Ever leave your PC on?

[Jazzmint98]

During the day, the computer is off. Overnight it is usually in the hibernate mode. I have noticed a reduction in my electric bill. I used to always have it on.

[feh]

We always turn off our PCs when they aren't being used.

The only exception is the home theatre PC, which is placed in standby when not being used.

For those folks who are too impatient to wait for a machine to cold boot: definitely use standby/hibernate and turn off the monitor.

[Sporkman]

May I suggest Linux?

I'll second that. No more need for firewalls, antivirus tools, defragging, and all that other BS you need with windows machines. Plus it's free, and it works well on older hardware that can't run bloated & inefficient windows.

...or, if you're made of money, Macs are pretty nice too, and MacOSX shares the same benefits as Linux in terms of security.

[Broken Arrow]

I'll second that. No more need for firewalls, antivirus tools, defragging, and all that other BS you need with windows machines. Plus it's free, and it works well on older hardware that can't run bloated & inefficient windows.

...or, if you're made of money, Macs are pretty nice too, and MacOSX shares the same benefits as Linux in terms of security.

Yeah, I basically agree, but due to my general interest in the field, I hope you don't mind if I nit-pick on some of the finer details.

So, just for the sake conversation anyway, I'd like to point out that firewalls are still a very big deal, regardless of OS. However, while firewalls can become an entire topic unto itself, the basic reason why we don't see firewall applications in *nix like the way we do in Windows is because many free and powerful packet filtering applications already exist. It's just a matter of installing and configuring it. In fact, some enterprise-level hardware firewalls out there use exactly this combination of OS and software....

As for defragging, I must admit that NTFS (Window's latest file system) has reached parity with common *nix file systems. That is, both are now capable of automatically micro-defragging on the fly, which in practice is said to be "good enough".

Anti-virus is an interesting topic. A lot of "techies" don't use them, and truth is, neither do I. There are simply better solutions out there (but is likely more invasive to your system, and may require more time and knowledge to implement). While *nix have their share of malware, they are indeed a smaller target, the user base is generally more technically savvy, and there are less vulnerabilities to the system IMO. However, I think this will probably hold true with more BSD than with Linux, with notable exceptions such as SELinux.

That said, I have to give credit where credit is due, and Microsoft's Trustworthy Initiative is very admirable indeed. Still, while they've plugged up a lot of of holes, but I think real, practical security is going to have to start from the ground up, with correctness in coding in mind. That's something that I don't think Windows will ever achieve unless they restart from scratch....

By now, you can probably tell that I am a BSD snob.

However, as a former Mac user and still a fan to some extent, I agree it's safe to say that OSX is, by far, the most user-friendly version of BSD out there. For non-techies with money to burn, that's what I recommend. For non-technies looking for freebies, Linux is the better way. If you care about security more than you care about user-friendliness, then I personally prefer BSD....

[mishi07]

Not if i want my electric bill to boost. plus, it gets buggy as hell when I don't reboot daily. (Am on vista 32bit, core2duo, 1Gmemory)

[ParsnipsRhubarbCelery]

Aside from the energy usage, I wonder what is the *safest* for my computer -- to leave it on during the day, and turn it off at night? Or, to turn it off throughout the day (assuming I use my computer maybe twice, or three times a day)?

[solo]

I have been told by my (very few) frugal friends, that powering down your computer at night does in fact save on the electric bill.
However, I cannot get the techies (sp?) in my house to power down at night. Apparently the start up wait is SUCH a hassle (rolls eyes)

I'm not a techie, but...what about Wake-on-LAN? Putting the computers on hibernate will surely save on the electric bill, no?

[Broken Arrow]

I'm not a techie, but...what about Wake-on-LAN? Putting the computers on hibernate will surely save on the electric bill, no?

WoL is a security nightmare waiting to happen. Well, maybe other people may not care about it, but I do. That said, it's a rather creative solution, but I question the necessity of such a solution to begin with....

See, I'm not sure what the big deal with boot-ups and shutdowns taking "too long". Most techies I know of are used to it. (Working in a corporate environment will temper some patience into you whether you like it or not.)

Then again, there are some who are really into fast boot-ups, but you don't typically find people like that running, say, Windows that I'm aware of. The ones I've seen are shell jockeys who love to use micro-kernels. That and/or very light GUIs.

And then there's the embedded stuff that provide instant on and off.

So, again, I don't really understand why people complain about bootups and shutdowns times. I boot up and shutdown every day, but I also admit that I'm not a techie.

[solo]

Get everyone notebooks (lease them from Dell or something). Give them a chance to telecommute to work and require them to take their notebooks home or store them in their locked cabinets.

Another way is to set the computer to portable/laptop profile. This turns off the HD, the monitor and sets the system on standby. Disallow them to change power scheme.

[tark]

I always leave my laptop on...just close the screen. It may make minor changes in your bill.

[jeffmem]

24/7 365, figured out it costs me about $47 a month to leave it on. That includes, however, the computer, the fax machine, DSL modem, and I have pc speakers that I use with it sometimes to listen to music, my speakers are like 800 watts, the louder the music the more power you use, the more bass you use the more power you use, just my own tests. I also have a light that I sometimes use that is plugged in to the same power strip I have my meter on. So all in all, yeah it is a little expensive, but I don't like to turn my machine off and on all the time.

[JeanneElle]

My electric bill went down $10/mo when I started turning my computer off every night.

Hey, that's three trips to Starbucks ;-) !! Wahooo...

[MaskedMarvel]

Wow I didn't know you could save that much. I turn my computer off every night but I have a small server that I keep running. It doesn't have a monitor at least.

[jeffmem]

Honestly not sure what pulls more. But I believe the PC does unless you have an old CRT monitor. I run a 430W power supply so I know my power consumption is a bit more. I also use an LCD monitor.

[vole]

There are three schools of thought on when to turn off the computer.

1. Turn it off as soon as you're done using it.

2. Turn it off at the end of the day.

3. Never turn it off.


The major stress to computer electronics as from the surge that comes with powering on-off. Best to reduce that by leaving the computer on. At IBM the custom was to turn the computer off at the end of the day.

I leave my computer on all the time. The problem being that Windows crashes enough to make that an impossibility. My linux server has been running for years with a reboot only when the power lines go down.

As for the cost, when the monitor and computer go into power savings mode the cost is minimal compared to my refrigerator.

-Dave