Well it depends, when I go out or will not use the computer for long periods of time I leave it on sleep mode. If I were going on a vacation like for a week, I'd shut it down. But since I am on the computer every day I just leave it on. =p

/my view

It is not a good idea to leave it on all the time Turning off the system is usually best to prolong

hard drive life.Most computers'hard disks are simply not designed for continous operation,besides windows operating systms excute various important house keeping tasks during shut down and startup another good reason for turning off a system

Ahh the age old question. Well one could take the other stance that the constant turning on and off the computer does more bad than good as it puts more stress on the componets with the spinup and heating and cooling.

I always say what ever makes you comfortable is what you should do.   :smileywink:

I too do not like standby or hibernation.

I do leave my machines on all the time except for if I take a longer than a weekend vacation.

Case and point... my Inspiron 8000 Laptop... has been with me since 2000

It has always been left on... before when I took it on trips, it stayed on in hibernate mode...

The only time it has been shut down has been for rebooting and to change the keyboard (was sticking) once and waiting for a Hard Drive (the original HDD crashed after 7 years) via mail.

It is now being used by my 9 year old son, who uses it to surf YouTube and play a few simple games on it plus maybe a little homework when he wants to ;)

Now all my PCs and Lappys are running 24/7 at maximum (100%) CPU capacity Folding@Home ;)

I'd say leave it on !!!

Peace

I remember back in the "old days", hehe, people used to always say to leave your PC turned on, hardware stress and all that, but to be quite honest with you, I have never left mine on constantly and have never had any problems from shutting it down.  I don't put mine in standby because I have a cat that gets into everything.  So I just turn mine off, saves a little power too.

Could not agree more. I usually turn mine on and off a least once a day. The only time i leave it on is over the weekend if I am home.

I never use standby or hibernate on a desktop. They were designed for laptops and cause more issues with desktops then worth it.

This is and has been the question for years. If you ask Microsoft they will recomend leaving it on all the time so that you can utilize Auto Update. At work we leave all the computers on all the time.

Here is an example. My girlfriend and I both have XPS 410's, mine is about 8 months older than hers. I believe in leaving it on all the time unless I am going out of town for a few days. She turns hers off every night, starts it in the morning, uses it for about 30 minutes and shuts it down before going to work. I have had no problems with my computer hardware wise and she has had a few HDD failures.  My mother does not shut her computer off but instead puts it in Hibernate when she is not using it and she has had no trouble.

I did set my drives to power off after sitting idle for 2 hours. The monitor shuts off after 20 minutes. I have even been known to leave my Inspiron 1720 powered on for days at a time.

Just because I believe that leaving it on is the best for me does not mean that is the best sollution for everyone. Read through what everyone has said here and make the desision that works best for you.

I hope this helps

I leave mine on 24/7 and only reboot when necessary.