How often do you shut down your computer?

[donniezazen]

In my school they never shutdown the computers. Just wondering what do you do? Do you shutdown it and open everyday or once a week or monthly or 6 monthly or never.

I have a dell which heats a lot. Do you suggest me to shutdown it when i am not using it? Or it does not matter? What about electric bill? Sometimes i fear that it may catch fire as it heats a lot?

Thanks,
SK.

[Zoot7]

So long as you haven't both the GPU and CPU fully loaded all the time the amount of power it would normally pull isn't of any concern.
There's also no problem as regards leaving it on just once it's well ventilated.

As for me, I generally turn them on in the morning and leave them on all day. Unless I go away or something.

[Yvan300]

Well not shutting it down is against the fight against global warming.

[Jimleko211]

I turn it down when I sleep, and also after I log on in the morning, since I got schooling.

[RichardLinx]

About once a week.

[donniezazen]

Well not shutting it down is against the fight against global warming.

Interesting thought.


I turn it down when I sleep, and also after I log on in the morning, since I got schooling.

I don't understand. It takes me same amount of time to recover my PC from sleep and hibernation, i would rather shut it down.

[Joeb454]

I shut my desktop down daily, because I don't use it when I'm sleeping ;)

My laptop on the other hand, tends to live in standby quite a lot. Currently it's been up for 2 days, and I've not charged it, and used it for about an hour :)

I'll charge it tomorrow as I'm away from home at the weekend

[cariboo]

Well not shutting it down is against the fight against global warming.

Citation please

I turn my desktops on in the morning, and shut the ones in my shop off at quiting time. My servers run 24/7. My desktops at home get shutdown at night when I go to bed.

[oldsoundguy]

shut down only when I change hardware or move the computers to clean up behind them or to blow out the dust bunnies.
I run BOINC projects for UC Berkeley 24/7/365. I DO, however shut down the monitors and the printers and the fax. Those are powered up only as needed and then powered down anyway.

BUT .. all computers are hooked to a UPS (Battery backup) of some kind for emergencies.

[FuturePilot]

Suspend and hibernate FTW

[starcannon]

Citation please

I turn my desktops on in the morning, and shut the ones in my shop off at quiting time. My servers run 24/7. My desktops at home get shutdown at night when I go to bed.

I'm not gonna do a google run, your capable, I will point out the common sense stuff though.


A great deal of the worlds electricity is created burning fossil fuels.
Nuclear Waste is a problem with Nuclear Power.
Greenhouse gasses are created in the production of the components that create both clean renewable energy, Nuclear Power Plants, and fossil fuel burning facilities, using them at max capacity reduces their life cycle. Come to think of it, nasty stuff is put into the environment when computers are produced as well, conserving their lifespan is also beneficial to a better environment.

Requiring citation for a common knowledge statement is just a bit over the top. I would say that in this instance, it would be more suited to require citation proving that wanton waste of electricity does not contribute to global warming.

As far as it all goes, it appears that you do not waste electricity by leaving your computers on all the time; servers don't count, they need to be up 24/7. PC's and Laptops though, well, they need not be up all night when not in use. /sigh

[|Mitch|]

I usually turn them off every night before I go to bed. Getting turned on after work, unless it's the weekend.

Monitors get turned off when I'm not sitting in front of them.

There is one that is still loaded with XP[iPhone's can't live without iTunes] and it never gets shut down. Runs until windows locks it up, usually about once a week.

[pwnst*r]

lol 3 people voted never. OK

[dragos240]

I left my server on. But most of my computers are turned off before I get some shut eye.

[donniezazen]

I'm not gonna do a google run, your capable, I will point out the common sense stuff though.


A great deal of the worlds electricity is created burning fossil fuels.
Nuclear Waste is a problem with Nuclear Power.
Greenhouse gasses are created in the production of the components that create both clean renewable energy, Nuclear Power Plants, and fossil fuel burning facilities, using them at max capacity reduces their life cycle.

Requiring citation for a common knowledge statement is just a bit over the top. I would say that in this instance, it would be more suited to require citation proving that wanton waste of electricity does not contribute to global warming.

Well most of the people i know they don't switch off their TV, music systems, light bulbs,... to be true they don't give a damn.

[cariboo]

I'm not gonna do a google run, your capable, I will point out the common sense stuff though.


