is it better for to leave your pc on?

is it better to leave your pc on overnight and when its not in use? or turn it off.

I try to turn mine off if its not going to be used for hours... actually i hibernate but it uses very little power in that state and bootup is faster.

I try to turn mine off if its not going to be used for hours... actually i hibernate but it uses very little power in that state and bootup is faster.

Captain__Tripps

I hybernate as well. All the moving parts are basically off so it uses very little power and comes back instantly. I do fully turn it off every now and then because everything needs a rest, even computers.

Im not sure if hibernate even uses any power, since it saves your ram state to the hard drive. If you hibernate you can recover the same way from a power loss. But your PC just being plugged in may draw some power.

dust ... dust.. dust.. turn it off.

Turn it off when not in use. I mean everything PCs, TVs, sound systems. I mean turn off them from the search swicth. that's what I do everyday, I have read about it. even when your PC off your momitor still power on even it looks off. ....your router and modem should be turned off too. Dogswithguns

What do yuo mean turn them off from the search switch... tvs can use a lot of power, in when "off". Only way to stop that is to unplug it. A killawatt is useful to know what is using what, ive been meaning to get one for ways to save power...

Leave it on. Turning it off and on all the time will shorten your lifespan. Not extend it. Your changing thermal properties every few hours, often cooling and shrinking and then heating and expanding. Bad for componants.

But you do get dust build up, but aslong as you clean it out every now and then it's nothing to worry about.

A PC when idle/downloading/patching/background tasks as in not in use, pulls so little power from the mains it'll make little to no difference to your power bill.

Alot of people fold 24/7 and leave their stuff on. Hell, I can guarentee your fridge will pull 5x more power than your idle PC. Switch off the monitor though. You guna turn your fridge off overnight? I try to leave mine on for a few weeks, usualy a month then do a restart and leave it again.

Leave it on. Turning it off and on all the time will shorten your lifespan. Not extend it. Your changing thermal properties every few hours, often cooling and shrinking and then heating and expanding. Bad for componants.

But you do get dust build up, but aslong as you clean it out every now and then it's nothing to worry about.

A PC when idle/downloading/patching/background tasks as in not in use, pulls so little power from the mains it'll make little to no difference to your power bill.

Alot of people fold 24/7 and leave their stuff on. Hell, I can guarentee your fridge will pull 5x more power than your idle PC. Switch off the monitor though. You guna turn your fridge off overnight? I try to leave mine on for a few weeks, usualy a month then do a restart and leave it again.

death1505921

I think your talking mostly non-sese. No one is even really talking every few hours either. If you leave your PC for hours, turning it off is better than leaving it on, even if you don't take power usage into consideration. Also, there are people that put their freezers on timers. A fridge, maybe not. But just because a fridge uses more power than a PC is not a valid reason not to turn the PC off. I don't know what an average PC power use is during idle, but its not a trivial amount.

[QUOTE="death1505921"]

Leave it on. Turning it off and on all the time will shorten your lifespan. Not extend it. Your changing thermal properties every few hours, often cooling and shrinking and then heating and expanding. Bad for componants.

But you do get dust build up, but aslong as you clean it out every now and then it's nothing to worry about.

A PC when idle/downloading/patching/background tasks as in not in use, pulls so little power from the mains it'll make little to no difference to your power bill.

Alot of people fold 24/7 and leave their stuff on. Hell, I can guarentee your fridge will pull 5x more power than your idle PC. Switch off the monitor though. You guna turn your fridge off overnight? I try to leave mine on for a few weeks, usualy a month then do a restart and leave it again.

Captain__Tripps

I think your talking mostly non-sese. No one is even really talking every few hours either. If you leave your PC for hours, turning it off is better than leaving it on, even if you don't take power usage into consideration. Also, there are people that put their freezers on timers. A fridge, maybe not. But just because a fridge uses more power than a PC is not a valid reason not to turn the PC off. I don't know what an average PC power use is during idle, but its not a trivial amount.

