dilemma/questions about standby/firewall/shutdown/UPS

my computer runs great 99 percent of the time. I am the type who shuts down his computer every night, or when I will be away for a few hours. This has worked great for me for 6 months without a crash or freezeup. Now, one in 20 boots my comp will hang when it boots. I have reformatted several times and made sure all drivers are new and everything is installed correctly. The comp wants to hang now when it boots from a shutdown. Running XP Pro with all updates installed.
This problem drives me crazy, so I have decided to eliminate the problem by not shutting down anymore. I have a couple questions

I have decided to use Standby instead of shutting down. Is it necessary to shut down programs such as firewall before putting the computer into standy mode? Or is it OK to leave them on?

Is it better to put the comp in standby, or just leave it running all the time?


I have a UPS and I have it set up to shut down the comp automatically if power goes out for more then 2 minutes. If the computer is in Stand by mode, will the UPS still shut down the computer?

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

Immac

 

I would leave the PC on all the time. It is harder on a hard drive to power up and down for a week then to just leave it on non-stop. Also, not all PCs like coming out of standby(but some are perfectly fine). I am unsure of the UPS if it will work or not - if its a serial connection then I would lean torwards no, if its USB then I would think yes....but I dont know since I leave mine on 24/7. As for the firewall that can be left on even during standby and should be ok.

 

thanks for the reply.. yes my UPS is serial connection...
Well, you have me thinking about leaving on 24/7.. what are your system specs that you leave on 24/7? How often to yoy reboot/shutdown?

 

Before I left this PC on before I upgraded it:

Abit KT7RAID
AMD 900 TBird
Nvidia Ti4600
512MB Ram
40GB WD
20GB WD


Now I have:
Abit MAX3 mobo
Intel P4 2.4 HT
Radeon 9800 Pro
1GB Corsair RAM
(4) WD SATA 10,000 RPM hard drives

Also, dont manually power off your montior, let the PC thrown the monitor into standby instead after 30-60min

 

you have almost the same specs as me! I have A DELL 2.6 (it came with 1.7, but I upgraded to 2.6 with the power leap adaptor ever heard of it?) GForce 4 ti 4600 and 1GB of Ram (from Dell) 80GIG MAxtor Harddrive

so how often do you reboot??

 

I only reboot when I have to after installing stuff. right now I am at an uptime of 5 days(XP Pro) but have gone longer. My record for WinME was 31 days and thats using it as a webserver and a gaming rig.

 

sounds good! I have decided starting tonight I will leave my beast on 24/7... I have only one question.. do you have any special cooling in your system? All I have is a new Thermaltake Fan and heatsinks on my Video Card, a case fan and a processor fan and ofcourse the fan in my power supply...do you think my system will be Ok and not overheat??

 

how are the temps in your case now? also, where do you live?

I have 5 75CFM fans, 2 power supply fan, build in fan and cooling channel on my mobo, video card fan, cpu fan, chipset fan and a junky case fan in my case.

but as long as your current idle temps are nice and low you should be ok

 

I live in virginia.. how about you? I own a Dell (mostly rebuilt rebuilt except the MB) and the only program I Downloaded before to test the temp in my comp didn't work! Do you know any program that will test the temp in a DELL computer??

 

I am in michigan so the temps inside arnt too bad. and I do not know of any temp apps for a dell

 

hey man thanks for the reply

as for the temp I don't care ! I'm leaving this baby ON!
If it fries, it fries! oh well

I know that comps where I work.. they don't have anything special... no special fans or anything, and they have been running non-stop for 4 years or more!!

now explain that!

 

no problem