A great deal of the worlds electricity is created burning fossil fuels.
Nuclear Waste is a problem with Nuclear Power.
Greenhouse gasses are created in the production of the components that create both clean renewable energy, Nuclear Power Plants, and fossil fuel burning facilities, using them at max capacity reduces their life cycle. Come to think of it, nasty stuff is put into the environment when computers are produced as well, conserving their lifespan is also beneficial to a better environment.

Requiring citation for a common knowledge statement is just a bit over the top. I would say that in this instance, it would be more suited to require citation proving that wanton waste of electricity does not contribute to global warming.

As far as it all goes, it appears that you do not waste electricity by leaving your computers on all the time; servers don't count, they need to be up 24/7. PC's and Laptops though, well, they need not be up all night when not in use. /sigh

I do know that the climate is changing, I have yet to see real any proof that humans are the cause. We humans are quilty of many things, but I don't believe climate change is one of them.

[starcannon]

I do know that the climate is changing, I have yet to see real any proof that humans are the cause. We humans are quilty of many things, but I don't believe climate change is one of them.

Nod, I know that there are 2 camps on the issue; and my life experience tells me that usually the answer lies in the middle somewhere. Global Warming and Global Cooling happen, science has shown this; the question in many of our minds is whether we robbed ourselves of 10's of thousands of years through our activities, not whether we caused it to begin with. A boulder at the edge of a cliff will eventually fall down the precipice when erosion has its way; a man may speed up the inevitable with a lever and a fulcrum.

[stuart.reinke]

i do know that the climate is changing, i have yet to see real any proof that humans are the cause. We humans are quilty of many things, but i don't believe climate change is one of them.

+1

[starcannon]

Since you needed something:

I do hope a report from the The World Meteorological Organization is good enough for you.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/global.sea.ice.area.pdf

Or perhaps it isn't.

[Prohibited]

In my school they never shutdown the computers. Just wondering what do you do? Do you shutdown it and open everyday or once a week or monthly or 6 monthly or never.
Your school hates the environment.

I shutdown my computer every night when I'm not using it.

[Genius314]

My computer is in my room, and the fans are about as loud as a jet engine, so it goes off at night.
Of course, I'm looking to get better fans for it, so that won't be as much of a problem anymore; but there's also the lights from the USB hub, monitor, and surge protector...

[LookTJ]

I do know that the climate is changing, I have yet to see real any proof that humans are the cause. We humans are quilty of many things, but I don't believe climate change is one of them.
+1 Climate change has been going on since before computers and technology even existed. (No citation)

I sometimes wonder about the ice age :P.

[mamamia88]

My computer is in my room, and the fans are about as loud as a jet engine, so it goes off at night.
Of course, I'm looking to get better fans for it, so that won't be as much of a problem anymore; but there's also the lights from the USB hub, monitor, and surge protector...

same i wouldn't be able to sleep with my computer running that's why i hibernate it. doubt it uses much electricity

[sideaway]

shutdown at midnight. boot up at 7am. i have a laptop thats on nearly 24/7. both are quiet enought to sleep with. the trick is 5400rpm drives/SSDs, lo rev case fans and a passive CPU and GPU.

[jonian_g]

Well most of the people i know they don't switch off their TV, music systems, light bulbs,... to be true they don't give a damn.

If everybody gives a damn then we will leave in a better place.


I do know that the climate is changing, I have yet to see real any proof that humans are the cause. We humans are quilty of many things, but I don't believe climate change is one of them.

Have you ever heard the song "American Idiot"?
What you say is pretty much the trend in the US. Just a clue for you. Look who are the sponsors behind people that say that the climate is not changing and that humans are not responsible if it changes.

Who is responsible for the Greenhouse Effect? Humans. Read the wiki article (something that I have learnt in preliminary school) if you are not familiar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

After that you can do more serious reading.

[juancarlospaco]

Hibernated Ubuntus i got.

[RiceMonster]

I use suspend on my laptop, so that only gets rebooted for updates. I usually shut my desktop down before I go to bed.

[BrokenKingpin]

I voted other. I shut my laptop down daily, my desktop down weekly, and I never shut down my server.

[sailthesea]

In my school they never shutdown the computers. Just wondering what do you do? Do you shutdown it and open everyday or once a week or monthly or 6 monthly or never.

I have a dell which heats a lot. Do you suggest me to shutdown it when i am not using it? Or it does not matter? What about electric bill? Sometimes i fear that it may catch fire as it heats a lot?

