Even if I'm away for ~30 minutes, I tend to just shutdown now.
Boot times are so fast, that there's no benefit for me to leave it on.
Even if I'm away for ~30 minutes, I tend to just shutdown now.
Boot times are so fast, that there's no benefit for me to leave it on.
I've always shut down my PC unless I have some task that *really* needs to be completed.
It didn't help that, back in the day, every single fan in the system was on full blast. Trying to sleep, with one of those in the room, was an impossibility.
I built a new Ryzen system last week. I still have the sides off, whilst testing stability. It's amazing how quiet it is even in that state. Neither the PSU or gfx card fan come on, until it gets more intensive. The stock cooler is also incredibly quiet. The tower is right next to me feet and I still can't hear it. Only times I hear anything from it is when the hard drives spin up. I could actually sleep with that in the room.
Even so. No I will always power down.
Well, I have over a dozen PCs, most of which are for specific purposes, relating to working from home, and often fairly old machines. Some aren't needed at all in a given day, others might not be needed in any given week.
I don't have the figures to hand (though they're in a file somewhere) but I have a chart fir each machine, showing metered power consumption, both instant and averaged over an hour, in :-
- off, mains turned off
- off, but mains power to PC
- on, but "idle"
- on, running typical jobs.
I then costed each profile out, using the cost per KwH on my leccy bill, gulped at the results, and now only power things up when needed. By the same logic, I turn lights off when not needed, have almost entirely LED lighting, replaced some old power-guzzling appliances (like an old freezer) and only put the amount of water in the kettle needed for two cups of coffee/tea.
And lots more, too. It is, if you like, a mindset. If you save a little bit here, a little bit there, then day after day, year after year, it adds up. Also, I can feel good about doing everything feasible and practical to cut my energy footprint, within reason.
And I saved hundreds of pounds a year on my electricity bill.
So it's a two-fer. Save money, and save the planet's resources, at the same time.
Mainly the money, though. So government economic motivation worked on me.
I shut the PC down when I upgrade or rebuild, or when I go away for more than a couple of days. Otherwise never. It's what I've done for years (well, soon a couple of decades) and my electricity bills are tinier than ever (~£50/month), so I have no incentive to change my habits.
no - the current draw at sleep is insignificant.
Only for maintenance
Pretty much leave them running around the clock, usually my desktop is powering through some problem or another even when I'm sleeping. I'll power down my desktop while I'm away on holidays, but I keep my server running so I can access media on Plex and whatnot.
I did the same with swapping all bulbs for LED (went a bit far and even swapping the one in the fridge) and the difference that made to my energy bills was noticeable. Past that of course switching everything off which isn't in use saving even more energy.
My brother in law use to unplug his router when he was out.
If there's a reason to have it on or just in sleep, yes else I'd just shut it down.
I have been known to do the same, if I'm away for a significant period, or if I have no plans to use the net. It's more about security and mental control than power usage, though.
If I'm away for several days, it'll usually be off, but I turn it off when not needing it to avoid it being off suggesting I'm not there. So, if I'm doing a day or two of DIY, or gardening, or reading a book or catching up on a TV series, or .... a hundred other things, that are going to keep me occupied, then I don't need the internet, and hence, off goes the router.
I regularly just take a break from contact with the outside world. Phones turned off, net off, no TV news, no visitors, just peace and quiet. The longest, other than a couple of esential food shopping runs, was about three weeks. If you have something you want to concentrate on, in my case usually writing, it's surprising how much you can get done if you consciously and as a matter of willpower, deliberately shut down external distractions. It's almost a yoga, Zen kind of thing.
The way I think of it is that it's like deliberately shutting down one source of the white noise of normal rat-race life after another, until you reach something resembling golden silence.
I prefer Sleep Mode. PC is back on in a flash and just how I left it.
Though it's been a bit flakey. e.g. I'll put it in sleep mode, get ready for bed, and then I'll notice the PC is up and running again. Stupid thing.
So now I tend to use Hibernate mode.
If I've not got a bunch of applications running then I'll just turn it off.
I didn't say that off wouldn't consume less power during that state. But did you consider the costs of the hardware running at its full capacity for a few minutes during loading into those calculations?
Even if its still less, it reduces the perceived difference by a lot. More energy can be easily saved elsewhere. I'm happy to pay the little extra for the convenience personally and I'm already on a 100% renewable energy plan so that's not really a concern to me.
I don't leave my central heating on when I'm not at home.
I don't leave the light on when I'm not in the room.
I don't leave my car engine running when I'm not driving it.
I don't leave the oven on when I've finished cooking.
Why on earth would I leave my PC on when I'm not using it?
(Plus I can wake it remotely from my phone if I need to access it)
Windows 10 PC at home - yes - Windows 10 resume from shutdown is so quick plus I don't tend to run the same programs every day so no value in saving state
Windows 7 PC at work - no - 2 or 3 copies of Visual Studio, Outlook, Chrome, IE etc which takes ages to start up - I'd lose 20 minutes a day shutting down. Rely on standby to save power. Should be going to Windows 10 in the next month or two so should be able to use its even more advance power savings soon.
Gaming PC is shut down after use, but I have a Gigabyte Brix (18W under load, 6W at idle) that runs 24/7 and I usually remote into from my tablet/laptop etc for other stuff.
Nope.
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