It sounds like there are issues that will need attention, rather than avoiding them by leaving system on 24/7. But, generally speaking, there is less wear and tear leaving PCs on 24/7 for the reason you state (heat up/cool down), as well as for the hdd mechnaical parts. Just be sure you're on a UPS in case of power loss. Just had one myself this morning while playing World of Xeen. Monitor and speakers shut down and I freaked out for a second, then remembered I intentionally left those off the UPS to decrease the load on the battery. When they came back up and I could still see and hear my game, I thanked the UPS. 😀

clueless1 wrote:

It sounds like there are issues that will need attention, rather than avoiding them by leaving system on 24/7. But, generally speaking, there is less wear and tear leaving PCs on 24/7 for the reason you state (heat up/cool down), as well as for the hdd mechnaical parts. Just be sure you're on a UPS in case of power loss. Just had one myself this morning while playing World of Xeen. Monitor and speakers shut down and I freaked out for a second, then remembered I intentionally left those off the UPS to decrease the load on the battery. When they came back up and I could still see and hear my game, I thanked the UPS. 😀

Would I expect flames without a UPS? And what size one should I get for a 486, pentium 133 and pentium pro 180 (all proprietary systems so I guess 200 watts each?)

Flames? You're just protecting your systems from unexpected power loss/spikes. I've got an APC ES-550 and it protects my Core 2 Quad XP system as well as my 486 and K6 (though usually only one of those is on at a time). Just keep the PCs on the battery. Monitors, speakers, etc can go on the surge-only outlets.

I'm guessing your Pentium and 486 use about 50-60 watts at the wall and your PPro might be a little more. So a 550VA UPS should be more than enough for all three.