QOTD: Do You Shut Off Your PC At Night?

[computabug]

[citation][nom]ph3412b07[/nom](you don't keep your car's engine running overnight, do you? ok bad example....kind of). I put my faith in the engineers of WD, Seagate, Hitachi...etc to design their spindles with an infinite fatigue cycle life. still not happy with mechanical components? time to go solid state.[/citation]

Lol that's an excellent example!

I turn off my computer. All of them. Then, I flick the switch on my surge protector. I've got a surge protector with 3 'always on' outlets for a phone base and some other mobile device chargers, but the power to my computer/printer/monitor get cut off (except this one Brother printer that auto cleans itself while off every few months, I plug that in always on. Otherwise, it cleans itself everyday when I flick the surge protector back on)

 

[Guest]

I leave my computers on. In effect they are space heaters. If I turned them off it would just mean I'd have to turn our heating on more frequently; this is the same reason I have a 300 watt halogen lamp providing illumination for my office, it's comfortable (with a sweater) even with the heat off and it's freezing outside! In this way it does not increase the cost of my electric bill.

 

[Guest]

Turn off, god i need to get quieter fans!!!!!!

 

[Timbo70]

Think of the environment people!!! It's a no brainer to leave a PC on even in standby mode. I turn my main desktop PC off when I am not using it, even if I need it again in an hour or so. I do the same thing with my laptop. Components have never failed on me, I think this excuse is just rubbish and pure impatience laziness on the users part. If you think your hard drive may go down, simple back it up. Think of the future for once

 

[Guest]

Hello, I saw a comment that said the mechanical wear and tear is negligible if you turn off your PC every night. Well, from my experience I think it's not. I've been using computers for more than 15 years and I haven't turned off my PCs in the last 10 years... I can tell you that I've NEVER lost a hard drive. A lot of my friends have lost their hard drives and they all turn off their PCs every day, I guess that means something.

 

[rjkucia]

Yes, otherwise the noise would keep me up at night!

 

[FSXFan]

[citation][nom]timbo70[/nom]Think of the future for once[/citation]

Why, the TV keeps telling me the world is ending in 2012. I mean, it must be true since I see some show every week talking about how the end of the world is coming. I say screw it, I'm leaving my toaster on all night too from now on.

jk, but I'm still gonna run Folding cause my GPU kicks ass at it.

 

[Daller]

I leave my computer and stereo on at night and wake up every morning to loud rock music!

Also: I live in a country that sells wind energy for next to nothing during the night to its neighbouring countries.

 

[Gryphyn]

Am I missing something? Don't hard drives shut down when idle for a while? Why is everyone pointing to hard drive failure as a reason to leave things on?

For me it has to do with dust/pet hair in addition to energy. I'm only on my home computer for a couple of hours each day. It doesn't make sense to leave it on. And, if I do, I am always having to clean cat hair and dust out of the filters.

I have yet to have had a failure from turning any machine on or off. I have, multiple times though seen a computer fail because something happened while it was on that caused it to overheat, or the power cycle and spike (no UPS) and trashed a motherboard/PSU.

 

[rags_20]

I put it to sleep when I go to sleep. It then wakes up during the night for some downloads/updates and in the morning I use it again.

 

[vladtepes]

[citation][nom]Cache[/nom]I've never had a hard drive (or any other component) die out on me because of turning the PC off each night. That said, both my wife and I have 750-watt power supplies, my daughters' PC runs a 400-watt supply. To leave all of these on--even in hiberation--would really eat into the family budget over the course of a month. It's not about being green, as not paying money to the local electric company. Besides, seeing as we're all away at work (or school) for 10 hours each day, plus sleeping for another 6-7 hours, there really isn't THAT much time we spend on the home PC's (though not for lack of trying...).[/citation]
Hibernation is consumes the same power as shutting down the computer. It will also be the same if you hibernate/shutwon and unplug/switch off the AC power
As for me is use S3 in my desktops and hibernation in my notebook

 

[jaragon13]

I hardly see how running my fans 24/7 will INCREASE their lifespan..
I on occasion turn off my computer but mostly leave it on for F@H.

 

[empstar]

I will turn off my desktop PC when I don't use it, unless I'm downloading something (bittorent)

 

[QEFX]

The Windows PCs & laptop are turned off at the powerbar/surge protector.
The SFF Linux box stays on, but the monitor is turned off.

 

[wikiwikiwhat]

Some of you people must have never OC'd a PC before. You need to turn your system off. A machine is just like a human, it needs sleep too. Just not too much. I'm in the same boat as the other guy, I gots a powerful system and no, I don't leave it on overnight at all. Do I have servers? yeah...they do stay on all the time though. But they ain't got much in them.

 

[sedate]

I always turn off my computers for two reasons:
1) Fans will cause dust to accumulate and that can, eventually, cause my video card to overheat and crash if too much dust gathers in the heat sink - it is such a pain to clean it out - I have to use a shop-vac AND a can of compressed air!
2) Chances are high the electricity that keeps the computer on comes from burning coal, which is REALLY bad for the environment - I can turn my computer off to save the earth.

 

[norbs]

I leave my mediacenter on 24/7 but not my desktop since i don't use it enough.

 

[vest101]

24/7 for me. altho i throttle down my clockspeeds at night to save a bit of power and hardware life. My main pc is also in my room and the low constant hum actually helps me sleep. i wake easily and it helps drown out ambient noises.

 

[rigaudio]

I put it to sleep every night. I have a SSD, so the only moving parts in there are my CD player and the fans.

 

[wint3rmute]

Reason I turn mine off at night and not leave it doing something is because of the light / noise it makes. Have a Thermaltake Speedo Advance... side fan makes a racket because of the pressure. When I do need to leave it on at night I take the panel off- but that occasion is usually never, because my Media Centre PC does the off-peak downloading and is programmed to turn off in the morning.

 

[D2ModPlayer]

I turn it off every night. Once I turn my computer on for use during the day I leave it on. I turn off the monitor when I'm leaving for extended periods but no standby, makes the system unstable sometimes.

I haven't had one hard drive fail since my old Seagate 160. I have 3 drives now and everything is fine. I think my constantly moving files around is using up much more hard drive life then turning it off. I currently do not even allow my drives to spindown from nonuse. My external drive has a mind of it's own and I can't stop it anyway.

 

[pent5ht]

I Shut it down usually, no point for me leaving it on because i dont run a server or anything just play games, i only leave it on if im downloading. The power bills where through the roof when i left it on 24/7 for 3 months lol! So mainly its to save that power bill each month.

 

[Guest]

I don't understand the hard drive argument. Doesn't the drive stop spinning after a while when the drive is idle? So the wear and tear would be the same?

No wonder the US is the #1 polluter in the world. You guys also drive big fat SUVs?

 

[particleman]

My usual procedure is simple. When I arrive home from work.....I turn my system on (5 second max boot from sleep). I put it back to sleep when I go to bed. On my days off...it remains on the entire day. I found that Cool & Quiet saves me at least $30 per month in electric if I leave my PC on 24/7. It also helps that I set my Monitors to go into power saving after only 5 minutes.

Cheers,

-Particleman

 

[JimmiG]

Always turn off my desktop PC at night. I can wait for it to boot.. I mean just grab a cup of coffee or something while you wait. Much better than having it waste hundreds of watt-hours just so you can get online without having to wait 45 seconds first. When I started using computers it used to take 15-20 minutes to load a game from a cassette deck or 5.25" floppy disk.. people these days are so impatient... if it doesn't happen in 20ms or less, the waiting time is unbearable...