Ever leave your PC on?

[project15]

hibernate is a better power save than standby. Standby still uses electricity while hibernate does not and only takes about 30 seconds to boot

[kork13]

I'm with project on this one... I shut down maybe twice a month... Otherwise, I always use hibernate.

[Seeker]

good for you!

As to saving the life of the pc as a reason to turn it off, its actually a highly debated topic as turning the pc on for a cold boot causes stress on the hardware as well. With todays long hardware life but short shelf life, chances are your pc would be outdated long before the major components fail due to keeping it running or turning it on from a cold boot.

Ive heard that leaving it on overnight for a month costs about $2.50 per month

In the past, turning off a computer was likened to turning off a lamp. When you powered it back on, it could burn out the switch. That's no longer the case today.

Hard Disk Drives have a MTBF (mean time between failure) that is rated in terms of the number of hours :

HDD Technology Overview Charts

This is of course barring power surges and failures. This technology has also been improving over the years, and the MTBF now is much longer than it has been say 10 years ago.

Ultimately, we do not keep the computers powered on, (not so much because of electricity costs -- we pay $40/month for both water and power), but more for the fact that someone else mentioned: the noise factor is a big one (my ears are too sensitive though DH cannot hear the computers, I certainly can).

If a computer is connected to the Internet 100% of the time (cable or DSL), then security can also be an issue with leaving the computer on. Disconnect the computer from the Internet if you're going to leave it on and set it defragging.

I always advise people to turn off their computers when they are not doing anything for 30 minutes or more. Clearing the cache (memory) is usually a good thing too.

[Seeker]

hibernate is a better power save than standby. Standby still uses electricity while hibernate does not and only takes about 30 seconds to boot

Yes, definitely.

Hibernate actually saves what you are working on, onto the hard disk drive of your computer. Then it shuts down the computer.

Standby just holds the information and shuts power to some of the peripherals (monitor, hard drive, network card, etc) and thus is using less power. You could lose some info if you suffer a power failure and have no battery backup (UPS on a desktop or batteries in a laptop).

[Broken Arrow]

I completely agree with the statement regarding the difference between hibernate and standby....

Unfortunately, I have not had a lot of luck with Hibernate myself. XP's implementation, at least on my PC, is buggy as crap. There have been times where it won't shutdown. There are times when it will shutdown and then it won't boot up right. And don't even get me started with people who uses it at work. I just tell them to avoid.

In my personal opinion, it's much easier to practice basic computing hygiene, which is to save all your work, and maybe even implement incremental backup procedure before putting the computer on standby.

Standby has worked flawless for me so far, on both desktops and laptops. So, that's what I use.

[Seeker]

I completely agree with the statement regarding the difference between hibernate and standby....

Unfortunately, I have not had a lot of luck with Hibernate myself. XP's implementation, at least on my PC, is buggy as crap. There have been times where it won't shutdown. There are times when it will shutdown and then it won't boot up right. And don't even get me started with people who uses it at work. I just tell them to avoid.

In my personal opinion, it's much easier to practice basic computing hygiene, which is to save all your work, and maybe even implement incremental backup procedure before putting the computer on standby.

Standby has worked flawless for me so far, on both desktops and laptops. So, that's what I use.

Have you patched for hibernation? WinXP Pro and WinXP Home Ed on computers with 1 GB of RAM (or more) needs to be patched:

Download details: Windows XP Patch: Hibernation Problem on Computers with 1 GB of RAM

[Broken Arrow]

Hrm, I'll check that tonight. Thanks for the tip!

[ea1776]

If you are using Windows, goto Control Panel -> Power Options.

Turn off the monitor after 20 minutes of no use.
Turn off the hard drives after 2 hours of no use.
System hibernate after 3 hours of no use.

[cicy33]

I'm with project on this one... I shut down maybe twice a month... Otherwise, I always use hibernate.

I have found that if we don't shut down at least once a day and reboot the computer kinda freaks out. Of course we are on the internet frequently, I run firefox since ie tends to just shut down at random! I do believe that firefox has a hidden pane that causes the problem. I have occasionally when shutting down or rebooting seen the box that states closing pane or something like that. Maybe I need to reinstall firefox?

[nim3]

I dont leave my pc on

[Broken Arrow]

I have found that if we don't shut down at least once a day and reboot the computer kinda freaks out. Of course we are on the internet frequently, I run firefox since ie tends to just shut down at random! I do believe that firefox has a hidden pane that causes the problem. I have occasionally when shutting down or rebooting seen the box that states closing pane or something like that. Maybe I need to reinstall firefox?

That really surprises me....

Not the shut down part. I also shut down daily too.

I am on Firefox both at work and at home... and have had very few problems.... It's only when I am running in conjunction with my MP3 player and a game or some other combination that I have problems. By itself, next to none.

What exactly does this closing pane say?

[geojen]

I always use hibernate, but we have laptops, so usually they aren't plugged into the way anyway.

IMHO, leaving your pc on overnight is a total waste of energy and a small thing that one can do to lesson their impact on the environment.

[PauletteGoddard]

I should make a habit of turning off my PC. I leave it on if I'm downloading a large file (of course, public domain).

My spouse leaves his workstations on, but as he works at home, and is on call on occasion 24/7, I do not see the $ saved on electricity as a win for us if it takes him seven minutes to boot up for a client whose need is so urgent that my spouse must be taken out of bed at 3:15 a.m.

[Broken Arrow]

I should make a habit of turning off my PC. I leave it on if I'm downloading a large file (of course, public domain).

I do that too. That or lending my computer to distributed computing projects (like the Human Genome project one time). Again, for me, I don't use power-saving features (except 20 minutes for the monitor) because if it IS left on, it's left on for a reason. Otherwise, I'll manually shut it down every night.

[PamelaB]

I use a little program called local cooling to help monitor my power usage. It has several preset options to control your computer. Check the link in my signature.