Thanks,
SK.

In response to the OP I shut down my computer every time I am finished with it, sometimes several times a day
The environmental issue is one thing, but you mention fire safety and the electric bill
I don't just shut down my computers either, at night I turn off the mains at the consumer unit so only the fridge, heating and lights are powered
I sleep very well and have a pretty small utility bill!:P

[Dimitriid]

I sometimes do sleep mode but I feel like I am basically wasting bandwidth for the month if im not downloading or seeding something. So I usually only reboot when I need a new driver or a new kernel has been out for some days for example.

My uptime is usually in the weeks range, but is not uncommon to go for over a month, my max was like 3 months on my old system and that was only due to power failure at my house.

[miegiel]

one I turn off when I take it with me
one I turn on every couple of days
one that's always on
one that's always off, and
one that is in pieces, spread out through the room

[rippin]

Well not shutting it down is against the fight against global warming.

I never shut mine down because "almost every planet in our solar system is simultaneously undergoing temperature change and volatile weather patterns" (http://tinyurl.com/vaxs3).

Climate change is taking place. In the Northern hemisphere it's called "Fall", and the Southern refers to it as "Spring" at this time of year on Earth.

---edit---

Although I had replied to another's scientific ignorance, I just noticed my forum inexperience:

"Discussions on religion and politics are not allowed, except for politics directly related to free and open source issues" on the top of this page.

Being new to this forum, I'll no longer discuss the so-called head-in-the-sand religion of "climate change", "global heating", "global cooling" or variants of such. I recognize, "The orthodox organized religion of global warming and its disastrous consequences for our freedom of speech, freedom of mobility and our right to remain outside of the system, needs to be questioned on the foundational basis that the phenomenon is solar-system wide and it is mainly caused by the natural evolution of the sun and not human activity" as being OFF TOPIC in this forum.

[hobo14]

I do know that the climate is changing, I have yet to see real any proof that humans are the cause. We humans are quilty of many things, but I don't believe climate change is one of them.

Have you ever studied any physics? Even high school physics?
Do you know what happens when you pump a heap of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?

[kk0sse54]

I never shut mine down because "almost every planet in our solar system is simultaneously undergoing temperature change and volatile weather patterns" (http://tinyurl.com/vaxs3).

Climate change is taking place. In the Northern hemisphere it's called "Fall", and the Southern refers to it as "Spring" at this time of year on Earth.

Your scientific knowledge is astounding. Thank you for reminding me why I love humanity.


How often do you shut down your computer?
Whenever I'm done using it, usually at night before I go to bed.

[ynnhoj]

daily, for sure. typically two or three times daily. i rarely leave my laptop running (idling) if i'm going to be away from it for more than a few minutes. i don't download/seed torrents often, so i don't need to leave it on for that purpose either. what's the use in leaving it on, i wonder?

[lisati]

I usually shut down my machines when I've finished using them. The main exception is when I'm using one to render video with a lot of corrections needed. Another exception used to be for large downloads, but the ADSL connection I have has largely rendered leaving my machine on overnight unnecessary.

[TheBuzzSaw]

I turn it off when I'm not using it. Many of my friends think I am strange that way, but I see no purpose in burning through electricity and producing extra heat pointlessly. I've had people try to tell me that I am somehow harming my computer by turning it off so often (absurd).

[mamamia88]

until the fan get's too loud i just suspend. but seems like the longer the uptime the louder my fan gets so i eventually reboot it just to shut the fan up

[hoppipolla]

Usually every night before I go to sleep. The clue as to the reason for this is in the name of my computer... "lil-noisy" O.O

[misfitpierce]

I chose once a week for my laptop... Cause at tops its once a week but usually every few days!

[Eisenwinter]

I shutdown every few days or so, it varies.

Sometimes I find that the computer has been on for 5 days, so I shut it down before I go to sleep.

Sometimes I shut it down before I go out for a few hours.

And sometimes I just leave it on, if I'm downloading something.

[Exodist]

I voted Once a Month, cause I only shut it down if I am going out of town for a whole day.

Its best to leave it running, at least desktops anyway. The shutting down and booting up the PC sends power surges through out the system.

[Exodist]

Have you ever studied any physics? Even high school physics?
Do you know what happens when you pump a heap of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?

To his defence the Earth undergoes a "iceage" every 10,000 years. The whole global warming thing is part of a normal process. Yes we are accelerating it making it come sooner, but it would happen anyway.

