QOTW: Do you shut down your PC?

[Ferral]

I just leave it running all the time as of late. With all the renovation work if I shut it down the dust from power sander that gets everywhere gets into the bearings in the case fans causing a grating noise when initially turning on.

[Wozza63]

People mention saving energy, but you probably aren't saving much. It's either just your RAM being powered at around 5W for 8 hours or having your CPU running full whack for a couple of minutes during shut down and start up.

[el_raberto]

When I need them on, they're on, when I need them off, they're completely shut off.

[Spud1]

It varies - only stays on now if there is a need to (e.g. when it's mining or I'm gaming) otherwise I turn it off.

Definitely, a big change from the past as the article says; where uptime used to be a showoff thing (particularly in IRC channels)..these days leaving my PC on it more profitable mind

[Andi-C]

Yes, all the time ! I don't see why people leave it on when it's doing nothing ? It only takes 10-15 seconds to power to desktop.

[trevcjohnson]

Generally close down end of the day, why keep the pc running when not in use, even equipment on standby can use a surprising amount of energy.

[Biscuit]

Whilst power usage has improved, so have boot times. Struggle to think of a reason to actually leave the computer switched on.

[Avram Razvan]

I live in a dorm so I shut it down during the night to not disturb my 2 other roommates. I sometimes leave it on during weekends since they go home. Also we don't pay for electricity anyway

[Spreadie]

Yep - I shut it down every night.

My NAS and server are both on 24/7 though.

[=assassin=]

I always shutdown my PC, sometimes even if I only plan to be away from it for half an hour. I did use Sleep mode over a year ago quite alot, but after I started getting crashing issues on resuming, I stopped using it.

[lon3wolf2002]

With how quick start/shutdown time is nowadays I shutdown when not using for a good few hours but power management/hardware is so much better these days too.

[Saracen]

It's not so much that I shut PC's down, but that I only power any of them up when I need them for sonething, snd shut down immediately I no longer need them.

Why? Several reasons, not in any partcular order :-

- noise. Up to 13 or 14 PCs make quite a racket.
- Power usage. Mostly they're older machines and suck power.
- Preserve longevity.
- Security. One thing is certain - they can't be hacked or infected if turned off. So, limit the attack surface.

[ddg3595]

I shut down my PCs every day.

[adidan]

People mention saving energy, but you probably aren't saving much.

100,000 people saving 10w that's 1million watts saved.

Easy maths really and when places like Iceland are concerned about even having enough energy due to crypto demand any saving is a good saving.

[ETR316]

I Always shut down when done working, or when done reading hexus.net

[Presto86]

When I know I'm going to be away from the PC for a hour or more I do shut it down.