When not using the computer over night...

[mammikoura]

You will read in alot of places, that to switch your computer on, switch it off, switch it back on, etc etc, will use more power, as oppose to just have it on all the time. If you do leave it on all the time, the computer will need to be restarted once in a while, just to get rid of those temp files, which bug it down.

I think it's something like being idle for 3h uses the same amount of energy that booting up does.

 

[muz]

Is it better to turn off the computer when you go to sleep? Does it even matter whether it's on or off?

Thanks.

It dosent realy matter if you think about it web servers and other servers for large networks are left on 24/7

 

[setishock]

I lean toward just leaving them on. Once they surge at power up the rest is minimal. It's easier on the hardware not getting banged with the power up surge. If you check up on it the same holds true for crt monitor/TV's and light bulbs. The surge is what eventually kills them. If you leave them on they don't pull that much power and last longer.

 

[Rubber314Chicken]

I leave it on in the winter, and when I'm downloading. It helps keep my room a bit warmer.

 

[kjman87]

I leave mine on at work ALL the time...i think ive turned it off once in the last month lol...

at home, it turn it off like every once in a while...(one night ocne a week ish)

no problems on either...

and i never really thought about that initial power surge...it kind of sounds like a car...it take more gas for a car to start then it does for it to idle for a while (not quite sure exactly how long but a while...)

-kj

 

[Bob94571]

I leave it on in the winter, and when I'm downloading. It helps keep my room a bit warmer.

Haha that always works lol

 

[Raffaz]

I dont think theres any right or wrong answer to this, ive seen it talked about loads in the past. There are +ives to both sides of the argument

See what i mean man, no proof either way, this could go on forever ha ha

 

[k0409964]

Is it really true that leaving ideling for 3hours uses the same amount of power as turing it on??

 

[mammikoura]

Is it really true that leaving ideling for 3hours uses the same amount of power as turing it on??

that's something I heard years ago. Don't know how accurate it is.

 

[Nik00117]

My system is this.

1. If I am downloading somthing I keep it on.
2. If I downloaded somthing the night before, I keep it on the entire day.
3. If I haven't downloaded anything within the last 2 days, I turn it off for the night, then turn it on for the day time.
4. If I haven't downloaded anything in a week, I keep it off the entire tiem unless i'm using it (doesn't happen very much)

As for the surge etc, well i've seen PCs last 10-15 years, standard use as turning them on and off etc. By the time that your PC blows up because of a power surge from boot up it'll be so worthless you won't care. I've rebooted a PC up to 16 times in a hour, (I was trying to configure my boot up) never noticed anything other then my boot up process still not working the way I wanted it too.

However my reasons for turning off the PC is because I find I sleep much better with my PC off then on. I got a 250, 140, and two 80s in my case, even turned all the way down they can be loud.

So if you wanna turn it off, turn it off, if you wanna leave it on, leave it on.

O BTW XP is incredibly stable I've seen systems run for 2 months straight without a hitch. XP is meant to be 24/7, never had a issue my only reboots have because I reinstalled something or similar.