Electronics gurus - does hardware live longer if you never turn it off?

[brassplyer]

A local electronics repair guy once told me that electronic gear lives longer if you leave it energized, that turn off/turn on cycles over time takes a toll on the hardware.

He was the last of the Mohicans around here who still repaired VCRs, radios, CRT tvs, tape decks, turntables etc. and closed up shop as CRT tvs and VCRs were becoming obsolete. He said cheap VCRs weren't worth repairing and it was getting harder and harder to get parts for the units that were worth repairing with quickly dwindling demand as Blu-Ray was taking over and there was no repairing optical media players - they die you toss it and get a new one.

Do you concur with his advice on never turning off electronics and if so does it still apply?

[Anonymous5394]

I was told in PC World once by a tech guy that if you are a heavy computer user and completely turn off your pc from the mains for at least 24 hours a week, its shelf life will be longer and help the hardware. Turning on/off repeatedly harms it apparently, just as much as being connected all the time to the mains.

[lingyi]

Not a guru, but the greatest stress for electronics and mechanical devices is at power on. Electronic devices experience a momentary power surge at power on and connections such as solder joints can loosen as the expand when heated and contract when cooled.

I read a story that certain Panasonic Plasma TVs were experiencing a high rate of power supply failure in Japan. After study, the engineers concluded that the high failure rate was because unlike U.S. owners, Japanese owners tended to turn their set off when they left the room. They changed the power supply to one that could withstand higher than U.S. normal power cycles and the failures decreased.

On the mechanical side, bearings such as those in hard drives tend to last longer when the drive spindle is kept on 24/7. Newton's First Law of Productivity. First Law of Motion: An object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force. (i.e. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

Enterprise drives are designed and rated to run 24/7 and have longest warranty (5 years) of any hard drive.

As for optical drives being unrepairable, that's false. All components of an optical drive can be repaired and/or replaced. It's just generally not economically feasible to do so. Virtually no manmade device is unrepairable as long as replacement components/parts can be found or remanufactured. It's just a matter of cost, time and reengineering/recreating the necessary components.

Also, Blu-Ray/DVD taking over is passé. The majority of the world (to the delight of the movie studios) is moving towards streaming. The availability of Blu-Ray/DVD didn't kill VCRs, the video quality, convenience of DVD initially, then Blu-Ray, killed VCRs. I would further argue that it was the introduction of recordable optical discs killed tape, both audio and video. If optical discs, and later SD cards and other recordable media weren't made available and affordable to the general public, tape would still be alive and well today.

[brassplyer]

As for optical drives being unrepairable, that's false. All components of an optical drive can be repaired and/or replaced. It's just generally not economically feasible to do so. Virtually no manmade device is unrepairable as long as replacement components/parts can be found or remanufactured. It's just a matter of cost, time and reengineering/recreating the necessary components.

Also, Blu-Ray/DVD taking over is passé. The majority of the world (to the delight of the movie studios) is moving towards streaming. The availability of Blu-Ray/DVD didn't kill VCRs, the video quality, convenience of DVD initially, then Blu-Ray, killed VCRs. I would further argue that it was the introduction of recordable optical discs killed tape, both audio and video. If optical discs, and later SD cards and other recordable media weren't made available and affordable to the general public, tape would still be alive and well today.

I'm sure he meant of course it wasn't economically viable for him to charge people to repair optical media players, not that it wasn't physically possible to repair them. I gather the manufacturers don't consider them an aftermarket repair item and there isn't a pipeline of parts such as traditionally existed for CRT tvs, VCRs etc.

[TreeTops]

I can speak for my experience with computers and TV's. (Many laptops, many full size computers, and TV's over 40 years.) Always turned them all off at night and on in the morning. I never had an issue with any of them. Lucky? Maybe.

[lingyi]

I'm sure he meant of course it wasn't economically viable for him to charge people to repair optical media players, not that it wasn't physically possible to repair them. I gather the manufacturers don't consider them an aftermarket repair item and there isn't a pipeline of parts such as traditionally existed for CRT tvs, VCRs etc.

Being pedantic, but the OP quoted the repair guy as saying "...and there was no repairing optical media players... " after he quoted "He said cheap VCRs weren't worth repairing..."

May be the OP's interpretation of what the repairman said, but I wouldn't have him (the repairman) do any of my repair work after those two [contradictory] statements if they were true.

I can speak for my experience with computers and TV's. (Many laptops, many full size computers, and TV's over 40 years.) Always turned them all off at night and on in the morning. I never had an issue with any of them. Lucky? Maybe.

Confirmation bias.

It worked until it doesn't. Usually indicated by it not turning on one day or requiring multiple power on tries before it starts (which we tend to forget, "It turned on fine yesterday"). No one can say with certainty that they would have a longer or shorter life if they were left on 24/7.

