Computer hardware question.

[Perd Hapley]

How often should I turn on/off my computer?

Is it possible to turn it off and turn it back on too much?

Somewhere, I got the impression that I shouldn't turn off my computer too much.  I usually only shut it off every week or so. 

[mtnbkr]

I only shut mine down when I am forced to by hardware related work, unexpected power outages, or when I'm going to be out of town for more than a couple days.  The PC I'm typing on right now hasn't been rebooted in two weeks and that was because I moved it from my office upstairs to the den.  Prior to that, it had nearly a month uptime (shut it down while out of town for Thanksgiving). 

I have a pair of NT4 servers at work, doing work as PKI, Syslog, and file servers that have nearly 2yrs uptime.

I hate rebooting systems.  Most of my system failures happen during reboots.

Chris

[charby]

I turn off my workstation at the end of the work day for security reasons. There is a real lack of security where I work becuase its a univeristy and bored students like to play at night. I do the same with my home computer when I am done using it.

All my servers at work: win2k, 2003 and mac OS run 24/7, unless I have to reboot.

[roo_ster]

Keep it up & on unless a Windows OS or app memory leak degrades your performance.  Schedule updates & scans for o'dark thirty.

[mtnbkr]

I turn off my workstation at the end of the work day for security reasons. There is a real lack of security where I work becuase its a univeristy and bored students like to play at night. I do the same with my home computer when I am done using it.

Why not simply lock the desktop (assuming Win2k or WinXPPro, etc).  They're not going to unlock it in any way that would allow them to access your data unless they already have your password.

Chris

[Perd Hapley]

When the computer is on the, DSL modem is on, even though I am not "logged on."  Should I shut down the modem for better security? 

[charby]

I turn off my workstation at the end of the work day for security reasons. There is a real lack of security where I work becuase its a univeristy and bored students like to play at night. I do the same with my home computer when I am done using it.

Why not simply lock the desktop (assuming Win2k or WinXPPro, etc).  They're not going to unlock it in any way that would allow them to access your data unless they already have your password.

Chris

You can bang on a machine all night with a password tool and get in. I have my servers set to lock accounts out for five minutes after 10 failed attempts. Also my Admin account by name is a dummy account, my real admin account looks just like any plain old user.

I'm never really looked into too see if you can do that on XP pro.

[Thor]

When the computer is on the, DSL modem is on, even though I am not "logged on."  Should I shut down the modem for better security? 

Not if you have a decent firewall. There are a few free software firewalls that do a good job. Zone Alarm comes to mind. Also, your dsl service MIGHT provide one for "free".

Powering down electronics isn't quite as bad as powering them up. But, if you do one, the other has to follow. Power surges and the like can happen and have happened when turning equipment on. Have you ever noticed a light bulb burning out while it was on?? It happens, but it's rare. One will see a light bulb blow when they are turning them on. I will urge you to turn off all electronics during an electrical storm and unplug anything connected to cable TV or phone lines. I've seen the damage of homes from lightning following the cable TV drop into the house.(Yes, they were properly "grounded" at the tap and the house.)

[mtnbkr]

You can bang on a machine all night with a password tool and get in. I have my servers set to lock accounts out for five minutes after 10 failed attempts. Also my Admin account by name is a dummy account, my real admin account looks just like any plain old user.

I could get your local admin account and password with a simple reboot and floppy disk.  It loaded DOS6, and NTFS driver for DOS, and a batch file to save the SAM file to the floppy.  I could then take that floppy to another machine and let a cracker tool (one available at the Cult of the Dead Cow website back when I did this) run against the SAM file for as long as it took.  That was and old school method that worked in the days of NT4.  I don't know what it would take today with newer OSes since I don't work in that realm much anymore, but the point is, if you don't have physical security, you don't have any security.  At least by locking your system, you'll know if someone rebooted your machine to try various logins.  Do they still make PCs with the little keylock that would lock your keyboard, blocking all input from that source?

Not if you have a decent firewall. There are a few free software firewalls that do a good job. Zone Alarm comes to mind. Also, your dsl service MIGHT provide one for "free".

