BIOS Upgrade?
MsMaria:
Where would I find the best info on reformatting/re-install?
I have always been told to leave my computer on, but maybe if I turn the game off, it will help matters somewhat.
I've never had to "work" on a computer; I've always just bought a new one, but I would like to learn how to fix mine if possible.
Hegelian:
If you have Windows XP, you would boot from the CD. The Setup utility should ask into which partition you want to install, and you have the option to delete any existing partitions. You would choose to delete the partition, and then tell Setup to install in the unpartitioned space. Windows will then partition and format the drive and install.
In the old days it was often best to divide a large hard drive into several smaller partitions (due to the limitations of earlier file systems), but with NTFS it is generally considered best to format large drives as a single partition. Your drive must be partitioned before it can be formatted with the file system.
Ancient Sim:
This is interesting insofar as the age-old question is concerned: should you turn your computer off every night or leave it on? Wherever I go, whoever I ask, I get a 50-50 reply ratio, as we've had here.
I remember speaking to someone at my old ISP once (about a different issue) and he just happened to mention in passing that their office computers had never been switched off since they were bought - THREE YEARS BEFORE. He insisted that it was very bad to turn them off, for the same reasons JM has given (and this was a professional tech guy talking, computer maintenance was his job). Yet I've had similar people tell me the same thing Hegelian has said.
According to the specs for my pc, it describes it as a home pc "designed to be left on permanently", but I never do. Fires apart, I always think a reboot is good to get the RAM and stuff back up to optimum level. This really is a VERY confusing issue and I wish there was a definitive answer for it. My previous pc is around 3 years old now and I always turned that off every night, or whenever I went out. My daughter has it now and it's started spontaneously rebooting for no apparent reason, although personally I think it's probably a virus or spyware. She's an MSN freak and whenever I check she has a whole bucketload of viruses and spyware programs on the thing. It never behaved like that when I used it.
dizzy:
Ancient, I leave my compy on all the time, but I run folding@home on it so I'm helping cure cancer etc. :D
Hegelian:
It's a trade-off either way. Heat is the enemy of integrated circuits, hence J.M.'s caution about thermal stress. OTOH, running 24/7 also introduces heat issues of its own, and one could argue that being powered up continuously could shorten the lifespan of the parts. The same argument could be made regarding keeping your hard drives spinning all the time, but this is largely theoretical, since most HDDs will outlive the computers in which they are installed—"consumer" drives are warranted for three years, and server drives for five years.
As a general proposition, if an integrated circuit is going to fail, it will occur in the first 24-48 hours of operation. This is why reputable PC builders "burn in" new machines for 72 hours prior to shipping. This doesn't mean motherboard components can't fail, but such failures are unlikely to be the result of turning the PC off at night. For example, I had an ASUS P2B-S motherboard that was burning out graphics boards. It turned out that the AGP voltage was over spec, and I needed to switch to a brand that was more tolerant of non-standard voltages. Tech support from 3Dlabs was excellent—they sent me a replacement board in retail packaging on the understanding that I would not install it in my PC (having burned out two already) but would sell it and use the proceeds to buy a different board; I ended up with a Matrox G400 Max.
Subsequently, I began experiencing hard lock-ups when running Photoshop, which migrated to Word and eventually to Netscape. It turned out this was due to a different, known design defect identified by Adobe tech support, a problem with the implementation of the data paths between the CPU and North Bridge that was only apparent when the system was stressed (as Photoshop does). I was able to RMA the motherboard to the vendor for a replacement under warranty.
Some time ago the US magazine Maximum PC printed a short Q&A regarding the 24/7 debate. The respondents from the major vendors like HP and Dell were in agreement that the PC should be turned off at night or any time you aren't going to use it for an extended period of time. I did not keep most of my back-issues when I moved, so I can't give a reference. :( More personally, I have a close friend who is an electrical engineer and he does not leave his PCs on at night.
Aside from the theoretical downsides to turning off the PC at night, there are more practical concerns. In an office environment, there are usually safeguards against fire: sprinkler systems, CCTV security, and the like. These are not present in most homes (J.M's excepted, of course). The potential consequences of leaving a PC on 24/7 outweigh by a considerable margin whatever reduction in lifespan that may occur from turning your PC on once a day, as it is more likely that a catastrophic failure of a power supply will occur while you are asleep than that the life of your PC will be noticeably reduced by thermal stress. Although not necessarily a common occurance, the potential for a fire in your PC from a power-supply failure or unchecked current spike is a real one, and we are talking real flames and stuff, not just smoke and sparks. I've been messing with this stuff for 20 years, and I have a box of PC parts that became obsolete long before they could fail due to thermal stress. ;D Saying you should leave your PC on all the time to extend its life (assuming this is even true, which it may not be) is a bit like saying you should leave your car running all the time to avoid the excess wear that occurs when you start it up after all the oil has drained into the pan. The reality is that, even if this excess wear is real, the engine is likely to last longer than the rest of the car even if you turn it off when you're not using it.
I leave you with this:
One computer left on 24 hours a day will cost you $115—160 in electricity costs a
year and dump 1,500 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere.
A tree absorbs between 3-15 lbs of CO2 each year. That means that 100-500 trees
would be needed to offset the yearly emissions of one computer left on all the time.
http://www.tufts.edu/tie/tci/pdf/Computer%20brochures.PDF
The following statement is taken from: User Guide to Power Management for PCs and Monitors, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1997
"The belief that frequent shutdowns [of PCs] are harmful persists from the days when hard disks did not automatically park their heads when shut off; frequent on-off cycling could damage such hard disks. Conventional wisdom, however, has not kept pace with the rapid technological change in the computer industry. Modern hard disks are not significantly affected by frequent shut-downs.
Shutting down computers at night and on weekends saves significant energy without affecting the performance. Power-managed equipment also may actually last longer than conventional products. Because most such equipment will spend a large portion of time in a low-power sleep mode, mechanical wear on disk drives and heat stress on other components can be reduced."
http://www.tufts.edu/tie/tci/Computers.html
http://www.greencampus.harvard.edu/cerp/faq.php#isittrue
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/buyer/features/75717/pc-myths-exposed/page1.html
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