Turn a PC Off or Leave It On?

Sleep mode S3 crashes my W7 PC for some reason. I just shut it off when I go to sleep and then turn it on once I get back from work. Home server stats on 24/7 it only uses like 80w idle anyway. Anything that needs to be done real quick like checking email or browsing web can be done from one of the various mobile computers around the house. 3 Touchpads, 2 netbooks, 1 HTPC.
 
When my gaming rig is not in use, I go ahead and turn it off seeing as I do not know when will it be the next time that I will use it. So far it has been 2 week since I last used my pc. YouTube, Facebook, reading articles online is all done on my phone. I need to invest a low cost media center.
 
Normally 24/7 unless I am going somewhere for a few days. Wife's rig is a hefty rig too but we keep it off most of the time.
 
I turn off every night before I go to bed, then back on when I wake up.
All computers in the house are to be turned off when not in use, that's the rule here!

I also have TrickleStar TrickleSavers and their PowerStrips on a lot of things in my home as well. Since I've installed them I've noticed a drop in my electricity usage/bill, I can highly recommend them.
For examples: If I turn my HDTV off then everything else goes off with it.
They're a must for my kids as they leave everything on all of the time, so now when they turn their HDTV off all of the other stuff goes off as well.
 
Server stays on 24/7
Main rig S3 standby. (This may change once the new system is built with SSD)
All others are off until I need to use them.
 
Three kids computers, mine, and my folding box.

The kids and mine all all powered down when not in use, but my son uses his so much it might as well run 24/7.

My folding box is an OCd Q9450 and two GTX 285s and it runs 24/7 from October to May.
 
I would put desktops into standby more often if they were as reliable as laptops to come out of standby/suspend. Somehow I have yet to get a desktop which plays nicely with it.

Using suspend imo is a very good option for saving power without having to wait for a full boot.
 
850watt PSU?
Hell ya i shut it down when I goto sleep and power back up when I get home from work. It ain't about greeness, it's my $ electric bill $ i think about.
 
WHS server = 24/7 (serves as media server/PVR/torrent box/forum server)
(2) ESXi servers = 24/7 (Dell 745 desktop and Xeon e5640/Supermicro X8ST3-F whitebox)
FreeNas box = 24/7 (Dell 755 - Temporary iSCSI datastore for ESXi)

Daughter's PC = sleep (Dell 745 USFF x/XP... doesn't always go to sleep correctly... need to upgrade to Win7)
Wife's laptop = sleep (HP Elitebook)
Downstair's laptop = sleep (Dell D630)
Tablet PC = Sleep (HP Elitebook 2740p)

Desktop = haven't powered it on in 6 months. I'm more comfortable doing all my work from my work laptop and I don't game...

Once I get my OI VM stable and the ZFS pools performing the way I want them to, I'll shut down the temp iSCSI and move my WHS server to a VM (or 2-3) to cut down on my power usage...
 
On 24/7. No sleep, no hibernate. I do shut my monitor off at night though. I'm old school in the thought that by turning it on and off all the time, the heat/cool cycle degrades your hardware faster.
 
I put both of my computers in hibernate mode when not in use. I have an HTPC that wakes up and goes back to sleep auto-magically. My main PC gets turned on and back to sleep/hibernate depending on when I need to use it. It doesn't make sense to run a computer 24/7 if it's not doing anything, other than making hot air.
 
Both my wifes(which was my old one) and mine use S3. Very rarely shut them totally off unless going on trip.
 
It is more hard on the hardware to turn on and off then it is to leave it on, at least that's how I was taught about computer hardware in my A+ classes in college.

Servers are meant to run 24/7, so I use that principle and leave my desktops on 24/7, but the laptop gets shut down because I don't use it every day.
 
Main rig stays on, home laptop stays on. Main rig stays on as it serves up media and it isn't in a place that's convenient to power on when I want to access something from the laptop or nook color(it sits in a server rack in my man cave on 2nd floor). I also access it via teamviewer from work sometimes. Laptop stays on as the battery is dying so it stays plugged in and I haven't reconfigured the hibernate feature (it's set to hibernate when screen is closed and on batt. power only). It's a Pent.M ULV, so it doesn't use much power and it's more convenient to just flip open the lid and go instead of waiting for it to boot up or wake up.
 
It is more hard on the hardware to turn on and off then it is to leave it on, at least that's how I was taught about computer hardware in my A+ classes in college.

I was also taught this back in the day, but I always believed it to be true only for CRT monitors and components with moving parts (like hard drives). With LCD's and SSD's I don't think this is really the case anymore...
 
that probably isn't the best on my water pumps, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when it comes.
 
I randomly use my main desktop system all the time, middle of the night, middle of the day, just random usage. If I had to turn it back on each time it would be a major problem, and would certainly be more wear and tear than whatever wear and tear is imparted from constant running. So I keep it on 24/7. My second desktop I keep turned off because I only occasionally have a need for it.
 
At around 50 cents per KwH you bet your ass I turn them off overnight.
 