My personal machines sit behind a modest hardware firewall and each one has it's own software firewall.  I've disabled unused services on the Linux server and Win2k machine.  Between that, daily virus scanning, and monthly spyware scanning, I've never had a problem, viral or otherwise.  I use Outlook and IE too.   Ok, I admit, I also use Firefox, but more for it's anti-popup and tabbed browsing than fear from "hackers".

Anyway, I worry more about the hardware effects of rebooting than "hackers". 

Chris

[charby]

You can bang on a machine all night with a password tool and get in. I have my servers set to lock accounts out for five minutes after 10 failed attempts. Also my Admin account by name is a dummy account, my real admin account looks just like any plain old user.

I could get your local admin account and password with a simple reboot and floppy disk.  It loaded DOS6, and NTFS driver for DOS, and a batch file to save the SAM file to the floppy.  I could then take that floppy to another machine and let a cracker tool (one available at the Cult of the Dead Cow website back when I did this) run against the SAM file for as long as it took.  That was and old school method that worked in the days of NT4.  I don't know what it would take today with newer OSes since I don't work in that realm much anymore, but the point is, if you don't have physical security, you don't have any security.  At least by locking your system, you'll know if someone rebooted your machine to try various logins.  Do they still make PCs with the little keylock that would lock your keyboard, blocking all input from that source?

You can get a hardware keylock that upon reboot puts your machine back how it was before you locked it.

I have the similar password tool as you mentioned but on a bootable CD, someday I'll make it run on a bootable USB device. I have idiots that forget the machine password, so I have to use my white hats skills once in a while.

[charby]

fisty

I have DSL at home and I turn my computer off when I am done in the evening because I just don't want anyone to hyjack my computer to use it a a file share. Most people don't even realize that their computer has been hyjacked, we all get hard drives that have way more space than the common person will ever use before it is time to upgrade to a new machine.

Remember a lock only keeps honest people out.

-C

[Bogie]

Ah... The Cult... I remember those boys... I knew The Doctor...
 
NOTHING is secure.

Turn things off. If I'm going to be away any time at all, I also flip the strip. Also, if you have external USB drives, odds are that they are running, and dying, all the time - most of 'em don't power down.
 

[Perd Hapley]

external what?  You mean like zip drives and such?  I've only got the usual CD/DVD read/write and a 3.5 floppy.

[charby]

external hard drives

A USB cord connects a storage device to the computer tower, most of these storage devices require a electicity to run, even when the computer is turned off these devices continue to run.

run time mean wear time.

-C

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

Due to workplace security, I power down my desktop when I leave for the day. I don't have anything to hide but I don't want anyone in it. I have a power-up BIOS password as well as the regular XP Pro security.

Servers are another story. Some of my AIX boxes have 400+ days of uptime, but they're all lab boxes that can be rebooted any time I want for the most part. I've seen AIX pSeries boxes with 900 + days of uptime.

My home PC runs both Linux and W2K partitions. I only power it up when I'm using it, and I generally bring it down every night. My old FreeBSD box was up for a couple of years before I turned it off. I'm not worried about external intrusion, but I do have all of the PC's in the house password protected individually and my router password is pretty strong. The router runs 24/7/365 as it's attached to the cable modem and I use Vonage for my telco.

Regards,
Rabbit.

[Perd Hapley]

I was told by a totally non-credible source that daily power-ups would cause too much fragmentation of the hard drive.  I guess that's why I've been leaving it on most of the time. 

[Gewehr98]

I got scared to death to run anything that didn't need to be on when I was in Florida, with electricity bills running right around $250.00/month for a 3-bedroom, 2 bath cinder block beachside home. 

So I bought one of those Kill-a-Watt outlet meters which displays energy used, and plugged in various items around the house to see what they drew.  Egad!  I switched all the lights to twisted tube flourescents, and all the residents of the house know to turn off not just lights when they're not in the room, but also televisions and computers. 

