I have a buddy at work that likes to brag about his extensive knowledge in everything, and, oftentimes, he's right. But one argument is tough to call: BIOS degradation. We were having a chitchat about power consumption in computers. He tells me that he leaves his computer on because its better than turning it on/off whenever he needs to. We both agree that sleep/hibernate are less power-hungry system settings, but then he traipsed off into an argument about powering-down too often. He claims that the BIOS written coding will degrade more and more as the system is rebooted. Is that even at all possible? . . . It's read-only memory, right? Shouldn't all of that information be hardwired to memory?

It can become corrupted, the settings can get fucked over but basically you are correct. BIOS is hard wired. It's hard wired into a programmable rom though.

Not accessible as system memory but It has to accept changes, so can be corrupted. And updated! It controls the direction of information based on the physical architecture of your motherboard. That's how windows can operate on a variety of different systems.

The answer is yes AND no, however, more no ...

My laptop tends to crash more if I've had it on for long periods of time.

That could be from an overheating problem Nitya, have you ever had it cleaned?

Yeah, blow it out good ...

I've heard both arguments and I used to keep my kit powered on when I lived in a power-cheap area.  Now that I live in a place where it costs like 4 times what it did in the other place I've been shutting stuff down.  Turns out shutting stuff off isn't as big a deal as the powered-on-ers would have you believe.

Case in point: This was typed on a 14-year-old iMac that saw service in an elementary school before I got it.  Knowing the eco propaganda they teach kids these days, I'm sure it was powered on and off at least 4 times a day.  Plus, it works better than both of my Gateways (7 and 12 y.o.).

I leave my shit on all the time and I have zero issues ...
(... just make sure it's on a really good surge suppressor)