That said, laptop batteries when left on a constant trickle charge can overheat and lose their ability to hold a full charge. Less so with new technology. Brightness on TV screens and monitors fades quicker with more hours on. And additional heat, no matter how minimal it may be over an off state, contributes to the shortened lifespan of all electronic components.

Edit: Just remembered, TVs and monitors have estimated power hours before they lose half their brightness. So in this case, there a visual advantage to not leaving the set on when not being used. Note that this is similar to radioactive half-life. The dimming is gradual before and after the half-life. There's still lots of hours of useful viewing

[brassplyer]

I'm sure he meant of course it wasn't economically viable for him to charge people to repair optical media players, not that it wasn't physically possible to repair them. I gather the manufacturers don't consider them an aftermarket repair item and there isn't a pipeline of parts such as traditionally existed for CRT tvs, VCRs etc.

Being pedantic, but the OP quoted the repair guy as saying "...and there was no repairing optical media players... " after he quoted "He said cheap VCRs weren't worth repairing..."

May be the OP's interpretation of what the repairman said, but I wouldn't have him (the repairman) do any of my repair work after those two [contradictory] statements if they were true.

Lol - if you *really* want to be pedantic notice there aren't any quotation marks. It wasn't meant as a courtroom transcript as to his exact phraseology, more of a recounting of the spirit of what I recall him saying.

I assure you this guy was quite capable - I believe he learned electronics in his native Germany and had been doing repair in this area for many years - he lived in an upscale gated community so apparently he did okay. He didn't give away his services but I found his rates reasonable.

[lingyi]

Understood, accepted and apologize for misunderstanding what you posted.

I've been spending too much time on a subreddit where some posters,* post what they heard or read as "fact" somewhere, sometime, and claim it's true without anything to substantiate that "fact". And have my radar on high alert.

*I suspect many of these posters are young and actually think that Wikipedia and Wikis are 100% factual and immutable.

[netmask56]

My PC, PVR and Zidoo media player have been on since the day I installed them except for a couple of planned power outages in my suburb when they were replacing power lines. In the case of my Windows 7 PC it's been on for at least 10 years. In my working life the post production suites and indeed the TV station itself were never off power except for planned upgrades etc. Then there are a gaggle of iPads and iPhones that are hardly ever powered down. Router and fibre modem on all the time.

[johns0]

I dont worry about any of my stuff,i just turn it off at night and start it when i wake up,never had any issues of power failures.

[pandy]

Generally yes, there something called 'inrush current' and it may be source of many failures, there are additional factors that may be also important so constant powering in properly designed devices may be preferred over ON/OFF.

Nowadays especially for people living in EU countries it is required/advised (mandatory by law in some EU countries) to turn off equipment - if you wasting energy at some point, in some countries you may risk criminal charges and you can go to prison... Governments in some countries strongly recommends or explicitly demand not only saving electrical energy but also forcing home temperatures to be not higher than for example 19 C deg and they strongly encourage your friends or neighbors to spy on you if you follow such regulations.

So at some point you may expect at least in EU regulations that will allow electrical providers to remotely turn off your home electrical equipment - some preliminary regulations are currently proceeded in EU.

[sophisticles]

Even if there is a momentary surge in power during powering up an electronic device, the stress is more than offset by the lack of stress experienced when the device is powered off.

Remember, nearly all devices, mechanical or electronic, have a life span measured in mean time to failure or mean time before failure; if a device is turned off clearly this measurement still does not apply, i.e. if a hard drive has a mttf of 1.5 million hours, then keeping the drive of for 1.5 million hours will not kill the drive.

[_Al_]

^ I disagree,
just have it turned on, certainly you will not waste more energy than some stupid eco idea for gas cars to have start-stop (double battery size, double CCA, bigger starter etc.,) and thousand other ideas.
Just use common sense, vacation?, turn it off, is it is closed up in a small box without opening, heated (turn it off, if not frequent) then turn it off, but not 5x a day
But boards are so shity nowadays, that basically there is 50% design failure does not matter what you do anyway. Basically you give it a bad look and it might stop working. Just go on youtube, there is a plenty of videos. You have 5star product, $100 and they would tell you whats inside, I love those videos, revers engineering . Those reviews are written too soon, mostly those devices fail one after another after year, two, not even used much.

Some devices just turn off itself nowadays , isn't it? Like I have a new AV receiver now and it just turns off. Previous one I used was cheap, ~$160. I was germinating seeds on it in the spring with 99% pepper seed germination success, my secret recipe , (leave a room for air to escape though) It lasted 20 years.

[aedipuss]

i try to follow the design idea of devices. if something goes into low power mode by itself(nas boxes, phones, etc.) when not used for awhile i leave it always on. dumb devices like a light bulb last longer if left on because of the power surge at turn on. stuff with lots of resisters/diodes/transisters/motors that build heat as left on i'll turn off if it's not going to be used long enough for them to cool off.