I even put my HP LaserJet 4 on a Sansui audio timer unit so it only runs from 8 AM to 8 PM, but that's still a bit much to keep a fuser warmed up.  I may just sell it and use my Tektronix Phaser 780, which goes into Energy Star mode after 30 minutes of non-use. My wife thought I was being a pain in the posterior, but she now runs the washer and dryer during off-peak hours, and I do the same with the dishwasher.  I've been rewarded with an electric bill that's now between $125-$150 each month, considerably better than the $180.00 we first had when we moved to Wisconsin, and I'm not done doing energy conservation tweaks.  We have one of those 6-clear-globe incandescent fixtures over the sink in the master bathroom, 40 watts x 6 bulbs, hmmm....

As for too much fragmentation, I suppose that's possible, but my dual Xeon IBM Intellistation M fragments the Windows XP Pro boot drive pretty darned hard even if it stays on.  No biggy, I just schedule Diskeeper 9 to do a defrag and paging file cleanup every time I do a cold reboot. The IBM is also an electrical pig, so it gets turned off when not in use, although as bulletproof as it is, with the jet-engine thrust case fans and everything else, I'm sure it would work just fine 24/7 for several years. They even gave me a power button lockout insert, so that the machine would power down and wake up only via command from a sysadmin.

My Linux boot drive is pretty much untouched.

I have one of those hard-drive removable cartridge things with key lock, and just swap them out to change operating systems.  It's a carry-over from when I was a directorate security manager in the Air Force.

[mtnbkr]

I even put my HP LaserJet 4 on a Sansui audio timer unit so it only runs from 8 AM to 8 PM, but that's still a bit much to keep a fuser warmed up.  I may just sell it and use my Tektronix Phaser 780, which goes into Energy Star mode after 30 minutes of non-use.

The Canon printer I recently bought can be left powered off until you send a print job to it, then it "wakes up", prints, and then powers off again after a set period of time. 

Chris

[charby]

I even put my HP LaserJet 4 on a Sansui audio timer unit so it only runs from 8 AM to 8 PM, but that's still a bit much to keep a fuser warmed up.  I may just sell it and use my Tektronix Phaser 780, which goes into Energy Star mode after 30 minutes of non-use.

The Canon printer I recently bought can be left powered off until you send a print job to it, then it "wakes up", prints, and then powers off again after a set period of time. 

Chris

Laserjet 4 is like so 1990's 

[Gewehr98]

Laserjet 4 is like so 1990's 

Yeah, and your point would be? 

I got rid of all our inkjet printers several years ago. HP LaserJet 4 printers are built like the proverbial brick outhouse, seriously reliable, are easy to work with regardless of operating system and computer platform, they deliver crisp, clear 600dpi black and white pages year after year, and are dirt cheap when it comes time to get another toner cartridge. They also can be purchased for pennies on the dollar from government and federal surplus sales.  My HP LaserJet 4 and LaserJet 4M cost me all of $50.00 for the pair of them 5 years ago. Actually, 10 of the printers cost me $50.00, because I bought a pallet load of them from the DRMO auction, you couldn't buy just one or two. So I sold the whole lot, and kept two of 'em. They even had 34 meg of memory each and JetDirect cards installed. Even without the profit I made selling off the LaserJet 4 printers I didn't need, they've paid for themselves already, considering how much inkjet cartridges or toner for newer laser printers would've cost.  I just wish I had bought a couple pallet loads more of them, like this guy did:

http://www.printertechs.com/printer/refurbished-hp-laserjet-4.php

My Tektronix Phaser 780 tabloid color laser is likewise cheap to feed, but considerably more complex when the time comes to do maintenance. 

As I tell people who wonder about my $1,200 vacuum tube stereo amplifier, newer is not always better. I used to own a Glock at one time, too.  I sold it to buy another 1911. 

