QOTD: Do You Shut Off Your PC At Night?

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I always turn my PC off at night, unless I'm downloading a big file. The reason being that here in SA there are power restrictions and I'm trying to save money - not to mention my system is bloody noisy at night 😀
 
Turning everything off whenever not in use. Mostly because I don't like the sound of any electronics running at night.. even stand-by has that buzzzzz... hate it.

And I don't get it - how can one turn-on/turn-off be worse for HDD than running all day long? Especialy since I use my home computer from roughly 5PM-11PM and my office computers since 8AM-4PM. So my home computer is turned on/off once a day and has 18 hours of "rest" in between. You're caliming that it's bigger hit on electronics if they are turned on/off once every 24 hours, than running 18h for nothing??!?! Weird logics.. or habits.
 
[citation][nom]micmic[/nom]No, I don't turn off my computer - bad thing is that I have a PSU and 2 hard drive busted due power surge or blackout - also my BIOS got corrupted when leaving the system 24/7 due to blackout - I have this setup at home - http://www.geocities.com/justanimation2k5/1234.jpg 250GB each drive.[/citation]

Now this is one more thing why I turn off my computer. I don't like the thought of something gone wrong while I'm gone. Power failures and power surges, stuff like that..

And as people already said - cost of "always on" (both power, and UPS) is just way too high. And certainly larger than POSSIBLE HDD or fan failer that would be caused by turining on/off.

Oh, and to add to all those comments - in all my life I had just one HDD fail (and it was that "suspicious" batch of IBM drives that were all over news in its days), and one fan fail (which died after like 7 years). So I doubt that all this "wear and tear" has any base.

Besides, manufacturers do state the time that device as fan or HDD is intended to work fine (MTBF), but haven't seen any drives that state "you can turn this device on/off only 1000 times". Seen it on rewritable discs only 😀 😛
 
My house has pretty uneven heat, so my Gaming PC keeps my bedroom warm while the two servers I run in my office keep it warm as well. So I leave them on for convinence in more ways than just speed to access.
 
I think of my computer as a server. If i am not downloading files I'm encoding video there is always something going on with my computer it never comes off.
 
I've run a computer centre for a number of years. Computers get switched on, run for 7-10 hours then get stay off for about 16 hours. My home desktop runs for between 5-12 hours a day depending on the day.

Simple rules apply - Switching your computer on / off once a day won't damage the hard drive. Look after your hard drive/s with regular maintenance. Often more damage is created when leaving it on for hours and hours when it's not being used. It also increases the risk of your system getting hit by a black out/storm.

A UPS is essential but honestly if it's lighting or a black out these can often damage your UPS.

Switch it on once a day and when it's off unplug your Equipment.
If you're running a server/ workstation leave it on, they're designed for this. Desktops are not.
 
i have to turn it off because it makes a hell of a raket at night... cant sleep with it on... not that bad during the day if i'm doing stuff, but cant stand it at night... plus all the leds in here kinda bright up all the bedroom lol
 
My HTPC is on all of the time, as is my desktop that also masquerades as a print and file server. I don't have my laptop on all that much except when I am using it or retrieving files from it to put on the desktop.
 
Two notebooks and an HTPC always in standby when not being used. My home draws a minimum of 120 watts when nothing is on or running. This includes a bunch of devices that sip power when off or in standby. Starting the HTPC increases the draw to 210 watts so the HTPC draws 90 watts. It's a modest AMD x2 with integrated graphics and two drives. These numbers are from timing the electric meter outside the house. The moral of this story is one modest PC can use almost as much power as an entire house of various devices.

In some respects the responses to this question are good news for conservation efforts. It appears there is a great deal of improvement that can achieved by placing unused computers into standby. The key is education about how much power these computers are using and the money that can be saved by placing them into standy. Some power companies are implementing metering displays that consumers can use to monitor their electricity usage in real time.
 
Always shut it down when I am done, even if only for a few hours.
There is absolutely no reason to leave it on if your are not using it, unless you are downloading a huge file/updating or some other task that takes a while to run.
To those who say shutting it down all the time is hard on it, I say ba-lon-ey.
 
