Turn a PC Off or Leave It On?

I use to leave mine on a lot. Now that I have an SSD, the computer wakes and is ready to use in seconds. A full boot takes less than 30 secs until everything is loaded in Windows. I now make heavy use of sleep and power modes.
 
I turn my computer off when I'm not using it. It makes a pretty big impact on my power bill, so why leave it on?
 
Yeah, I'd say the hardest thing that can be done to electronics is power cycle them. Just think about light bulbs ... they only seem to fail when you first turn them on.
 
I leave my (old and busted) pc on 24/7 because I am constantly going back and forth using it at all hours. When I finally get some money to upgrade I might start using sleep or off completely.
 
I have 4 computers running in my house 24/7.
My PC.
My brothers PC
my moms PC
media cetner PC

All 4 of these are on constantly and pretty much only reboot for windows updates.
We all use our computers so frequently that it's really not worth shutting them down at all. We could get away with doing it during the day while we're all at work, but I like to be able to remotely access my computer at any given moment.
I also have many torrents running always, so I generally have files seeding during the day and over night.

I've always believed in the expand/contract theory. It makes sense to me that hardware would be more prone to failure if it's shut off and booted back on very often. Metal expands and contracts with temperature fluctuation, it only makes sense that it would cause issues with electronics.
 
I leave my main rig and home server is on 24/7. When I'm not home I often need something from it using team viewer so I like it to be ready. My one issue with leaving my others off like my test bench, htpc, my second computer by my rig for watching football is when I goto power it up I am inundated with multiple updates.
 
S[H]ady;1037789752 said:
I have 4 computers running in my house 24/7.
My PC.
My brothers PC
my moms PC
media cetner PC

All 4 of these are on constantly and pretty much only reboot for windows updates.
We all use our computers so frequently that it's really not worth shutting them down at all. We could get away with doing it during the day while we're all at work, but I like to be able to remotely access my computer at any given moment.
I also have many torrents running always, so I generally have files seeding during the day and over night.

I've always believed in the expand/contract theory. It makes sense to me that hardware would be more prone to failure if it's shut off and booted back on very often. Metal expands and contracts with temperature fluctuation, it only makes sense that it would cause issues with electronics.

You may have a point, I had the 7800GX2 fail on my wife's computer last week. I bought that puppy 5 years ago for $599! :eek:

It was hard to toss that in the garbage, but in reality, I put an old 8800GT in and it is faster and uses less power. :cool:
 
I turn it off to save on energy honestly, I don't see the point on running all my computers 24/7 without doing anything
 
The PC we use as a NAS is always on. It rarely even sees an update. Maybe once every 6 months.
The HTPC is always on. It get's the patch day reboot and that is about it.
All of the laptops and are my legacy gamer are only on when people are using them.
I use sleep mode on my main PC.
 
According to my Kill-A-Watt, sleep drops me to 6-7W, so shutdowns and restarts are a rare occurrence.
 
You don't have to be a tree-hugger just because you think about the environment. Sure, most electronic devices benefit from being left permanently on or off but very few need their computer to last 10 years, instead of perhaps half that.

BOINC, folding and whatever seems like such a waste of energy with little or no result and leaving a PC on, just so you don't have to wait for it to boot is egotistical.

Great that Hard is the #whatever team but who really cares, besides Hard and its team members?
 
Mine are in S3 mode when not in use. At work, IT wants us to leave them on for updates. I turn off the 3 monitors, though.
 
I run one PC 24/7 but its my media server. I know I need to tighten my belt on electricity usage but I'm moving soon so my carbon footprint is about to drop massively for the next few months.
 
all but one are off or sleep mode. My minecraft server is the only box that runs 24/7
 
All my computers are off at night. During the day, usually when I'm not using them, they are in sleep mode.
 
I had a C2D on a gigabyte board with 4gb of ram, it ran damn near 24/7 for 5+ years before the board gave up...
 
If I am working on a project, I leave it on a lot more. But most of the time I turn it off.
 
my core i5 rig stays on most of the time... I turn it off for week long trips usually though.
 
I guess you could leave them on and fold@home.. Don't HardForum have one of the best folding team in the world?

When [H] starts paying my electricity bills I'll be more than happy to leave it on and fold all day long. Until then, I turn it off when I'm done, however during the day I'll usually just hit the sleep mode button so I can flip it back on in a jiffy.
 
When [H] starts paying my electricity bills I'll be more than happy to leave it on and fold all day long. Until then, I turn it off when I'm done, however during the day I'll usually just hit the sleep mode button so I can flip it back on in a jiffy.

Careful or someone might want to remind you that they're providing you a service without charging you ;-)
 
I turn mine off unless I'm folding/torrenting/downloading/etc. It's the main rig in my sig too. I don't see any reason to keep it on unless needed. It means I have to clean the dust catcher less often, it uses less electricity, and it lasts that much longer.
 
leave it on, unless it wake me up, or the screen randomly stays on for some god forsaken reason....

24/7!

If it automatically shut down after 4 hours of non-use, that might save the world a lot of power.....
 
every puter in the house, save laptops are on 24/7. I hate waiting for shit to boot.
 
My wife and I have desktops that are shut down at night. My work laptop is on 24/7 or until the battery dies, but that's mainly because it takes a couple minutes to boot, especially if I'm in an on-site office.
 
the argument that it wastes electricity is bullshit. Yeah, it's not being used, but it isn't being wasted. I choose to leave mine on when I have other things running in the background and I'm still paying for the electricity. So how is it a waste of electricity again?
 
I leave mine on, if there is a power problem I have my UPS, and if the power goes out the UPS will just turn off the computer anyways.
 
the argument that it wastes electricity is bullshit. Yeah, it's not being used, but it isn't being wasted. I choose to leave mine on when I have other things running in the background and I'm still paying for the electricity. So how is it a waste of electricity again?

It's wasted because it is a resource that is consumed to do no work. It's pretty straightforward, not sure how that would get you confused. If your computer is actually doing something even if you aren't sitting at it, then it is clearly not a waste and nobody is suggesting otherwise. If, on the other hand, your computer is truly idle and not doing anything, then it is a waste of electricity.

Yeah, I'd say the hardest thing that can be done to electronics is power cycle them. Just think about light bulbs ... they only seem to fail when you first turn them on.

Just how old is your computer that it runs on incandescent light bulbs? Might want to upgrade to something made this century, just saying. :p

On a more serious note, your comparison to a light bulb is completely false. Computers do not function at all like a light bulb. Nothing in your computer gets anywhere close enough for a metal coil to glow from heat.
 
Is there seriously no sleep option?

Sleep takes less than 2 seconds to go into and out of.

if you put it to sleep you might as well put it to hibernate...

I leave mine on; they both run world community grid on BOINC
 
Waste of electricity to keep it on all the time. I put them to sleep when I am away.

Even though I have SSD in both my laptop and desktop, the desktop takes forever to detect the SSD drive on POST and actually loads slow because of it. The laptop boots very fast.
 
I leave my main rig on 24/7 but shut the monitor off when not in use, my laptop gets sleep mode. so far on the main rig the only thing that has died is one of the fans.
 
Sleep. It uses virtually no power, and in Windows 7 the computer will still wake itself up at night to do maintenance and updates if you want.

Though I'll be honest, I don't always remember to do this.
 
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