Do You Turn Your Computers Off At Night?

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moongirl
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Turn Off Computer: Standby PCs bleed power
April 22, 2006


Whether it's the computer, music system or the TV set, the modern home is permanently on standby, full of equipment that sits "half on", waiting to spring immediately to life when we ask it to.

Windows XP no longer tells you when it is safe to shut down your computer. We sometimes leave our computers in Standby or Hibernation mode and forget to turn them off completely.

Shutting down using hibernate or standby is the same as leaving your computer on. A PC or any other hardware device like TV or printer is always using energy unless it is totally switched off.

According to BBC, a PC can consume power anywhere between five watts to 60 and beyond. If a million PC users switched to a more efficient power supply, it would save almost the equivalent of 250 million litres of gasoline a day.

PCMag adds that even if a PC is not being used, the monitor, printer, and various Ethernet and FireWire devices running and wasting energy. They suggest a modern power strip like the BiTS Smart Strip - When the computer stops drawing power, the Smart Strip senses it and automatically shuts off power to the other devices.


http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/04/turn ... bleed.html
Do You Turn Your Computers Off At Night?

With energy costs heading continuously upwards, Fujitsu is now suggesting that companies should tell their employees to turn PCs off at night to save energy. Of course, for many, many years, this has been a very popular question for computer users -- as can be seen by the number of results on a simple Google search. There are, clearly, pros and cons to leaving the computer on and turning it off -- so with that in mind, we've set up our own extremely unscientific survey. Some people insist that constantly restarting your computer is actually worse for it than just leaving it on. Others claim the energy savings are a much bigger deal, and that argument may gain support with energy costs getting higher every day.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/200510 ... 48_F.shtml
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tunebud
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I never turn off any of my PC's unless it's to just reboot and I never turn off the TV's in the house.

Just call me a power hog
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moongirl
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:lol: Image
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moongirl
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You can maximise energy savings from your computers & televisions...save power, save the earth :)

The TrickleStar™ PC TrickleSaver™ reduces the standby energy consumed by PC Peripheral equipment. The product connects to a PC via a standard USB connector and detects the power status of a PC via the USB port.

When a PC is powered the product will switch On all peripheral devices. Conversely when a PC is switched Off, the product will switch Off all peripheral devices. The product is easy to install and provides simple automation to reduce wasteful standby energy consumption.The product is suitable for residential and workplace PC applications.

The product can be connected directly to equipment or connected to a standard electrical powerstrip with a number of connected devices.

IMPORTANT NOTICE
SLEEP STATE
The PC TrickleSaver requires the PC to switched off completely.
The PC TrickleSaver will not work when a PC is placed into a sleep / hibernation state.
If you require peripheral devices to switch off in a sleep / hibernation state, a TV TrickleSaver should be used.

HARD DISK DRIVE PRODUCT
Certain manufacturers of products containing hard disk drives do not recommend hard switching off of their products.
We recommend reviewing the manufacturers documentation prior to use of a PC TrickleSaver with these products.

The TrickleStar™ TV TrickleSaver™ reduces the standby energy consumed by TV accessories The product has inbuilt current sensing circuitry to sense when a TV is on or Off. When the TV is on the product will switch On all peripheral devices. Conversely when the TV is Off, the product will switch Off all accessories The product is easy to install and provides simple automation to reduce wasteful standby energy consumption. The product is suitable for residental and workplace applications. The product can be connected directly to equipment or connected to a standard electrical powerstrip with a number of connected devices.
IMPORTANT NOTICE

PAY TV / FREE TO AIR DIGITAL HDD SET TOP BOXES
Certain manufacturers of set-top boxes, which have Hard Disk Drive (HDD) functionality, do not recommend hard switching off of their products as programming and software updates are typically downloaded when set-top boxes are in standby mode.
We recommend reviewing the manufacturers documentation prior to use of a TV TrickleSaver with these products.

http://www.tricklestar.com/html/s01_home/home.asp
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moongirl
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The EcoButton
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ecobutton™ is an award winning retro-fit computer power saving device that can really make a difference to your PC power usage and help you reduce your carbon footprint and save you money on your electricity bills.

ecobutton™ is unique in that it rewards you each time you use it, showing you how much you've saved and helping to motivate behavioural change. Evidence is growing that ecobutton™ users are motivated to turn off lights and other electrical items more often in their offices and around their homes.

ecobutton™ - one small click, one big change!
http://www.eco-button.com/
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I do, my laptop vents at the bottom. If I don't turn it off eventually it'll overheat and turn itself off.... I hate that! :evil:
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quahappy
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Laptop gets turned off at night but desktop gets left on as it's going through a Sonique "can't make my mind up" crisis. If I shut it down, power it up the next morning, the damn thing won't connect to the internet. So it's staying on!
If you don't ask...
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Before moving house a couple of years back, the desktop would be on the whole time - amongst other things it hosted an IRC bot and, since it was running mandriva linux at the time, there really wasn't an OS stability problem.
After moving house we had no stable connection for the longest time. There are no phone or TV cables in our new street so there was no longer any point leaving the machine turned on.
The desktop is gone now. We have a couple of laptops on the go, though usually they're turned off at night. This one that I'm typing from just now is left on if I'm desperate to finish downloading some torrent or other or if we're shunting data around our home network. Otherwise, they're turned off at night.
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I turn my work PC off over the weekend, but my home computers are on all the time.
One desktop is set to record tv and run backups nightly, the other has a web server running. The laptops stay on because we're lazy. :)
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Layzie Bone
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Well there are two sides to this story. As a computer salesman, I always inform customers that they can save money on thier energy bill by turning off their computers. I don't turn off my computer, in fact I have gone 45 days w/o a reboot, although thats rare since my UPS doesn't work now after putting in this beefy video card :shock:

