I play this online game, Conquer Online, and in the game, there is a place you go to where you can leave your character for slow leveling, for long periods of time. Anyway, would it hurt a computer to leave the game up and running for long periods of time? Say, several days or something? I minimize the game and turn off the monitor, but if it is bad for the cpu or processor or something, I won't do it. Anywho, thanks for the help, it is 12:30 am here tonight and Ill check responses tomorrow.

Many folks do not turn off their PCs at all (I don't) unless situation warrants that. The continuous running is not debilitating to the CPU or other components although if you are going to be away for days on end - it would seem logical to turn it off.....but this isn't a requirement....just something that falls under best practices.

I normally leave the machine running if I have many particularly large downloads queued up & will be away over the weekend or something like that, they are usually long done by the time I return. Some people turn theirs off at bedtime possibly to reduce energy bills, but the savings from that approach is not really for me ;-)

Ok thanks, I appreciate the quick response sabertooth.

I played that game as well but i quit it. It wont hurt your computer when you leave it all night. I can also assume that your computer might not produce much heat that can hurt your computer since it has a 770 mhz processor (i guess). It will only hurt your computer if your are running high demand tasks that require your computer to be fully working.

Also make sure sleep mode or anyother thing that might interfere should off if you want to leave it on.

My primary system specs:
Pentium 4 530J @ 3.15 GHz
Asus P5S800-VM
Kingston ddr 1 gb
Westren Digital WD800BB
ATi Radeon 9600 @ 390 Gpu, 250 Memory MHz
Windows Vista+Xp using Xp

The only computer I leave up and running is my server, since it acts as an Internet gateway, firewall, print, and file server. Thankfully, it merely sips power.

Power is the only reason I turn off all of the other computers, especially the gaming system. No, it won't hurt the CPU (and might even increase the lifespan of the power supply, due to less starts and stops) to leave the computer on 24/7.

But I've noticed that when my SUV of a gaming PC first starts up, the ceiling light actually flickers. I just can't bring myself to leave something so power-hungry turned on when nobody's using it. My $0.02...

Pentium III--Descendant of Intel Core.
Pentium III-S 1400 @ 1.63GHz, 512K L2
X800XT AIW OC 580/600
2GB of RAM
250GB HD
SB Audigy 2
QDI Advance 12 mobo
Smugly running Vista

Oh I didn't really read the thing that said cpu/ram, 2.5 ghz cpu, 700 somethin ram, I didn't feel like adding 256 and 512 last night, it was late :P. Anyway though, thanks again for the responses guys.