Computer on 24/7 or off every night?

[Mark Phelps]

Turn off when not using.

Primarily out of habit. Started back in the "old" days when the PCs used lots of power and useful lifetimes of things like hard drives were a lot shorter.

But then .. also turn off lights and TVs when not in use.

 

[Zomby88]

Just my own opinion but, I turn them off when I`m done. Leaving them on is like saying here`s my car keys, drive it around until I need it. All your parts will die that much sooner.

 

[pparks1]

Just my own opinion but, I turn them off when I`m done. Leaving them on is like saying here`s my car keys, drive it around until I need it. All your parts will die that much sooner.

I'm not sure that I agree that this means "parts will die that much sooner". Keeping a continuous flow of electricity to the parts is often better for them then the surge of power as they first turn on and turn off. Plus, over time, they heat and cool with repeated turn ons and turn off's...and this places stress on solder joints and everything else. Many, many servers run 24x7 and some only develop a problem when they actually get rebooted.

 

[unifex]

I do turn mine off. See no reason for the noise at night.

 

[Ex_Brit]

I'm tempted to leave mine on all the time, albeit with the monitor and external drives etc., turned off in order to get my grid computing (BOINC) work done faster but feel guilty about burning up power unnecessarily so turn everything off when I go to bed.

 

[Wishmaster]

I only reboot if Windows update needs too, or a app updated and needs too.

Otherwise, it stays on 24/7

 

[noobvious]

Sleep mode for me. I do one full shutdown every week or two, or when an update calls for it. My printer and external drive, I leave turned off, unless I am going to use them.

 

[MWRed]

I turn mine off usually at night just because of our meseed up weather, but mainly because it's NOT quiet at all,lol.

 

[lnxtinman]

sleep mode...np with it.

 

[stormie1341]

this is a topic that has been debated on for ages on one hand they say its better to leave it on cause it keeps your temps regular and cuts down on thermal stress (heating up when you power up and cooling off when you shut down) but on the other hand if you shut down when your not useing it it cuts down on the wear and tear and saves power i usally shut down unless its doing something for me converting video downloading ect.

 

[stormie1341]

btw hibernate works real well if you want to beable to get back on it quickly with out haveing to wait for everything to load backup

*sorry for the double post*

 

[silkman]

I feel that only servers need to run 24/7 and again not all of them. An Exchange server or a domain server should be on 24/7 but a file server should not. Oh and I vote standby not power off - pc comes back instantly.

If you experiment a bit with wake on lan features then you can save lots on power if you have 2-3 desktops running 24/7 eg, main desktop, file pc or nas and htpc... You can even turn a pc on from the internet from a full power off state....

Just my 2 cents.

 

[gregrocker]

Reading the comments here makes me wonder how many have tried the greatly improved Sleep and Hibernate options in Win7. I have users tell me all the time to set sleep to Never because it messes up their computer, judging only by previous XP or Vista experience.

As with many other functions, things have changed for the better with Win7 and Power Options is one of them. I find both Sleep and Hibernate have worked perfectly for over a year now without a glitch. It really is worth troubleshooting install (usually video) issues if they preclude sleep at first, and trying Sleep and Hibernate to see how they make powering up and down effortless and instantaneous.

You can even turn a pc on from the internet from a full power off state....

Fascinating. Please tell us how exactly.