Sure hope none of you live north of the masson-dixon line. :popcorn:

[rudihawk]

Shutdown every day! No need to waste electricity :D

[OpenGuard]

Once in a day ( I don't keep it turned on while I'm sleeping ).

[jperez]

The only time ANY of my computers, or monitors for that fact, are ever off is when I'm changing or maintaining hardware. Other than that, nothing is ever off. PC & monitor, laptop, eMac and tablet are ALL on 24/7/365, again, unless any of them require maintenance. :]

Jesse~

[hessiess]

desktop; only when theare is a power cut.
laptop, only when it fails to suspend properly.

[jonian_g]

I never shut mine down because "almost every planet in our solar system is simultaneously undergoing temperature change and volatile weather patterns" (http://tinyurl.com/vaxs3).

Climate change is taking place. In the Northern hemisphere it's called "Fall", and the Southern refers to it as "Spring" at this time of year on Earth.

Just check out what EU thinks for that and what their actions against the phenomenon are:

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/home_en.htm


The agreement in Brussels was reached after months of negotiations within the bloc. Leaders said they hoped the aggressive measures would help persuade some of the world's biggest polluters, including the United States, China and India, to follow their lead.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/09/AR2007030901992.html

Humans are, if not causing it, accelerating it. In each case actions have to be taken and every single person has to help with that.

EDIT: I turn off my computer when I don't use it. Feeling proud because you leave your computer on for months looks weird to me. I mean, it is not an achievement. Doesn't mean that you got smarter because you leave your computer on for a long time.

[spupy]

I don't shutdown my laptop. I do restart it sometimes when a screw-up occurs and I can't recover it. Even hibernation is rare - only during longer absence or trips. Suspend all the way!

[mharrison]

I typically turn my desktop off at night unless I am in the middle of a download. Right now it has been up for 3 days because I just figured out a power issue I was having, so I want to give it at least a week of solid uptime to verify the problem is indeed resolved. But once Saturday hits, it is getting shut down for a couple of days while I am out of town, then back to normal.

My netbook lives in a hibernated state with the power unplugged and only wakes up when I am watching Football on Sunday.

My wife's computer, however, is up 24/7 because she refuses to save her Firefox session and open documents and shut it down, yet she will complain if I walk out of a room for a minute and leave a light on...go figure...

[LowSky]

save energy and money, turn the PC off.

[lukjad]

In my school they never shutdown the computers. Just wondering what do you do? Do you shutdown it and open everyday or once a week or monthly or 6 monthly or never.

I have a dell which heats a lot. Do you suggest me to shutdown it when i am not using it? Or it does not matter? What about electric bill? Sometimes i fear that it may catch fire as it heats a lot?

Thanks,
SK.
I run a server, so I close it only when I need to. I haven't figured out when that is though.

[Dehouston]

I shut mine down when i have to restart. Im changing how i turn it off now because im trying to keep it from changing my display settings. I think my PC auto shutsdown after 6 hours but i haven't looked into it. Currently i use Hibernate when i goto bed.

[Grimhound]

I restart or shut down my laptop upwards of 5 times a day, 10+ on days when the 9.10 beta is testing my patience.

[abhilashm86]

i switch on my computer in night 2:00 AM, downloading is free till morning at 2 MBPS, then switch off in morning, after college finishes, switch it on again in evening!!
i hate hibernating, consumes lot of time while bootup, also hangs and i need to use recovery to start up......

[winjeel]

Save the earth, prevent global warming, save energy, and consider that most of the energy in a computer goes to keeping those hard disks turning, that's why we should either shut down daily, or turn to cloud computing... or both. (Don't like trusting my data in a far away place, though).

[marchwarden]

If I am not using it, it gets switched off.

[guriinii]

When I go to bed.

[btraill]

-Other

A few times a week.

[Berk]

When I'm not using it. It's what happens when you have bills to pay on a student loan.
If I'm somewhere I don't pay the electricity though, then it can stay on as far as I'm concerned.

[Megrimn]

not using it, turn it off.

I'm also a little paranoid about leaving things plugged in, esp. if I don't have a surge protector. I don't want an electrical fire, but again, that's me being paranoid.

[Gannon8]

I usually shut down my computers at the end of the day, but sometimes I leave my laptop on standby because it's taking longer to boot.

