Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
periodsoftimeratherthanbeingturnedonandoff.TurningCFLsonandoffalsoshortens
their expected lifetime.
AlthoughitsoundslikeIamtellingyoutoleaveallyourcomputerequipmenton24hours
a day, 7 days a week, I no longer recommend this type of operation. A couple of concerns
have tempered my urge to leave everything running continuously. One is that an unatten-
ded system that is powered on represents a fire hazard. I have seen monitors catch fire
after internally shorting and systems whose cooling fans have frozen, causing the power
supply and the entire system to overheat. I do not leave any system running in an unat-
tended building. Another problem is wasted electrical power. Many companies have ad-
opted austerity programs that involve turning off lights and other items when not in use.
The power consumption of some of today's high-powered systems and accessories is not
trivial. Also, an unattended operating system is more of a security risk than one that is
powered off and locked.
Realities—such asthefirehazardofunattended systemsrunningduringnightorweekend
hours, security problems, and power-consumption issues—might prevent you from leav-
ing your system on all the time. The best compromise in that case is to power on the sys-
tem only one time daily, and configure the power management settings in the operating
system to put the system and display into Stand-By or Hibernate modes during periods
of inactivity. When the power management settings are properly configured, you can save
more than $100 annually per system in energy charges.
Note
If you use remote access programs or services to connect to a host computer, the remote ac-
cesshostmustbekeptrunningatalltimes.Tosavepower,turnoffitsmonitor(s)andconfig-
ure its power management to slow down the processor and other components when idle. In
many cases you can still have the system enter Stand-By or Hibernate modes, as long as you
have Wake-on-LAN enabled (check the BIOS Setup) so that the system can resume when a
remote access session is initiated.
You should also configure host systems that use logins to not install Windows updates auto-
maticallybecausesomeupdatesrestartthesystem,sothesystemwillnotbeavailabletohost
remote connections until a user logs into it. For these systems, make sure you set up a sched-
uleforinstallingdownloadedupdatestoensurethatthesystemisavailable forremoteaccess
and is as up to date as possible.
Static Electricity
Static electricity or ESD can cause numerous problems within a system. The problems
usually appear during the winter months when humidity is low or in extremely dry cli-
mateswherethehumidityislowyear-round.Inthesecases,youmightneedtotakespecial
