Do you leave your computer on all the time?

[yoda313]

I alternate. Sometimes I'll leave it in standby and other times I'll shut it off completely. Usually for the weekends I'll put it in standby because I use it then more often.

[slickster]

Myself, it's on 24/7.

Ciao

[jagabo]

One yes, others hibernate or shutdown.

[gll99]

When we're out for more than an hour or 2 and it's not running anything the power goes off. When I'm home, it's usually on unless I know it won't be used for a few hours.

I used to run it 24/7 unless we went out of town.

[JohnnyMalaria]

It varies. Typically for my main machine, I have to boot into different OSes so it goes off. My location is prone to power glitches/outages, so sleep mode is unpredictable.

Until I recently got DSL (miracles do happen in the sticks), I had a laptop running 24/7 as a gateway for an ISDN connection.

My laptop that I actually lug around is usually in standby or hibernate mode, I rarely turn it off.

[gadgetguy]

All of them are on, all of the time, except when replacing hardware or cleaning. I don't use any "power saving" modes on any of them. I used to use hibernation on my laptop, but it always sets the DVD writer to PIO mode so it's less hassle just to power it down.

[Salva Veritate]

My one computer is usually on almost 24/7 during the winter, but in the summer if I leave it on for more than 4 hours from 4-11 my room heats up so much i can't sleep. I minimize computer usage during the summer (which makes sense too, since I'm a student)

I also can't leave it on overnight for the same reason. What I did often was put one of my Rage Against the Machine bootleg DVDs in to convert with AutoGK right before going to sleep (killing two birds with one stone, I was going to do that anyway), and set it to shut down after finishing. That way my room would cool down enough by morning enough to make it seem like it was off all night.

[Dv8ted2]

My main system stays on all the time. My laptop is shut off when I get through.

[dun4cheap]

My main system is left on 24/7. My media center is left on 24/7, it not only runs my Tivo stuff, I use it to serve my media files to my 3 buffalo link theaters and use it to host a basic web server. As for the others, the kids turn them off and my laptop is usually off.

Although I am tired of the $350 a month electric bills so I may start shutting stuff off.

[classfour]

I used to leave them on 24/7 - until the local power company started raising the rates.

Now, if they don't have work (I have three: main, backup, and video recording PCs) to do, they are shut down.

I did finally do the math on three power supplies running constantly: equal to drying your hair all the time


OR - many lights on at once.

my two cents.

[träskmannen]

Main computer is on when I'm at home and awake. When I go to bed I turn it off (unless it is working on some task - capturing, encoding, you name it) and when I get home from work I turn it on again. The others are always off unless I need them.

[mats.hogberg]

It's always on while I'm home and awake, and I don't have it go to stand by or hibernate. I just shut down the monitor and drives after some 30 minutes or so. It may be on at other times too, but not on a regular basis.

/Mats

[dadrab]

I used to be ritualistic about shutting down, but after replacing a couple of power supplies, I don't do it anymore. Our (the family's) main system is rather of an antique (speaking in computer terms) so it has to be rebooted from time to time, but my Audio/Video system stays on except when I travel.

Both are pretty much on all the time.

[TBoneit]

Not because I care about being green but because I don't want to pay for the electric I turn them off when done. I also turn them off and disconnect the power at a power strip.

That avoids having to replace power supplies that got fried during a storm.

[dcsos]

GREEN = BULLSHIT
turn off your computer when you go out unless you need to access it remotely

I am very happy for you in advance if your computer is compliant with the GREEN FEATURES -- certainly shipped
but often not implemented with my systems.
I am hearing of how companies ply the government and community and receive numerous give backs for 'green' features of computer hardware.
Now I go and try to use these features.
Either WINDOWS XP has a bug up its ass, or computers won't hibernate, standby or go to sleep properly
VISTA compounds this issue with many more jargonladen heavy modes of "GREEN SUPPORT"
involvng 'full sleep" and partial sleep modes.. gadzooks what a mess!

Even MAC's are problematic in this area
OK the MAC willl slep and shut down perfectly..but add some third party please
Quoting G-TECH: do not check "put hard drives to sleep" or your raid array "may be damaged"

[Baldrick]

15.8/7

[Constant Gardener]

I have two computers running 24x7 every winter - they keep the chill off the basement as they pump out 300 watts between them. More hydro, less gas, costs the same. I recently built a "green" system that hibernates very efficiently, but I haven't used it enough to determine if it's reliable.

[DereX888]

Thats really sad so many people don't use (probably don't know how to set up) hibernation.

What a waste of electricity!

