Up all night

[andy hughes]

My wife goes mad with me if I leave my PC switched on over night downloadng from the Net. I turn the onitor off, so I wonder if I am using masses of electricity leaving my PC on for the wee small hours, and how much of a fire risk am I taking?

[rarll]

Yeah Andy, I would like an answer to this also, as my wife isn't best pleased that I leave the pc on all night.

[Worker]

Could you not leave the computer on while turning the screen and all the other periferals off?

[Metaphysical]

I would say that it's only a real fire risk depending on where the PC is in relation to other flammable materials, if its in an enclosed space & how hot your PC gets. There must be hundreds (or thousands) of servers across the country that are one 24/7 that are fine (OK some of them are in temperature controlled environments, but there are also ones that aren�t).
Not sure on how much electricity is used with the just the PC running. Is this of any use?
http://eetd.lbl.gov/EA/Reports/39466/39466-2

[sft42]

Andy i do this all the time...I recently was connected for 16 days straight and my electricity bill hasn't gone up any noticable amount from before I had unmetered web access...as for a fire risk if your in anyway worried why not fit an extra fan into your PC to cool it....you can get them in the form of PCI slot types which make them really easy to fit.

[mrgreedy]

Could always try a divorce... ;)

[woodpam]

I had the same concern and fitted a fire angel smoke alarm in the ceiling light nearest to my PC. I got it from Tesco and it's very (sometimes a bit too) sensitive. I take your wife's point that prevention is better than cure but it put my mind at rest.

[darth vader]

Machines are designed to stay on for long periods - our current company record is about 4 years before it needed a re-boot (the fan system packed in) - it's all down to the fans keeping the board cool so best off having a smoke alarm in case the fan packs in

[xyzzyplugh]

Why are these wives singling out PC's What about the fridge and freezer (which does kick out a lot of heat) and video, tv (both of which stay powered on standby) Poor ickle PC is no worse than a lighbulb..

[lisaj]

8 PCs plus a very large fileserver stay on here 24/7 with average reboot intervals of 60 days. No problems (apart from dust that needs cleaning once a month) and they collectively account for something in the region of �50/qtr in terms of electricity.