Gizmodo
Eco-friendly is the a word thrown around a lot these days, and an ever-increasing number of people are going out of their way to conserve power. Combine that with a desire to increase the longevity of our hardware and you have the basis for a question that has been floating around forever: do you leave your computer on or turn it off when not in use?
Most consumer drives aren't rated for 24/7 use, and even if your drives are set to sleep, you're going to wear out fan bearings and suck dust into the case. Then again, those torrents aren't going to download themselves.
Comments
Leave it on when I'm downloading some... files. Yeeaahhh...
turn off? ...describe for me this concept "turn off"
Uptime baby!!
easier and quicker to turn off the lights.
How about a "put it to sleep" option. Geez guys...
It is on all day, all week and all year long. Sometimes to render out videos or download torrents or for Vista to defragment my disks and check for updates then continue indexing my 2.5 TB of Data, or just keep it on for the hick of it! :)
But the monitor is on auto sleep after 30 minutes.
i leave mine on all the time, but i always have seti@home or something running when i'm not using it, so it's still doing something productive
I see the picture, and the song by Snap pops in my head.
Yeah I own a laptop and never turn it off. Then again I don't own a car and I recycle most things so I hardly think I'm destorying thr world either. Plus I only use one thing at a time, i.e. I don't have my laptop/tv/games console on at the same time.
I never turn any of my computers off manually. My MCE box and desktop go to sleep after inactivity and my server is on 24/7.
Statistically, the power they consume is practically null compared to much larger problems and waste in the power industry.
I don't turn it off, personally. Whatever it chooses to do when I'm not around, however, is completely up to it.
@Mekevorka: Sleep is for sissies. Besides, the cable modem and wifi run 24/7 anyway...
i know not the meaning of this power button u speak of
file/print/remote access server - 24/7/365
htpc - sleep mode when not in use
gaming rig - off when not using it.
Im on the sleep bandwagon. since vista sp1 its become more bearable
I usually turn it off at night. I don't have any reason to leave it on usually.
I try to think green but when im bit torrenting my favorite Linux distro its hard to shutdown. ;)
Can anyone take an educated guess at how many watts are being consumed by a desktop, monitor (in standby), wireless router and cable modem? I'd be curious if turning off at night is a $1/month proposition or a $20/month proposition. I bet it's closer to $20. Those things suck more power than you might think.
I keep it on but I make sure to turn the monitor off.
Is it wrong that I bought a little fan for my girlfriends house so that it sounds like a case fan is on and I can sleep?
it depends on the computer. my linux box is only on when i'm near it. my main windows box is always on. and the laptop (running ubuntu) is rarely on because it always has to be plugged in.
I schedule my computer to turn about an hour before I get home with my Mail app automatically starting up. It's also scheduled to turn off in the morning.
Notebook/Laptop that's on 24/7 for torr...errr stuff.
@bandit: When I decided to use my computer to run Folding continuously, I noticed my electric bill went up to almost $40/month on average.
Both my main computer and server go into "low power" mode (screens shut off, hard drives spin down, etc) during the day unless called upon.
I worry about the energy usage, but my machines are my only reason to live :(
wow, thanks for killing the enviornment guys.
end guilt trip. (learned from girlfriend)
I have everything plugged into power bars (why pay for phantom power?) which I shut down at night and while I'm at work. But my notebook is on as long as I'm at home and awake.
Y'know, changing all the white space on this page to a darker color would save lots of energy. Just a thought.
Earthwatts, baby.
But come on, is it really that hard to turn it off at night, assuming you're not actually doing anything with it? Do you leave lights on at night too?
@Biggy: 30 minutes, wow. Mine's set to 1. It takes a split second to go back on.
I turn mine off when ever I go out or at night, not because I think about saving the environment but because I fear it will catch fire and burn everything to the ground.
Ah irrational fears.....
my laptop is on pretty much 24/7, I only shut if off occasionally, but the second monitor I'm using with it is usually off unless I'm on it... my mythserver/torrent box is on all day everyday, and the xbox I use as a frontend normally doesn't get shut off either. One of my roomates is pretty much an idiot, so unfortunately the tv and receiver often get left on most of the day too when I'm not around to shut them off for him.
@Eothein: so you never watch TV or play video games?
My laptop has been up for 12days now. Basically since the last required restart. I will put it to sleep but it's still on.
I never use to, but my current gaming rig has an 800 watt power supply which even in low consumption mode is a lot of drain. I"d rather not pay for the power when I'm not using it.
Turn off at night, and on days when nobody is going to be home all day. All other days it's one from 6A-11P. When not in use it goes to sleep after 30 minutes. Sometimes I leave it on all night when it's rendering or something, but mostly it gets a break just like the rest of us. The wifi and network printers are up all the time.
They're on 24/7. I can't remote in if they're not on.
Essentially, I don't keep any personal data at work. Ever. I need to remote home every now and then to get things that I need.
@Rev. Eaton Yorke Hunt: I believe that only saves power with CRT monitors. www.blackle.com was a cool concept but once I found out it only really helped with CRT monitors, I stopped using it.
I put mine into hibernate when I leave it during the day (makes for a very quick start-up), or it will go into a low-power mode if it idles. I do a full shutdown at night.
@Rev. Eaton Yorke Hunt: I remember reading somewhere that that only applies to CRT monitors.
- Computer At Work: Goes to Sleep
- 3 computers at home: Go to sleep
- D-Link NAS stays on 24/7 so I can stream from / download to it.
@pliSkiNAKE: haha, you beat me to the spot.
I use mine as a DVR (windows media center), so I keep it on for my tv shows... I will be getting a media center machine for that purpose and as a media server sitting in my closet, makes it easier for me to sleep (no loud pc fans blaring near my bed) and it will use less power (the MCE machine will be a low powered machine)
I always put it to sleep when I'm at home but I'll turn it off when I'm out of the house.
Obviously, it's not only the poor who do things contrary to their economic self-interests.
@bandit: I got one of those Kill-a-watt things and the computers in my house were anywhere from $7-11 a month. (about 2.5-3.5 kwh per day)
I have to leave my PC on all night for torrents (my ISP uses peak and off-peak periods with download limits). I do turn the monitor and speakers off though...
And during the day, if I'm going away from the PC for any length of time, I put it to sleep. The Vista sleep mode is great.
There's no reason to have systems on 24/7 unless you're running a server that needs that kind of uptime. The reason people typically leave them on all the time is they are too impatient to wait the 30-60 seconds for their systems to start up.
up 20 days, 2:09, 2 users, load averages: 0.40 0.39 0.26
I have laptops I always shut them down when not in use, I also have my cable modem/router/printer/NAS all on timers so they are off when I know there's no possibility Ill be needing them (like when Im at work or sleeping).