I have two computers running 24x7 every winter - they keep the chill off the basement as they pump out 300 watts between them. More hydro, less gas, costs the same. I recently built a "green" system that hibernates very efficiently, but I haven't used it enough to determine if it's reliable.

Even one my oldest machines is able to hibernate, because hibernation is a Windows feature (starting with Windows 2000 and newer).
No one need to buy or make new machine to use it (unless its a Windows 9x machine - but then even if you buy newest ACPI APM machine that OS still won't use hibernation at all).
ALso what does it mean to "hibernate efficiently"? :O
Either machine hibernates or it doesn't, there is no more or less efficient hibernation - same as your machine cannot be turned off little bit more or little bit less efficiently. Its an oxymoron
Either it hibernates or it does not.



The GREEN features is a marketing bullshit.
All oldest motherboards that are in use nowadays ("686") DO support turning off hard disks and CPUs.
And if they have hibernation-supporting OS, theyre all GREEN already, because no feature can save any more electricty than by turning off machine completely (be it shutdown or hibernate).

And those who run any server obviously won't and can't shut it down - thus the oldest simple power-saving features (turn off harddisks, idle CPU) are already sufficient enough.

Sometimes I read people complaining that modern machines require more power (ie 450W PSU instead of 130W PSU on old Pentium 100MHz).
Well, guess what: achieving few hundred times faster computing (or say 30x more CPU clocks at 3GHz vs 100MHz) at only 3x more power consumption is a GREEN feature itself already, isn't it? Obviously you'll need ~4000 Watts of total PSUs if you would run 30 machine clusters at 100MHz each to achieve 3GHz computing speed...

[JohnnyMalaria]

I agree the GREEN stuff is really brown stuff. There's NOTHING green about high performance electronics, especially from a life cycle management perspective. Same as the nonsense from hybrid car manufacturers.

I did have hibernate on my main box (under the Vista boot) but I was running low on disk space. In fact, when I added an extra 1GB RAM, I started getting low disk space warning. Puzzled at first, I realized it was because of the larger hiberfil.sys file. So I disabled hibernation in order to delete the file. Now, I either use standby (for short periods) or turn it off (I frequently switch OSes).

On my Dell laptop (not chosen by me!), I swear that when I put it into standby, it always comes out of hibernation.....still, this is the same laptop with a keyboard light key but no actual light.....

[handyguy]

Computers are one of those things that don't seem to get energy saving stickers. Monitors do.

I turn mine off at night. In the old days with old PS's it was better to keep them on.

[JohnnyMalaria]

"Energy Star" labels should read "Lazy Bastard Certified".

[Constant Gardener]

Don't dismiss "green" as hype. Look at the power consumed when something is off. TVs, computers, microwaves - you name it. The newest products use much less power in standby and off. Of course, if they had real power switches on their front panels, we might turn them off completely and save gigawatts globally, but that would involve leaving the couch.

[redwudz]

I have one that is on 24/7, the rest only when in use. I ordered a watt meter just to see how much power they are using, especially in standby or hibernate modes. My two video servers can heat a room, so they are only on when I'm using them. My laptop is on most of the time but set to go to standby when I close the lid, so that's very convenient. But I do shut it off if I will be gone more than a day.

If you want to find out how much power your devices are using, Supermedia store has a wattmeter for about $26US at present that seems like a good deal: http://www.supermediastore.com/kilwateldet1.html

[dcsos]

Fine-turn your power settings to save electricity.
says PC world...
well maybe this freeware one will work?
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,67287-order,1-page,1/description.html

[ogk]

$20.99 at newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001

[SingSing]

Just as I though. How does this device figure out the power factor, and calculates power in watts. Er, it does not !

From the review at neweggs :

Cons: In the description it lists power as VA which is not the same as power for anything other than a heating element or light bulb.

[SingSing]

I am suprised how many people really turn off their PCs and wasted countless "3~6 minutes" to get to their PC just to check E-mail, and other tasks.

We use Hibernation for all our PCs and Laptops. Because Hibernation is safe and fast and green! Try it, and bet you will agreed.

For detail see : http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=745

[dcsos]

Because Hibernation is safe and fast and green!

when it works

USUALLY on BUSINESS MACHINES not modified since purchase...

once you go in the box, from my experience, the powermanagement can't take the hit and unless you spend some serious time re-engineering "green" it ain't gonna happen...
just my 2cents

[handyguy]

'Because Hibernation is safe and fast and green! '

PC's need to be rebooted now & then so that they can have a cold boot.

[Shocker Milwaukee]

Q: Do you leave your computer on all the time?

A: Of course