spworley@athena.mit.edu (Spaceman Spiff) (09/25/90)
I have an A3000-25/50 and am curious about the (hardware) durability. Specifically, I'd like to leave it on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Obviously, the monitor will get a ghost image burnt in if I don't use a screen blanker, but is there any danger to the 3000 or monitor otherwise? I did this with my A500 for a good 2 months and had no problems, but I don't want to risk my new system. Has anyone done this? If I do it, should I take any precautions? I'm planning to leave it in an air conditioned room out of sunlight, so heat buildup hopefully won't be a problem. BTW, I think leaving my 3000 on all the time will be GREAT- I can play some fun sound samples (like explosions, etc) at 9:00 am to wake me up, have it automatically make calls to FTP sites & see what new PD stuff is around, and ray-trace its heart out with whatever time it has left. If you have any thoughts, experiences, or cautions, you can mail me or post- I'm sure others are interested. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mcjilton@handel.CS.ColoState.Edu (charles mar mcjilton) (09/25/90)
In article <1990Sep24.195238.21733@athena.mit.edu> spworley@athena.mit.edu (Spaceman Spiff) writes: >I have an A3000-25/50 and am curious about the (hardware) durability. Specifically, >I'd like to leave it on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Obviously, the monitor >will get a ghost image burnt in if I don't use a screen blanker, but is there any >danger to the 3000 or monitor otherwise? I did this with my A500 for a good 2 months Do use a screen saver. I've had my 2000 on almost 24 hours a day for the last 2 years. Longest down time was probably 3 days. Last time I turned it off was a good 4 months ago. I also have the system on it's side with no ill effects to the hard or flooy drives. Lately I have been turning off the monitor when I go to sleep because it has been doing some flakies (picture going blank until I give it a gentle whack on the side), and to save the 75 watts of power. Also, do get a good surge.spike protector. If it's always on, you might be away from home sometime a big storm hits. Never had a problem with mine (or my stereo, it's on always, too). I just have a generic surge protector. <Using a friends account> Sean
jad@dayton.UUCP (J. Deters) (09/27/90)
> Article <9677@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> From: mcjilton@handel.CS.ColoState.Edu (charles mar mcjilton) >In article <1990Sep24.195238.21733@athena.mit.edu> spworley@athena.mit.edu (Spaceman Spiff) writes: >>I have an A3000-25/50 and am curious about the (hardware) durability. Specifically, >>I'd like to leave it on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Obviously, the monitor >>will get a ghost image burnt in if I don't use a screen blanker, but is there any >>danger to the 3000 or monitor otherwise? I did this with my A500 for a good 2 months Ask a dozen people and you'll get a dozen answers to this one, but I am a member of the school that says computer failures occur *because* machines are turned off and on. I have 34 Amiga 500s out in the field and I have the users threatened under pain of death to never turn them off. (No smileys -- I've had to execute a couple of them... :) In the last two years, I have had one failure, and that was the Gary chip (the failure occurred about the same time that we had an electrician damage the data line somewhere else in the building.) Because the silicon devices are not mechanical, they are not subject to wear-due-to-usage that would occur if you left your lawn mower running for 24 hours a day, 365.25 days a year. The only time the chips are subject to stress is when you power them down and they cool down (shrink) or power them back up and they heat up (expand). Most "failures" due to this type of stress are simply chips popping up out of their sockets. The only wear your system should then receive is your hard drive spindle. This is also subject to the same problems of start up/shut down. When a hard drive is running, the spindle is close to frictionless. When you turn it off, however, the spindle stops and lowers itself onto its bearings (lack of centrifugal force lets the bearings drop.) Microscopic flat surfaces form on the now stationary bearings. The flats remain even after the machine is powered up again, causing tiny(!) amounts of wear. In our IBM PC/AT based store controllers, we see about 15-20 hard disk failures per year out of 220 disk drives. Most of the failed drives are Seagate Technologies pieces of crap. The IBM Rochester drives don't seem to fail nearly as often. (The store controllers are also used 24 hours a day, and it's usually substantial I/O volume processing.) Only the IBM systems have "monitors", and they are all* suffering from severe ghost images, because they are also never turned down. The only Amiga monitor we have (an old 1084) is still working fine. Leave your system on. It's much safer that way. Just wear a surge protector. -j, just in case you succumb to one of those natural surges... -- J. Deters Ask me about my PS/2. // INTERNET: jad@dayton.DHDSC.MN.ORG Then, // UUCP: ...!bungia!dayton!jad ask me about my Amiga! \\ // ICBM: 44^58'36"N by 93^16'12"W \X/