Leaving router and modem on forever bad?

No, the USB ports still have power because I wake my computer up with the USB mouse. That's what happens when you buy a fancy mouse! You could always cover it.

If you had a poll done on how many people left their router and modem on i would say an easy 90% plus, and
with so many devices that use wireless networking it's nearly impossible to turn it off nowadays.

imeem said:

Petey7 said:

imeem, not really. If your router is getting hot for some reason, it might. When it comes down to it, saying having it on all the time is bad is like saying having your refrigerator on all the time is bad.

The fridge is different, u have to leave it on 24x7 cuz of food/milk. But the router,when you are all alseep, your neighbor could hack ur WLAN

Your neighbor could hack it while you are awake too. Don't you use security measures like a password?

profdlp said:

My old cable modem had a Standby button, which I guess would be handy if you had kids and wanted to kill their Internet overnight. Unfortunately, my computers were often confused about "what happened to the Internet" when I tried to use it and would goof up the whole dang network. Gave it up after a few tries...

My new cable modem doesn't even have that option. (Probably due to frequent support calls to my ISP by other folks having the same problem; see above.)

Not trying to start a debate about energy conservation, but I think a lot of this hysteria about "vampire devices" is overblown. I did the math once and figured that if the numbers stated by the conservation proponents were correct that the entire US could save about three hours of electric usage per year. That's assuming all 300,000,000 of us unplugged all the crap they said we ought to unplug - and did it without failing every time we were supposed to. I think I'd get tired of resetting the clock on my DVR, microwave, etc, every single morning. (Not to mention the extra energy I'd use brewing more caffeinated beverages in order to give myself the wherewithal to do so...)

I'm all for conservation, but there are better ways of going about it. :)

Hear! Hear! Very well stated.

imeem said:

CarlTR6 said:

imeem said:

The fridge is different, u have to leave it on 24x7 cuz of food/milk. But the router,when you are all alseep, your neighbor could hack ur WLAN

Your neighbor could hack it while you are awake too. Don't you use security measures like a password?

profdlp said:

My old cable modem had a Standby button, which I guess would be handy if you had kids and wanted to kill their Internet overnight. Unfortunately, my computers were often confused about "what happened to the Internet" when I tried to use it and would goof up the whole dang network. Gave it up after a few tries...

My new cable modem doesn't even have that option. (Probably due to frequent support calls to my ISP by other folks having the same problem; see above.)

Not trying to start a debate about energy conservation, but I think a lot of this hysteria about "vampire devices" is overblown. I did the math once and figured that if the numbers stated by the conservation proponents were correct that the entire US could save about three hours of electric usage per year. That's assuming all 300,000,000 of us unplugged all the crap they said we ought to unplug - and did it without failing every time we were supposed to. I think I'd get tired of resetting the clock on my DVR, microwave, etc, every single morning. (Not to mention the extra energy I'd use brewing more caffeinated beverages in order to give myself the wherewithal to do so...)

I'm all for conservation, but there are better ways of going about it. :)

Hear! Hear! Very well stated.

Yes but people can still hack it. I used to turn off my router and modem 3-4 year ago, now my family is just too lazy.

There is no such thing as fully hack proof, where there's a will (to hack), there's a way (to hack). I never turn off my network devices (switches, routers, firewall appliances) at all. I think the one important matter in turning off a network device or not is "convenience". We can turn off our computer, put our laptops to sleep, switch our smartphones to airplane mode while it charges, but the second we go "online" we expect everything to work...

zzz2496

24/7 sometimes I have to power cycle the devices.

I have WPA2 set...one of the few of many wifi in my neighborhood. So, I doubt my wifi will be hacked before those set to WEP.

:)