and Image Persistence.

Its Off Whenever I'm not home or am asleep;
After All
Why wear down the parts if I'm not using them?

I just turn it on at 4 when I wake up. Auto update/various scanning is at 6 while I'm making/eating dinner and watching the evening news. Its off by 10:30 when I leave for work.

Turns back on around 7:30 when I come home and Its off and I'm in bed usually by 9 or 10.

Once again thanks to everyone for repling.   

It would appear that whether you turn off your computer once a day has only to do with what your personal perference might be.  :NOTSURE: 

Old habits seem very hard to break and I have yet to leave the computer on over night.