Running your computer all the time can cause some unneeded wear and tear, however, power cycling equipment causes a lot of stress, and it seems that machines that run all the time have less hardware problems than ones that are powered off. I've seen more blown PSU (Power Supplies), hard drives and motherboards on machines that are rarely used (or cleaned) than machines that were powered on for 8 years, such as our old gateway machine that I used when I first joined CMX, we bought in 2002 and has over 60,000 hours of operation under it's belt.
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quahappy
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Just noticed title of this topic.... how the heck did you suss we have more than one computer moon?! ;)

Three laptops in my house. One is mine, another is the wife's (these two are wireless via BT homehub), and the third is the kids, locked down with parental controls, etc. Oh, and that one can only be connected via Internet dongle. Which is kept in my pocket when not used. ;)

My wife shuts hers down every night and sometimes during the day if not using it for x hours. Mine stays on around 16-18 hours a day before switched off. No, I'm not on it all the time. I have certain websites constantly open and check when get the opportunity to act on any tasks that need my attention. I should switch it to economical mode really but find the screen dims a great deal and then difficult to see. (only because I have cataract in right eye which will be removed in July. Cataract, not the eye.)
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Layzie Bone
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quahappy wrote:Just noticed title of this topic.... how the heck did you suss we have more than one computer moon?! ;)

Three laptops in my house. One is mine, another is the wife's (these two are wireless via BT homehub), and the third is the kids, locked down with parental controls, etc. Oh, and that one can only be connected via Internet dongle. Which is kept in my pocket when not used. ;)

My wife shuts hers down every night and sometimes during the day if not using it for x hours. Mine stays on around 16-18 hours a day before switched off. No, I'm not on it all the time. I have certain websites constantly open and check when get the opportunity to act on any tasks that need my attention. I should switch it to economical mode really but find the screen dims a great deal and then difficult to see. (only because I have cataract in right eye which will be removed in July. Cataract, not the eye.)
Laptops are as well a sticky subject, laptops use way less energy than a desktop, especially my desktop. Because laptops usually don't have sufficient cooling, probably turn them off or use sleep mode, and on some newer notebooks you can control the clock freq, for instance my netbook, when I have it on battery power I have it set to run at 50% speed (this really boosts battery runtime) although it means I'm only getting 800 MHz...yeah imagine that, 800 MHz with Windows 7! :shock: If you really want to save energy, unplug the adapter from the wall, though they don't draw as much when the laptop isn't plugged in, they can still use a considerable amount of power over a period of time, this goes the same with almost every household appliance today. The funny fact about appliances today is that most of them run on DC, though we all have AC to the wall outlet we suddenly need an adapter to change it to DC, at a cost.

Ok for those who only know AC DC as in hells bells, which I'll agree is a great rock band, but I'll explain the science behind the rock...

DC - Direct Current. Pretty easy, well they're both pretty easy, but I also said the removing a virus from a PC is also easy. Ok direct current... It only travels in one direction, example:

->->->->-> +
<-<-<-<-<- -

AC - Alternating Current. Alternating current changes direction a number of times per second. In the US, other countries use different voltages and cycles per second, use 60 Hz (cycles) at 120 V,explain voltages in a bit. Here's an example...

-<->-<->-<->-<
->-<->-<->-<->

Amazingly enough this happens 50 to 60 times per second. Ok so why alternating current instead of direct current. Surprisingly enough it's safer. If you ever were to experience an electrical shock with 120 V DC, you're probably going to die, since the charge can hold you to the wire, or throw you on your ass, however anytime you get "zapped" can make it difficult to get away. Secondly, and most importantly it travels much further than DC, that means less power stations are needed.

Volts, Amps, Watts, and Ohms...Eh why not? :lol: Voltage is the measure of charge, think of it as terms of a river, in this case it would be the downhill slope of a river, meaning gravity is forcing the water down harder, the more voltage the more the charge wants to get out, good example...lightning...oxygen is usually a very good insulator, meaning it doesn't conduct electricity, however enough charge, electricity will travel on through. Amperes is the measure of current, this is what can stop your heart when being electrocuted, voltage by it self is a harmless unless enough actual electricity is flowing, for a river of water we could say this is the number of gallons of water that are going down the river. Watts is the measure of power, which can be figured by Amps x Volts, for instance if your TV uses 120 volts and uses 6 amps your TV consumes 720 watts, and the average kilowatt hour is 12 cents would cost you $2.07 every 24 hours of use. Lastly Ohms, ohms are resistance, all conductors have some amount of resistance, the best conductor (not including superconductors) is silver, but because silver tarnishes witch hinders this ability gold is used in its place since gold has a similar atomic structure. Resistance could be thought of the rocks and dams that are on the river restricting flow of water...

So hopefully someone can make use of all my jabbering and hopefully save money on their energy bill, a good link to read more on this: http://www.ebtx.com/mech/ampvolt.htm
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On my Mac I put the computer to sleep over night if it's not doing anything, otherwise I turn the screen off if it is downloading a large file(s).

On my laptop - and considering this topic was posted in Aug 2006 I probably should have posted this then! - in 2004 I was trying to win the Uptime League and I went 45 or so days without shutting down. In hindsight probably a bad idea :lol: But it was good fun at the time, and I still occasionally use the computer if I need to use Windows for something even though the hardware is very slow now.
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