What do you do with your computer when not using for extended periods of time? I mean like when I leave for work and it sets idle for 10 / 12 hours and over night. So does it hurt to leave it on for weeks at a time or should I be turning it off and on a few times a day ? Thanks as always :thumbsup:

Turning it off for extended periods does not hurt it, saves wear and tear on the hard drive and saves electricity. I normally tur mine off when I go to bed at night and turn it back on when I come home from work. But I also have my weather station computer that has been pretty much running for 3 years straight, but that needs to be on to collect weather data every minute.

We are on a network so they ask us to leave it on in case they need to run updates to our software installations. If you are on a stand alone computer, there shouldn't be any reason to leave it on for many hours while it is unattended unless like Hankster you are gathering data or running some apps that require it to remain on.

I usually turn mine on when I get up around 4 in the morning and since I do a lot of work on my laptop during the day it stays on till around 7 or 8 in the evening. I work for an apartment complex and I do ordering, searching for vendors, etc from my apartment through out the day. Plus I end up having to email stuff to my boss on and off all day. The disaster of running a small apartment complex while the property manager runs a larger one on the other side of town. Thank god she trusts me enough to let me make some decisions without her input.

When I go out to work in my garden, go to the store ( 4 mile walk) or anyplace and not be home, the computer get turned off. in this area that is the best thing to do.
as this area the power gets taken out by cars or such. it's better to have the machine off.