That's nice, because I honestly don't give a crap what you think. What I just said is true. Turning it on and off every 12/X hour does shorten componant life. It may only be by a small amount but it does none the less. Alot of heating and cooling cycles aswell as the power surges that come with turning on and off does shorten computer lifespan.

You even just said yourself, you don't know how much an average PC pulls when idle so how can you assume it's not a trivial amount? The monitor pulls more wattage than a PC because of high efficiency PSUs in gaming rigs. That's why its better to turn your monitor off and leave the PC on. The difference in what it pulls is negligible. By turning it on and off will perhaps save you a couple of quid a year.

A PC doesn't pull a trivial amount of power, because I know a idle PC doesn't pull 5 or 10 watts when its turned on. I wouldn't be surprised if it pulls more than that just plugged in. At 12 cents a kw/h or more, turning your PC off will save you more than a couple dollars a year. More like a couple dollars a month, not to mention saving power is never a bad thing regardless of what it costs.

A PC doesn't pull a trivial amount of power, because I know a idle PC doesn't pull 5 or 10 watts when its turned on. I wouldn't be surprised if it pulls more than that just plugged in. At 12 cents a kw/h or more, turning your PC off will save you more than a couple dollars a year. More like a couple dollars a month, not to mention saving power is never a bad thing regardless of what it costs.

Captain__Tripps

I'd rather take 10-15 GDP extra a year in power costs than having a machine fail.

[QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"]

A PC doesn't pull a trivial amount of power, because I know a idle PC doesn't pull 5 or 10 watts when its turned on. I wouldn't be surprised if it pulls more than that just plugged in. At 12 cents a kw/h or more, turning your PC off will save you more than a couple dollars a year. More like a couple dollars a month, not to mention saving power is never a bad thing regardless of what it costs.

death1505921

I'd rather take 10-15 GDP extra a year in power costs than having a machine fail.

Well if powering it down was a cause for failure you'd have a point.

[QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"]

A PC doesn't pull a trivial amount of power, because I know a idle PC doesn't pull 5 or 10 watts when its turned on. I wouldn't be surprised if it pulls more than that just plugged in. At 12 cents a kw/h or more, turning your PC off will save you more than a couple dollars a year. More like a couple dollars a month, not to mention saving power is never a bad thing regardless of what it costs.

death1505921

I'd rather take 10-15 GDP extra a year in power costs than having a machine fail.

Bu bu but teh environment! :cry:

[QUOTE="Dogswithguns"]Turn it off when not in use. I mean everything PCs, TVs, sound systems. I mean turn off them from the search swicth. that's what I do everyday, I have read about it. even when your PC off your momitor still power on even it looks off. ....your router and modem should be turned off too. Captain__Tripps

What do yuo mean turn them off from the search switch... tvs can use a lot of power, in when "off". Only way to stop that is to unplug it. A killawatt is useful to know what is using what, ive been meaning to get one for ways to save power...

That's nice, because I honestly don't give a crap what you think.

death1505921

:rollseyes: somebody is grumpy! want a cookie?

Turn it off. Better for your power bill, the environment and may give your PC a little more life. Mostly just for convenience, though.noswear

Good advice !.....:)

*+

[QUOTE="death1505921"][QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"]

A PC doesn't pull a trivial amount of power, because I know a idle PC doesn't pull 5 or 10 watts when its turned on. I wouldn't be surprised if it pulls more than that just plugged in. At 12 cents a kw/h or more, turning your PC off will save you more than a couple dollars a year. More like a couple dollars a month, not to mention saving power is never a bad thing regardless of what it costs.

Captain__Tripps

I'd rather take 10-15 GDP extra a year in power costs than having a machine fail.

Well if powering it down was a cause for failure you'd have a point.

Hibernate is really the best choice. The power it draws is minimal.XaosII

Usually, the preferred alternative in desktop PCs is Standby Mode. This powers most everything down except for just that little bit of current needed to keep the RAM and other essentials intact. It's faster to wake up from Standby than from Hibernation and is usually better-supported.