I turn it off, saves electricity/the planet etc. Also my last motherboard decided to catch on fire when it was idling on. so that is a bad thing (at the time it wasn't even oc'd - crappy biostar)
 
- Gaming system is turned off at night (I use it a couple hours every night anyway).
- Lappy goes hybrid sleep.
- GF's desktop is on only a couple hours a day too.
- Media Server/FTP server is low power AMD running 24/7 (around 34w)
 
Right now I often turn my box off. It makes to much heat for the reno nevada summer.

In the winter it does not matter, at all, that I have the room with no vent on the heater system. I like it a bit cold and well, how much I crack the window lets me control the temp just fine.

Only when it is snowing, and the cold end of snowing, do I ever close the windows entirely. My room is very well insulated though.
 
My main rig is my only rig so it pulls double duty as my media center as well. On 24/7 but sleeping, wakes up to record shows.

I want to build a separate low power HTPC but the money isn't there yet.
 
I shut down everything except my Windows Home Server... if there was a way to WakeOnDemand, I would also "power down" the home server.

You can get an app on your phone that'll send a WOL command from your phone when it connects to your wifi network, and wakeup your computers.
 
I turn my home computers off. The boot times are reasonable and so I just turn it on as I go by when I get home and by the time I put down my stuff grab a coke it's booted.

My work computer on the other hand, rarely gets turned off. Something about a 10 minute boot time I don't like dealing with in the morning.
 
All computers in the house are turned off when not in use, If need to get on the net for a few minutes I use a laptop. My servers are for my family and they all live on the west coast so we agree on a window of access with a scheduled shut down time. Ive never had a problem with the theory of turn on and turn off is bad, as long as the soldering was done properly, separation of the circuitry connections shouldn't happen.
 
Two PC's (Both Sleep after an hour) one Qnap, one LED TV and assorted media devices. Power bill runs about $40-$50 a month.
 
I used to leave mine on but it's a waste of power and it costs noticeably more to run them 24/7; I know this because I could see the difference on my electric bill from the previous year when I had run my PC 24/7.

I turn mine off and turn off the power strip not only for power savings but to keep dust collection down.
 
I'm surprised that most are categorizing into the on or off crowd.
30 min to hibernate for me. Not because of startup times , but cause I'd hate to clear my current workspace every time I get off my computer, mid day or at night.
 
I mainly work from home, so my primary PC (also my gaming rig) stays on nearly all the time.

At night I just shut off the monitors and let it idle at the desktop. It's in at least casual use enough hours out of the day that the power savings from shutting it off are fairly small.

When I travel overnight for work, I usually shut it off before I leave, because there's no reason to leave it on if I'm not home and won't be using it.

HTPC stays on more often than it needs to out of laziness, I should get better about shutting it off when it's not in use. It doesn't have an EFI BIOS or SSD, so the boot cycle is annoyingly long, but it's tolerable given how sporadically it's used.
 
I'm a cheapskate. So, I turn mine off if I'm going to be away for longer than 2 hours.
 
I don't buy the 'better for the hardware to leave it on' argument. Silicon does not expand/contrast enough in the 50 F range it might change from the two states when compared to it's melting point of 2577 F. Gold might be the best argument but again 1947 F is still too high for a 50 F difference to cause any type of expansion wear.

I have decade old computers that have been turned on and off constantly still running great. I'd argue shutting the computers down is best. Fans die after enough rotations as do HDD.

A good compare for me is my work. We are told to keep the computer on when we leave - I shut mine down though, no ones noticed ;). We have ~50 computers in my area. The computers are getting close to 6 years old. The majority have had to be replaced - not with new computers but with backups. Mine's still going strong and running noticibly faster (using XP so the clean starts help a ton)
 
I always switch off everything, computers (overnight), monitors (every time they're unused), TVs, DVD/BD players and never use the not-so-green sleep features.
The only time I keep the desktop on is when I have a queue of files downloading over night.
I wish I could tell Firefox to switch it off after the last file is downloaded... Maybe some Internet downloading software do it.

Computers are too much of a fire hazard risk at home, especially in summer.
And I never had a computer failing because of daily powering on/off, they are obviously designed to stand this over their lifetime of several years, since that's what most users do.

I'd like to have a very low power Micro ATX box to keep on at all times, appliance-like, to use for downloads or remote desktop into the home network. I leave my main work desktop on at all time for remote desktop.
 
WHS always on
Main rig doesn't sleep so it gets turned off at night
Wifes computer always on but sleeps
Kids computer always on but sleeps
 
which is less than 25 cents a day.

So?

If your computer is legitimately idling there, doing nothing, there's a full 0% ROI on that quarter spent. 80$ a year, for literally - nothing at all - is a silly waste of money.

Do you leave lights on in your home during the day too?
 
Here in NW Florida, even with UPS battery backups, it's not wise to leave a system on 24/7 here. Frequent nasty thunder/lightning and Gulf Power here with their "fabulous" power kill machines like crazy.

I do remember wayyyyyy back in the day, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away (the 80's?), the debate over this raged on a lot too, mostly over power supplies in particular and whether or not it was good to constantly be turning on/off systems. Glad to see this debate rage on for another generation of users ROFL.
 
My server (if you can really call it that - old Pentium 4 box I have laying around for file storage, web development, and creating backups) stays on 24/7. Monitor is turned off.

My wife and I turn our laptops off often. Not every night but often. We actually tend to port those around to various locations.
 
There's an off button? :eek:

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