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Safe to keep an imac on for weeks?

M

marknicholls

macrumors 6502
Original poster
I have had my mac for 3 weeks, and it have not turned it off once. Is this bad? I am downloading lots, and have airport express/airtunes playing music into my lounge and dont want the inconvienice of having to turn on my imac when i want to listen to music

Should the imac have a break do you think? or is it fine to keep it on for long periods of time?
 
Isn't it technically better for the computer to stay on than to shut down and start up all the time?
My iMac has been on for months, w/o any problems. The occasional restart for software updates and with energy saver to turn off the screen after a period of inactivity
 
People have their own views.

Most seem to leave them on to avoid cold boots on the hard drive(s).

Personally, I sleep mine. All three haven't been shut down in months, but I do sleep my displays.
 
My old iMac G3 was on 24/7 because it was fanless and I had it running F@H. Now i just got a G5 iMac and I keep in on all night but it sleeps every now and then. I don't run F@H because even if it would run it well, if the fan comes on then it's really loud. Funny thing is I've had the fan turn on only once in a few days of using it so it's generally actually quieter than my fanless G3 iMac =)
 
My experience

marknicholls said:
I have had my mac for 3 weeks, and it have not turned it off once. Is this bad? I am downloading lots, and have airport express/airtunes playing music into my lounge and dont want the inconvienice of having to turn on my imac when i want to listen to music

Should the imac have a break do you think? or is it fine to keep it on for long periods of time?
Click to expand...

My experience gained from the days when I sold high-end stereo equipment is that it's better to leave it on all the time whenever possible. Switching things on and off creates a surge which shortens the useful life of electronic gear.

On the other hand, you will want to turn all electronic gear off and unplug them during lightning storms. You may also want to turn your computer off when you aren't around, just in case there is a power outage and you don't have a UPS with appropriate automatic shutdown.

Personally, I switch off my computer whenever I'm not using it, and I also use a surge protector with AVR (automatic voltage regulation), but no built in battery to keep it going during a power outage.
 
My computer runs much better when i leave it on all the time theres no need to shut it down unless u have to for updates or whatever just put it to sleep and watch it snore zzzzz zzzzzz zzzzzz zzzzz 😀 😉
 
I let the energy saver do it's job. The computers are on all the time but sleep when not in use for extended periods of inactivity. I also have the monitors sleep if not used for more then x amount of time (I think my lap top is set for after 5 min while my iMac is 10).

I think Apple is suggesting that we not power down, due to the power buttons appearing on the backs of the iMacs. I do shut down during or should say before sever weather, i.e. thunder storms. I also shut down if I go away for more then a day or two.

Would love to get a power surge with battery backup but can't justify the price vs the number of times it would actually get used. I simply tell the iMac to reboot after power failure.

500th post! 🙂
 
Duff-Man says...I mostly just put mine to sleep, unless I know I will be away from it for more than a day or so - then I will power it off. I am a bit of an energy saver freak so to me every little bit counts...when I do put the PowerMac to sleep I always make sure I power off both the monitors and externals drives etc.....oh yeah!
 
Sleep it when you aren't using it. Restart when you can't remember when you last restarted so that you clean out the swapfile and stuff.
 
My PowerBook have not been shut down since May and I have had no problems with it.
I just close the lid and let it sleep! 😛
 
I've got a new 17" iMac G5. The last I try to do is shut it down. Most of the time it runs silently, the only time I've noticed any fan noise in use is during iMovie rendering. But when it shuts down the fans all kick in at full power and just keep going for at least 15mins. (the longest I've left it without switching off the power at the outlet) sometimes happens during a restart? Far noisier than any PC I've ever used. 🙁
 
You will have no problems keeping the computer on for long stretches of time. Just keep in mind the advice above about storms or leaving for long periods of time. Generally, on the macs I use, I turn them off if I won't be using them for more than two days (however this happens almost never). It is better for the computer to stay warm and running then to do cold reboots everyday. Just make sure the screen is set to turn off automatically. Nothing new here just supporting the other posts.
 
my uptime is around 30 days on my iMac, no problems at all. i reboot once in a while to refresh everything. i do turn it off when i know i'll be out of town or something like that.
 
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