My school doesn't do a good job shutting down, but I don't mind, because they have this crappy "Deep Freeze" program that resets all your settings on boot, so I have to go back and change my resolution and how far JCreator indents every other day.

[Dula]

I shut down at night, though I'm thinking of leaving the computer on to see how long Ubuntu will go compared to Win XP

[infestor]

i use a stationary and i shut it down when i go to sleep. not because i care about electricity consumption or component life, just because the damn fan noise!

[doorknob60]

About every night, unless I'm downloading/compiling something. No use leaving it on when I'm not gonna use it for 16 hours, and the bright blue LED on the front is annoying when I'm trying to sleep :P For example, my computer has been on for the last ~24 hours because I was compiling gcc-snapshot last night :) Of course since it's Linux it doesn't slow it down though.

[Kingsley]

The only time my laptop shuts down is when it's rebooting from Linux into Windows 7. I do so about once every week so I can write a properly formatted lab report with MS Office. So, my uptime in Linux is usually 5-10 days. I suspend when I'm not using.

[Dimitriid]

The only time my laptop shuts down is when it's rebooting from Linux into Windows 7. I do so about once every week so I can write a properly formatted lab report with MS Office. So, my uptime in Linux is usually 5-10 days. I suspend when I'm not using.

Laptops are a different story: some models will not stop attempting to charge even after reaching full charge, hence it could potentially lessen the life of the battery. Another acer model I had also would not boot up without the battery attached which is inconvenient.

More over some laptops might also have heat issues, etc. I would advise to get a cheap desktop system instead and use a laptop only for when you need to be on the move.

[Dark Aspect]

Other: I shut down when I need too. Such as moving my PC to another room, setting up an presentation or something that involves moving my PC.

[SuperSonic4]

Daily - I don't use when I sleep.

Besides my desktop is like Blackpool Tower with the lights :\

[Dark Aspect]

Daily - I don't use when I sleep.

Besides my desktop is like Blackpool Tower with the lights :\

Mine has blue lights and I just got used to sleeping with it, I suppose its my night lite lol. One week through I had an LED that was blinking before it died and that annoyed the H*** out of me. Noise is bad too since I've overclocked, took me about 3-4 days to get used to, I don't sleep much any way since I am mentally insane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder).

[sgosnell]

I rarely turn my desktop on, and I generally shut it down when I'm through with it. My netbook usually goes to standby, and I reboot it when necessary, either because of updates or whatever. It rarely gets turned completely off, but sometimes I just decide to do a complete shutdown.

[Pelsia]

My laptop I'll usually turn off when I go to sleep, rarely do I have any work on it that requires it to stay on overnight. My desktop I only turn off if I need to get inside the case to clean or fix a hardware problem.

For some strange reason my desktop hates to be shutoff (though it handles reboots well), and usually entails reseating all the hardware (a very time consuming task on a water cooled rig) in order to get it to boot back up again. Over the really hot parts of summer I did turn it off when the temps outside were in the 110+ range, without AC my house was like an oven.

My servers are never shut off, last time I had to turn one off was to install a new raid card for my SAN. Can usually go 3-6 months until they get an update that absolutely requires a reboot.

[Cope57]

I shut my PC down when I upgrade hardware.

The option was not there, so I did not vote in the poll.

[lukeiamyourfather]

Assuming $0.15 per kilowatt hour and 150 watt idle power draw (which is pretty conservative), it'd cost about $100 to leave it on each night for 12 hours over the course of a year. At a university or large business with hundreds or thousands of machines this can add up to huge amounts of energy and money (and carbon in the atmosphere). It obviously pays to shutdown a system when its not in use.

Some people will say it wears out the hardware faster but that's nonsense. True that disk drives have a finite number of times they are designed to stop and start but even with stopping and starting them multiple times a day it would take decades to wear them out from that alone. In other words there's no reason to not shut it down when its not in use. Cheers!

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I had to select other.

I have a server that I rarely shut down. I have desktops that my children and grandchildren use that get shut down a few times a week; however, I use power-save options on those. Then my wife, children, and I have Netbooks/Notebooks/Laptops that get shut down a few times a day.

With all the extended family members living in this house, the computers use a small fraction of the power that the other appliances use. Cloths dryer, cloths washer, dish washer, refrigerators, freezer, stoves, ovens, microwaves, TV/HDTVs, Game consoles, VCR/DVD players, lights, and the list goes on.