Computer service
 

Do you leave your computer on all the time?
How often do you defrag & do a disc clean up?
I heard that your better off leaving the computer on because of temperature fluctuations.
I have been defragging once a month sometimes more.
I run spybot too.

My system is a (Windows XP) Gatway ADM Athlon 64 2.4GHz 512 MB with multimedia

Re: Computer service
 

I turn on and off a couple times day... mostly just turn on when I use it for a few hours and turn it off after.

Leaving you computer on for long amounts of time eats up memory and slows the machine down. You should shut it down every couple days or so.

Windows has a new spyware checker out now that is supposedly beta but works very well. You can get it off their site. I have been using spybot and spysweeper, and they work pretty well.

I never defrag or do any "cleanup." All my crap is organized though...

You can get rid off cookies and all temp files every now and then as they slow your computer down over time.

Re: Computer service
 

I only turn my computer off when the power goes out, when it gets moved or when hardware is changed.
I never defrag or do automatic cleanup.
It has been thought that turning the computer on and off is harder on the hard drive because it is stopping and starting, rather than just leave it spinning all the time.
I use AdAware and Spybot S&D religiously.

Home-built P4 2.53ghz running WinXP Pro (not even SP1)

Re: Computer service
 

Turn on/off once per day (when I wake up and when I go to sleep). I used to leave it on all the time, but the noise started bothering me while I slept since I have a lot of fans in the case. I defrag monthly and disc-cleanup weekly. I use Spyware Doctor weekly and Adaware once in a while. Homebuilt Athlon 2400+ w/ WinXP.

Re: Computer service
 

For Spyware/Adware related shit, I scan with SpyBot, Adaware, and Microsoft's new program. 9 times out of 10 though they don't pick up anything and I have only seen results like that since switching to Firefox.

Re: Computer service
 

I have several machines. My workstation at my office has not been rebooted in 70days, without a problem (did I mention it runs linux?). I use this machine 7-14 hours per day m-f.

My home workstation has windows on it & I reboot it as needed. sometimes once per week, sometimes once per month. I use it so infrequently though, that it really just sits there & runs most of the time. Defrag weekly automatically with autodefrag. This machine runs windows xp pro.

I also use an ibook a lot. I reboot it whenever there is a software update that insists upon a reboot, never anytime else. Current uptime is 16 days (20-25 is probably average), and I never have to defrag the disk. I just open it up, use it, and close the lid (it goes into sleep mode) when I'm not. Never takes more than about 3 seconds to wake up, and always does whatever I want it to. I use this machine 1-7 hours per day.

So yea, whenever I'm not working on my dsm or playing with Turbo, I'm strapped to a computer, doing shit for someone, somewhere.

Re: Computer service
 

Ps, for spyware shit on a microsoft box, there's 4 tools that will get everything. in order of ass-kicking power:

Spybot
Ad-aware
cwshredder
microsoft anti-spyware

always, always, always update the definitions before you scan.

Re: Computer service
 

pc yes, laptop HELL NO

rarely defrag or use cleanup.

with a pc it doesn't really matter, i've seen both pc's that are turned off and on, and others that are left on. I can say that my p2 350 before this year probly had a 90% up time. I'd rarely reboot it. But I haven't turned it on since I moved into my house...in June :)

as someone said about spyware removal

ad-aware
spybot

those are good for most things

add the new MS one

cwshreddar can do some naughty things if you are not careful :)

Re: Computer service
 

I turn it off mainly to save electricity... if your not on it shut it off! If its a server thats another story...

Re: Computer service
 

i have 2 servers at the house runing pretty much all the time.. and another few that are on during testing stuff thats all.

then i have my gaming machine which is on 24/7
and few other machines that i have laying around that are not on all the time only when i need to.

when i start my file server with 8 drives and 2 power supplies the whole house lights dim :( so i just keep it powered up all the time...

-E

Re: Computer service
 

I have my computer running usually 24/7. I usually shut down and restart once a week so that it clears the RAM.
The Heat Flucuation Theory is pretty wrong, The only reasons this would be correct is if your running a big server with multiple 10,000 RPM drives with poor cooling for months on end, the reason this would be a problem is because being that the drives are running so fast they heat up to high temps and instantly turning the power off could cause problems with internal components of the drives themselves. The other case would be if you running a nice system with little or no cooling, which in either case your fucked.
I work at a software support helpdesk and just had a client where when i dialed in had around 70 popups up causeing PCanywhere to run as if it were connected to a dialup connection. Before calling the helpdesk he had run adaware, (not sure if it was updated) but it was still doing multiple popups. To correct all of this i started by going into safe mode and going into MSconfig (only WinXP) and disableing any and all suspiscous processes. we rebooted the machine and nothing popped up yet (we had not opened up IE) i then ran Spybot S&D, it found 150 entries. fixed those, then went into Add/Remove Programs and removed any spyware programs, which there was about 20. then went into c:\windows\prefetch and deleted any files that were in there (130 files) because There is a virus out there that resides in the prefetch called UpdateXP2, i didnt know if this guy had it but why risk it. We then restarted the computer so spybot could get the rest of the entries that it couldnt with windows running. then i cleared the cookies, cleared the temp internet files. Opened up Windows explorer and WHA LA no more popups, not a single one no matter what site i went to. even went to bigboobies.com (jk).

Defragging Despite popular opinion (at least on this board) is ALWAYS RECOMMENDED, no matter how organised you are (which makes no freakin sence what-so-ever) Defraggin does not organise your files and make them look pretty, It organises the data and how it is stored on the drive makeing your computer run much faster. when data is written onto your hard drive, your hard drive will somtimes break up the data to write it faster causing fragments (spaces in data writing) and just finding the first available space to write a peice of data. Though this may cause the program to install faster, when the program actually runs its going to take longer because it has to look everywhere for the bits of data the program uses. Defragging takes this data and groups it so that the hard drive can more easily find the bits needed.
I hope you all enjoyed, Take care of your computer, it can be your best friend or your worst enemy.
Tom

Re: Computer service
 

I own one of the the new mini imac's. These are pretty small. makes it easy to move. The cp is smaller than a foot by foot square. Works great. It's pretty new so I dont see the need to defrag or shut it down just yet.

Re: Computer service
 

Tom I know what Defraging does Im not retarded. I work in IT... just dont feel the need to do it. My computer runs fast enough as it is.

Home built 2800XP 1Gig Ram... XP Pro..

Re: Computer service
 

I never shut my computer off, just have a sleep timer. I don't have to defrag, and I have never run any spyware/virus programs. I honestly don't even know if spyware has any effects on macs, I have never run into any problems.
G4, panther 10.3

Re: Computer service
 

My SpyWare solution = Mac.

Leave it on, never defrag.