As for the whole debate, it depends on what your computer does when you're not around. If you have background tasks running all the time (such as servers, Folding@Home, etc.), then you'll need to keep the computer on to allow them to keep running. But by all means, set your monitor to turn itself off after some inactivitiy (I use 1 hour). That'll at least give you some savings (and yes, even do this for LCDs--it helps extend the working life of the monitor's backlight).

[QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"][QUOTE="death1505921"][QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"]

A PC doesn't pull a trivial amount of power, because I know a idle PC doesn't pull 5 or 10 watts when its turned on. I wouldn't be surprised if it pulls more than that just plugged in. At 12 cents a kw/h or more, turning your PC off will save you more than a couple dollars a year. More like a couple dollars a month, not to mention saving power is never a bad thing regardless of what it costs.

HuusAsking

I'd rather take 10-15 GDP extra a year in power costs than having a machine fail.

Well if powering it down was a cause for failure you'd have a point.

Yes, im sure turning it off and on contributes to failure, but so does running 24/7. And I don't think anyone is talking about turning their rig off evertime your gone for 15 minutes. One/two/three times a day is not going to hurt anything in your PC, except maybe a HD, which is going to fail soon regardless.

Turn if off. Besides a waste of electricity, it does need a rest sometime. For you hibernation users just make sure you actually do a restart every so often.muirplayer

[QUOTE="HuusAsking"][QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"][QUOTE="death1505921"][QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"]

A PC doesn't pull a trivial amount of power, because I know a idle PC doesn't pull 5 or 10 watts when its turned on. I wouldn't be surprised if it pulls more than that just plugged in. At 12 cents a kw/h or more, turning your PC off will save you more than a couple dollars a year. More like a couple dollars a month, not to mention saving power is never a bad thing regardless of what it costs.

Captain__Tripps

I'd rather take 10-15 GDP extra a year in power costs than having a machine fail.

Well if powering it down was a cause for failure you'd have a point.

Yes, im sure turning it off and on contributes to failure, but so does running 24/7. And I don't think anyone is talking about turning their rig off evertime your gone for 15 minutes. One/two/three times a day is not going to hurt anything in your PC, except maybe a HD, which is going to fail soon regardless.

Tripps you're talking crap. My hardrive has lasted 5 years in two different rigs. I'm not sure what you class as "soon" but all my stuff is going fine. And yeah, I leave it on pretty much 24/7 and then restart once a month to dust out ect.

Seriously, you have NO FACTS and you're basing this on pure opinion. Running it 24/7 does not contribute to heat build up aslong as componants are properly cooled.

For example, do your temps continually go up and up and up? No, of course they don't because you use fans to remove the heat. Now if you were completely passive cooled you may have a point. But I can guarentee that the current PC you are using is not 100% passive cooled.

Where as starting and stopping a PC DOES lead to failure of componants.

The PC will take in dust and wear out its parts if its constantly on and the monitor is THE power hog of the system (both LCD's and CRT's).

Turn it off.

Tripps you're talking crap. My hardrive has lasted 5 years in two different rigs. I'm not sure what you class as "soon" but all my stuff is going fine. And yeah, I leave it on pretty much 24/7 and then restart once a month to dust out ect.

Seriously, you have NO FACTS and you're basing this on pure opinion. Running it 24/7 does not contribute to heat build up aslong as componants are properly cooled.

For example, do your temps continually go up and up and up? No, of course they don't because you use fans to remove the heat. Now if you were completely passive cooled you may have a point. But I can guarentee that the current PC you are using is not 100% passive cooled.

Where as starting and stopping a PC DOES lead to failure of componants.

death1505921

How about you post some facts then about how starting the PC leads to failure? I seriusly doubt there has been any serious long term testing, one way or another. But its a fact that HDs are inheriently unreliable, and most will fail before five years.

Im not sure if hibernate even uses any power, since it saves your ram state to the hard drive. If you hibernate you can recover the same way from a power loss. But your PC just being plugged in may draw some power.

Captain__Tripps