[citation][nom]PCKid777[/nom]To the people who say that their comps use XXX+ watts of electricity because they have an XXX watt PSU, please get a Kill-A-Watt meter and see for yourself that PSU wattage does not equate to at-the-plug wattage.[/citation]
About time someone said this, My MCE system(that is on all time time due to TV recordings at all hours of the day)has a 450 watt psu and takes 70 watts at the plug.

My core 2 Quad @ 3.0 idles at about 188 watts and peaks well under 400(more along the low to mid 300's) even though it has a 700 watt psu. That system is off whenever its not in use.

Old lappy has been on and off(and hibernate) so many times if the hard drive was going to fail from that, it would have by now.
 
I had to do a Biology project on power usage of my computer, with gaming hardware it only used 60% of a gallon of gas in a week. I find the "green" savings negligible, not to mention I leave it on for downloads and such, it's mostly a 24/7 on rig.
 
I run OS on my newest machine (E-fix). Sleep mode rocks! It is instantaneous on and off, more like hibernate for PC's. I have never had a hard drive or motherboard fail turning the computer on and off everyday. One of my computers is 9 years old and still running strong. I have however probably saved many dollars over those 9 years by turning them off. As a plus, I've also save energy.
 
[citation][nom]fpsgamingsa[/nom]No I leave them on. 25 years of this and the ones left on always last longer. Thermal expansion/compression.[/citation]
This is exactly what my mentor in computing told me 20 years ago. I never turn mine off except for upgrades/maintenance. I utilize bios and software utilities to "rest" the system when not in use. Besides, I've set my system to download between 2-4am, after which a usually full day of activities ensue upon it.
 
My wife's and my kids' computers are set to go to sleep after an hour or something, but I always have mine running 24/7. The monitor is set to turn off but I run the Folding GPU client anytime I'm not playing games. I also usually leave torrents running at night since I hate surfing with them running. I've got a Q6600, HD3870, 5 HDD's (3 in RAID0), and a bunch of other crap too. I don't worry about lifespan of the components because I won't have the same hardware in 5 years. Or even 3. I pay my own electric bill (and it's clean, wind-generated) so if it costs me a lot that's my problem. I figured out once though that running just F@H costs me less than $10/month, so I'm not too worried especially if there's the possibly it can help cure somebody (maybe me, who knows). I don't fold on the other PC's because they don't have decent GPU's and it takes so long with their Athlon 64's it hardly seems worth it. If they had some decent graphics I would put them to work also.
 
hey
I have taken to shutting down my pc at night, because of the energy it pulls. Unfortunately some crackpot electrician put the downstairs office on the same circuit as the kitchen and we have problems with the breaker. Its a rental or I would fix this myself.

My wife works from home and has all her equipment there. My pc is sorta loud too with the overclocking and all, its just a better environment to work in with it off while she's down there. But as many watts as this system is pulling, I would prolly shut it off anyway.

However the server I leave on 24/7.
 
It would seem to me that the most often used manufacturer estimate of when a product would fail, MTBF, is not measured in Restarts but rather in overall run time. Alhough, yes there is wear and tear on any electrical device when changed from a cool state to a warm state, such as happens when turning on a harddrive, the effects of 24/7 use seem to outweigh the 1 restart you would have in the morning. I have been turning my computers off every time i'm done using them for ten years and have never had any issues arise from doing so.
 
I have a Folding/BOINC box that is set on a timer to only run at night. Night is when the grid has extra power to spare and when it's coolest in my house. I have a timer set in the BIOS to turn the system on at 10pm and a scheduled task in Windows to shutdown at 6am. It runs GPU Folding and the Clean Energy Project for 8 hours every night. The system draws about 170 watts at full load.
 
I always unplug ANYTHING that consumes power (even when things are turned off, they are not really "turned off" ( I think my $30 a month electric bill agrees with me on this one too). Ive had the same 160gb SATA drive for the last 4 1/2 years, been thru thousands of restarts and at least 20 reformats and is still running strong.
 
I have to turn mine off. The noise from the system and the various lights from the mobo, monitor, etc. are really irritating when im trying to sleep.
 
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