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Many schools, companies, hospitals and other organizations never turn off your computer. Many individuals that use the computer all the time will never turn off their computer. I remember leaving my computer on for about 3-4 months straight without ever turning it off except for a restart here and there. You may have already instinctively felt that turning off a computer prolongs its life and saves energy and your money on the utility bill. But there are also others who will tell you that the constant turning on and off of a computer will wear it out faster and damage the components more over than just leaving it on. Some people even said that the sudden jolt of electricity needed to turn on a computer is much more than to just leave it running constantly. There are many arguments going back and forth that support leaving your computer on but your gut instinct might tell you it's better to turn off the PC when not in use. Which should you trust? It's easy to fall in love with leaving your computer on with all your programs running and you can continue working right where you left off. It sure beats having to wait 2 minutes everytime when you boot up your computer. So the question is: "Should I turn off my computer when not in use or just let it run?"
It actually depends on you. I will give you the facts first and then the comparisons afterwards. FACTS:
- Back in the days, turning the computer on and off constantly DID damage the parts leading a premature failure. This was especially concerning the hard drives with had a read arm that would wear out little by little with every single time it jolted by a sudden surge of electricity with the on button. - TODAY, hard drives are built to higher quality and can withstand many more "jumpstarts" before failing. I heard it was around 70,000 starts or so which is more than enough starts than you could possibly use in in 10 years even. - Leaving a computer running all day long does use more energy than turning it off - but not MUCH more. Today's computers, monitors, peripherals and other computer equipment are built with advanced "sleep" modes that allow the device to "hibernate" or "sleep" when not in use to save a lot of energy, but the moment you touch it, it'll turn back on and continue right where you left off. TURNING OFF A COMPUTER:
- You save energy - You get a clear refreshment of RAM every time you refresh your computer and crap is unloaded from your memory. There are many programs that you run throughout the day that hog your computer's memory resources even when you close out of the program. Starting your computer up fresh, frees up this memory for use by other programs. - You don't have to worry about somebody accidentally messing with your files or data being corrupted because of a power shortage. LEAVING A COMPUTER ON:
- You have a computer that's always ready for use. No more waiting for it to start up. It's to be able to just switch on your monitor and quickly get some information and take off. - You can leave your programs and current works in progress open. This way, you don't have to re-open and re-think your way around your work to continue where you left off. It's nice to be able to quickly - You can have tasks run automatically in the background while you're not there so that you are free to use your computer for productivity. For example, you can have your backups, virus and spyware scans, and downloads running at night so that you can use your computer to its full capacity in the daytime without interruptions or slowdowns for computer maintenance tasks. So there you have it. Turn off the computer if you want to save a small amount on your utility bill and if you don't run too many many programs. On the other hand, if you like to run many programs and have a bunch of unfinished work on your screen, or you work on your computer a lot throughout the day, it might be more comfortable for you to leave your computer on.
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Hardware 
