Hello,

Is it better to leave your router switched on 24/7?

My connection speeds fluctuate quite alot and i'm wondering if this is because I turn my router off quite often ?

I've read that if you turning off on a regular basis, your ISP (and BT) may see this as a connection fault and therefore reduce your connection speed to to fix it

Ideally, I would like to switch it off to reduce unnecessary wear and tear, increase security and to lower energy consumption.

Would like to clear this up,
Thanks, SNB

Leave it on.

mine's been on with only intermittent shutdowns for three years.

Yep i agree leave it on!

every router ive had has always been left on 24/7 with the current one its been nearly a year

Which reminds me must be nearly time for a possible upgrade or at least to see if there's a later firmware

Leave it on but ensure adequate ventilation; some get quite hot.

I have seen comments that the power supplies are designed for continuous use not regular power cycling. And ADSL Max will behave better as well.

Turning it on and off results in far more wear and tear than leaving it on constantly.

Leave it turned on.

I can't really refute what HPsauce is saying here, although my personal view is that any electrical component that is not designed to tolerate power cycling is badly designed. Nevertheless, any form of power cycling constitutes some form of wear and tear, in physical terms with regard to the power switch and temperature cycle fatigue for other components. Some materials/components may also degrade from continuous operation even at their design temperature.

I've seen other opinions on this forum which suggest that regular (i.e. once daily) reboots should not affect ADSL performance. I tend to only power up my router when I need to, leave it on for the rest of the day and power off overnight. Having said this, my connection performance can be described as variable, although I have yet to determine if this is due to the way I operate the router.

My personal experience is that the responses to queries on this forum are generally accurate and extremely helpful, and it is clear from reading this thread that the consensus view is to leave routers powered up 24/7. On this issue I remain undecided.

I think that my line can be a bit "dodgy" resulting in occasional loss of broadband during the night, and that causes more fluctuation problems than turning the router off over night.

By preference, I'd like to just leave it on and forget it, but my speeds have been all over the place in the last few weeks (hot weather, followed by heavy rain) (Unless that's something to do with the move to BBYW option 2 of course)

John

This is rather interesting from plusnet veiw your broadband usage page


Perhaps it doesn't answer the question about switching off the router when you are also switching off the computer, but it does raise the question in my mind as to whether usage is being consumed by "background usage". I  take it that this means usage I'm not aware of.

http://www.raffia.plus.com