Do you need to turn off your PC at night?

I knew there was a reason I still subscribe to the Microsoft At Home and At Work Newsletter.

This morning's edition linked to an article analyzing your PC's power usage at various states--on, off, hibernate, and standby--both the computer and the monitor. Sure, I knew you save power by turning it off, but I hadn't realized (nor thought about it lately) that turning it off and on every day doesn't really hurt much like it used to when I first started using computers (don't make me say how long ago THAT was). Nor did I realize that CRT's use so much more power than flat panels. The bottom line of the article is that turning your PC off indeed saves more power than the other options, but setting it to hibernate overnight is nearly as good.

It also made a frank point that struck the bleeding-heart tree-hugging hippie in me (not to mention my frugal side)--is it worth wasting that energy (and money) to save a few minutes' startup time (to boot, log in, and restore state, such as opening mail, browser, and chat programs) every morning? And, using Windows' hibernate or standby, you don't even take THAT hit. I think Windows default settings have standby and/or hibernate on, but I always turn it off after I install Windows because of that annoyance, not thinking about the consequences.

Time to turn it back on on my computers.

11 Comments

  • i use my Mac as my wake up alarm, but other than that i dont see any real point to leaving it on at night.

  • Yeah, CRT's are total energy hogs, which is why most large businesses are starting to shell out the extra money it costs to get LCD's...imagine the cost savings in the long run from moving 50k employees from CRT's to LCD's. Good post.

  • I've been using hibernation on Windows since it became available, and I don't understand people who keep their computers on 24/24h when nowadays a computer comes back out of hibernation in a few seconds. Oh, and entering hibernation doesn't take long either.

  • Fabrice,



    As I said, it's more convenience than anything, and, like a common attitude towards saving energy, the perception that the hassle (cost) is not worth the savings (benefit), a perception possibly based on ignorance, as it was in my case.



    Also, there's the idea that turning your computer on and off will shorten its life, which that article claims was significant in the past but less so today.



    In my case, buying a laptop (and using its hibernation to save battery life) showed me how convenient hibernation really is--it just never occurred to me to use it for my desktop machine.



    --Peter

  • The reason I turn off my computer at night is for peace of mind. I hate leaving code in an unfinished mess. I know that if I leave at night with 10 windows open it'll take a while to get back up to speed the following day. I prefer to "ready" my work for shut down about 20 minutes before i leave by making sure it's at some type of end.



    Turning my PC off helps me better manage my code, but maybe that's just me.

  • I agree with Carl, I use to sleep better when I know I finished my work the day before.



    However hibernation is a cool feature, and I use it often when I have something I can't just close and reopen tomorrow. I use it mostly when I have browser windows - or any document, for what matters - open on something I want to finish reading and I'm sure I will forget if I just close them.

  • Man, it's unreal how many comments this post has gotten... I should quit trying to talk about .NET and just talk about my PC habits! ;)



    Karl, I'm the same way, especially when it comes to work. My old routine was to wrap things up, check in my code, etc., close programs, log out, and turn off the monitor. So I do the same thing, minus turning the computer off or to hibernate.



    However, after this morning, hibernation for my desktops is on probation. It came back up great this morning, but as soon as I logged in and started up mail and my browser, it locked solid for about 5 minutes, responding to Alt+Tab (though not actually switching windows since all windows were "busy") but not Ctrl+Alt+Del, if you believe that... One more strike and it's out, at least for THIS computer. But monitor shut-off and standby should be good enough, if hibernate keeps hosing things.

  • Now that we know that turning your computer on and off won't shorten its life, what about LCD monitors? I expect that there's a surge of power that goes through the lamp when it's first turned on. On the other hand, how is longevity affected by leaving the lamp on all the time (blank screen or not)?

  • I want to know by leaving your computer on all night and day will it cost more on your energy bill? When using it in hibernation mode will the same effect happen? Will you be loosing energy or not nobody has seemed to answer the question? What happens when you turn on the computer? Don't you get a power surge as well, and isn't this not good for our system(s)?

  • Michael,



    Didn't you read the article I linked in the original post? It answers all these questions (yes, off/hibernation saves energy; no, it doesn't hurt the system).



    --Peter

  • The primary reason I leave my computer on at night is because I'm both sharing Linux distributions via Bittorrent and I want to keep that connection open, and because I'm participating in grid computing (yay, BOINC) and want to keep processing.

    I'm not saving any energy doing this, but I still feel I'm being productive. I just make sure I have excellent cooling systems.

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