Do you leave your computer on all the time?

[Grenage]

I used to, but now we're 'Efficiency Nazi's'. Go Godwin's Law!

A group of us pay a small amount each for a download/upload server at a datacentre in London; so we don't need our machines on unless we're using them, or pulling off the server.

As for wear and tear from booting a computer - it's negligible. The money saved from not leaving the machine on, would pay for a new computer every two years (at least, in my circumstances).

Modern computers are a lot more efficient than older kit.

[Paqman]

Is there any electrical math guru's on here that can calculate usage for a 350 or 400watt pwr supply over a years time? (IDK how we'd match Monitor usage since there are so many different types.)

Too me it seems like there would be too many variables to count but any way we could get a general number?

Not much guruism required. It all depends on how much power your machine draws on average. Lets take a conservative estimate and say your machine idles at about 100W. Over a year that will be 24 x 365.25 = 8766 hours, for 876.6kWh. Multiply that by whatever you pay per kWh (it'll be on your power bill) and you've got the cost.

I pay about 13p/kWh in the UK, so it'd cost me about £114 a year to leave a 100W machine on all the time. Which is why I always turn my machines off when they're not in use, except for my NAS which is ARM-powered and only uses about 8W.

One thing to bear in mind is that PC PSUs continue to draw about 5W when the machine is off. If that bothers you you'll need to turn the computer off at the wall or the switch on the PSU.

[id1337x]

Thanks to Ubuntu I now do.

[VinDSL]

So, do you leave your computer on all of the time, or do you turn it off at night? Any reasons why?

I turn my computers off at night.

This machine has a P4EE flamethrower in it. Doubles as a space heater...

[jespdj]

I switch it on only when I'm going to use it, and when I'm done, I switch it off (completely off - I don't even put it in sleep mode).

I do the same thing with my desktop and with my laptop. Some people leave their MacBook Pro on all the time, just closing the lid (which puts it into sleep mode). I don't, I switch it off. Mac OS X boots very quickly, just like Ubuntu, so I don't have to wait long for it to start up.

[AoSteve]

Three wild machine stories..

Win98se/Mandriva machine.. Only rebooted; never powered down. Pentium 3 450mhz Katmai clocked to 633mhz on an intel 440bx based mobo. The first time I shut it down (moving) it never powered back up, Processor took a crap after over 5 years running nearly 200mhz over spec. Never had a lockup either, guess the cooling of the chip is what did her in.

Athlon XP 1700+ based system ran with Win XP/Ubuntu for .. well 4years straight stock clock and then three more. Never updated XP and it was solid. Ubuntu (I broke it often LOL). Only one time was it ever "powered down" and the main HDD in that system is in this one. The smart data as of now is showing almost 9 years of runtime. WD800JBSE! Rock the first 8mb cache drive LOL

This machine has seen it's fair share of full power downs though. The XP system may have been powered down three times in it's life. Still operational (though I don't use it at all).

I consider startup on a cold boot is the hardest time a PC has. However, I have seen an HDD fail while a system was running so I can't say whether or not startup affects an HDD as much.

[bigseb]

I switch mine off. A) cos its a laptop B) cos it travels every where with me C) its a real waste on natural resources to leave it on. D) it a real waste of money to leave it on E) An 'off' PC is a safe PC

[Sylslay]

No,
becosue it take 15sec to shoutdown and about 1min to bootup,

and mine is old one,

No, becosuse is
no need to be on all the time,

No becosuse LAPTOP IS AN ELECITRICAL DEVICE!!!!

and if battery blow up (belive it happen) is a FIREE RISK FOR HOUSE AND HOUSEMATE.

[undecim]

No thanks, I don't like big power bills.

I have 1 server that stays on all the time, but that's it. I have a local cloud setup where I store files, download torrents, etc on that server, so it's the only thing that needs to stay running.

[samalex]

My primary computer is my laptop which gets turned off each time I'm done. I guess in the strictest meaning of the word 'computer' I use my DroidX for most things now'days while away from work, and it is on all the time, but I figured you guys were talking more about full computers