Chris, my Phaser 780 stays in sleep mode until a network print job heads its way, then goes back to sleep afterwards.  I like that because it saves wear and tear on the printer's imaging unit, fuser light, fans, and hard drive. Those features are also what drove me to buy the Kill-a-Watt meter, and see how much juice my constantly-hot HP LaserJet 4 draws - 200 watts just sitting there.  Since it's the main printer on the home network with 4 users always sending stuff to it, I put it on a timer vs. shutting it off. (There's a value in not hearing folks yelling at me with printer errors because they didn't want to go upstairs and turn on the printer in my office)

[Bogie]

Gewehr98... What kinda tubage are you running? I've been thinking of calling the Doc and putting together a Foreplay III pre....
 
Kinda expected you to have a Mauser tho...
 
I run all twisties for my light bulbs, except for the big straight tubes... I'm guessing that it is sorta offset by the stack of Crown amps in The Bunker, and the Hafler space heater that runs the maggies in the living room... I'd run tubes for 'em, but hey, 4 ohms, low efficiency, and they sound soooo sweet... Well... Oh yeah... Two 240 watt subwoofer amps in the living room too, with nice big heat sinks...
 

I was told by a totally non-credible source that daily power-ups would cause too much fragmentation of the hard drive.  I guess that's why I've been leaving it on most of the time. 

Do not pay attention to ANYTHING that person tells you. And occasionally defrag...
 
 

[Gewehr98]

Bogie, my friend, I'm purely entry-level with the tubes, namely a Jolida 502A with the capacitor/resistor/silver solder and wiring upgrade provided by Response Audio. I've ditched the original Chinese military tubes, and settled on Svetlana 6550C ("Winged C") output pentodes at 55 millivolts bias, with Sovtek 12AX7 and 12AT7 in the pre-amp and power driver stage.  I've got a quad of NOS KT88s just waiting to try out, but haven't had the time or inclination yet.

My next big purchase or construction project will be a tube stereo phono preamp for my moving-magnet Grado cartridge and direct-drive turntable.  I see there are some kits coming from Hong Kong and Taiwan that wouldn't be too difficult for me to solder and assemble. 

Since the Jolida tube amp is rated for all of 60 watts/channel and 85 watts/channel peak, I'm using a pair of restored vintage ESS AMT-1 speakers.  They have 92 db/watt sensitivity, and that Heil Air Motion Transformer midrange-tweeter is just plain unbelievable, very bright and clear without being harsh or shrill. The other speakers I have considered were my AMT-1 speakers to die would be the older Polk Audio SDA-1 series, which are what I first auditioned the Jolida series amps with, as well as some McIntosh tube amps.  I may grab a pair of Polk SDA-1s one of these days, I'm using a pair of Fidek 2-way towers from my computer sound system right now as the surrounds in my ESS AMT-1 woofer and passive radiator are being replaced.  I have also wondered if your Magneplanars would have the sensitivity to run on a low-powered tube amp, or if I would have to get a second amp and bridge both of them for the extra output power.   

[Bogie]

Look at some of the chicom stores on ebay... They're putting out some SERIOUS tube gear for a few hundred bucks delivered to US. I picked up a line stage (for between DVD and my Rotel pre), and it's an interesting little bugger... Kinda like one of those Hipointe 9mm carbines... Ugly, but effective.
 
People mod the stuff with all the fancy wiring, etc., but I'd rather spend the money on glass and speakers...
 

[roo_ster]

If you really want to lock your machine down (do what is suggested above: lockouts after X # of failed attempts, PW complexity & length reqs, restricting access to sensitive OS files/directories by non-super-users, etc). 

Then, jump into the BIOS at bootup (F10 for Compaq/HP, something else for IBM/Lenovo) and disable booting from anything but the hard drive (floppy, USB, CD/DVD, network, etc.) and set a complex BIOS password.  Save settings & move on.  Heck, while in the BIOS disable any device you don't expect to use: USB, serial, parallel, etc.

Boot disks are now not so useful.

After doing this on a few machines, change the language the BIOS uses to present information to "SUOMI,"  to make it more challenging.

[mtnbkr]

Boot disks are now not so useful.

True, but if I have physical access, I can pull the drive and put it in another system or external enclosure and still do the things I mentioned above.  The only protection against that is disk encryption (we use Pointsec) or physical security such as a locking case.

Chris