I generally keep my computers running all day every day, with the exception of laptops that I suspend but keep powered.
Do people actually turn off their computers when they are done with them each day? Do you hibernate or suspend, or power off completely?
If you leave your computer running all day do you think about power consumption? Have you changed your metering or electricity plan to suit?
Do people actually turn off their computers when they are done with them each day?
turn off their computers when they are done with them each day
when they are done with them each day
Does not compute.
What about "Switch Off", "Power Off", "Power Down", "Close", "Shut Down", "De-Power", or "Extinguish"?
HIBERNATE GOOD TIMES, COME ON
Unless you're using "server" operating system, I suspect you've had to reboot them a few times in those 8 years.
Since when is a reboot classified as turning a computer off?
Yep.
And for those who don't know, that could still often equate to 99.999% uptime
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability#Percentage…
They are on pretty much all day everyday, on solar and haven't paid for electricity for the last few years so not really worried about power consumption
What do you do when the sun go down?
then the Lunar Power kicks in
how long do you have to wait ?
just a Lunar Tick ! ;-)
Use baseload (coal) power from the grid.
He generates enough solar credits throughout the day to get him through the night?
@Ryanek: Whatever on the financial side of electricity, you still use coal fired power at night unless you have your own tesla powerwall
@lgacb08: Think of it as a carbon offset. The power he has put back into the system allows him to use conventional power at night.
It's like people who are paying extra for renewable energy on their electricity plans. They're literally not get power from a wind turbine, it's an offset.
@lgacb08: Or other brands, which all have an environmental impact… But now we're getting into the weeds.
Interestingly, "baseload" isn't really the right term here. "Load" is grid demand, "baseload" is the minimum persistent level of demand. It's a demand-side, not a supply-side term.
Also, depending on where OP is in Australia, the 'grid' power could also well be gas-fired or from wind; it's not really safe to assume that generation at night is from coal.
Looks like electricity generated in the day is enough to cover things. Hopefully it stays like this for a few more years.
do you have a really big solar system or just a good deal on feed-in tarrifs?
@bobinv: I agree that's what ours is - small bills in winter using 2x split systems most day/night for heating and credit bills over summer - nets out to zero over a 12 month period.
The sun goes down
The stars come out
And all that counts
Is here and now
My universe will never be the same
I'm glad you came
I'm glad you came
that sounds like some lyrics to a nightcore song I heard….
Any power you save would offset someone else using brown coal, so just because you cover your own power doesn't mean there's no reason to save electricity.
I only have laptops and I make them go to sleep
"You will go to sleep or I will put you to sleep, you're in my world now laptop!"
Haha! I read the comment in the same voice as you, clearly. ;)
3, 2, 1, sleep. 👌💢
I read this like Jesse from Breaking Bad…sounded cool in my mind..lol
I could be wrong but I think it's Bobby D from Meet the Parents.
@Skinnerr: It's Ben Stiller's character from Happy Gilmore. You're in my world now grandma!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujR55Ageahg&ab_channel=ClipM…
Well, now your back's gonna hurt because you just pulled landscaping duty.
….. I'll show myself out.
Since ssd I just turn it off. Is back Online in no time.
Yeah they have the internet on computers now.
Has someone investigated this before? Any article/sources?
Has someone investigated this before?
Yes, but I also can't be bothered to look it up.
It's much worse if you have spinning hard drives than SSDs, but start-up is still a stressful time for electronics. Capacitors charging up, inrush current into transformers, and so on. Again, this is likely less of a problem in modern designs.
Ask around and you'll find many an anecdote about old electronics that worked fine until they were turned off, then went bang when turned back on. (Bear in mind of course, the plural of anecdote is not data)
I tell my gear to hibernate or turn it off when I'm done using it.
That might've been the case back in the day but for many years now PCs aren't really "off" when they're shut down so components are still receiving power so there's no in rush etc. The only moving parts in most PCs now are a few fans and even an average quality fan will run for decades if kept clean. Different case if you actually flip the switch in the PSU or pull the cable but even then I don't think it's something to worry about.
for many years now PCs aren't really "off" when they're shut down so components are still receiving power so there's no in rush etc
Indeed, there are many different levels of "off". But talking about the "off" (at the front power button, not the mains switch on the PSU) or hibernate levels… 5Vsb is still on, and the mains-voltage side of the PSU is still ticking away to produce that. But the high power parts of the PSU shut down.
You'll still get some startup inrush on the relatively high current 12V lines that feed into the step-down converters that actually power the CPU, for example. (I haven't read the spec for a very long time, I don't know if there are mandatory inrush current, dV/dt, etc limits)
At least, that's how it worked last time I poked around… Does the latest ATX spec leave some 12V on? Things tend to change not-at-all for a long time but then all-at-once in computers!
@abb: I don't bother keeping up with it any more but I think 12v is still off for current models but many motherboards have very advanced power management and a heap of settings now so wouldn't surprise me if it can be configured to keep 12v hot as well though I'm not sure why you'd want to. The other factor is of course that caps don't just immediately discharge unless there's still a load on them so that would likely also change the in rush. Bottom line though is I still don't think it's worth worrying about. I can't remember the last time I had a component fail (other than DOA) before I replaced it and I don't upgrade often. I just got a new PC and my old one that was switched on and off daily, often multiple times, was almost 7 years old.
Bottom line though is I still don't think it's worth worrying about.
Yes, I agree. Unless you're talking about certain special cases (e.g. a system has to last for 50 years, or an antique) I'd always advocate turning stuff off when it's not needed.
@abb: That's not been the case since the late-90's. So anything after Windows 98 has been fine.
I recall they even tested this theory on light bulbs. A common wivestale is to leave a light on instead of turning it on/off as that expends more energy. When tested this, it was only true if you left it on for ~5 seconds. And that was on the worst case scenario. Modern LED bulbs would be <1 second, so it's myth busted.
That's not been the case since the late-90's. So anything after Windows 98 has been fine.
Sorry, what's not been the case?
I recall they even tested this theory on light bulbs. A common wivestale is to leave a light on instead of turning it on/off as that expends more energy. When tested this, it was only true if you left it on for ~5 seconds. And that was on the worst case scenario. Modern LED bulbs would be <1 second, so it's myth busted.
This is a completely different thing. We're discussing (possible) damage caused by power cycling, not energy consumption.
@abb: When you turn a PC on, the surge you are thinking of was something we used to experience back in the 90's. However, this wasn't particularly an issue as we didn't have hot/thirsty GPUs, and even the CPUs were quite more modest. On top of that, long-term effects weren't really a focal point because the hardware (and software) was evolving much more rapidly at that time. If your PC eventually died for unknown reasons, it was counter-intuitive to figure out what went wrong, fix the parts, and find how to prevent it…. it was much simpler, quicker, and cheaper to just upgrade it.
Since then, motherboards have gotten surge protection in most outlets. Its made from higher-quality silicon, and has capacitors placed around it to catch any surge that wasn't caught by the PSU (very unlikely). Even the cheap motherboards and PSUs perform this task efficiently. The only way to trigger an event as such would be to use the very cheapest no-name mobo and PSU…. which nobody really does this.
The lights turning on, is NOT a completely different thing. That was to show that the initial boot does consume more power, but it is nothing too substantial. The same concept applies for PCs. Initial boot does surge more power, but it isn't substantial. So the protection work that the mobo does isn't even impressive. And if the idea is about "keeping a PC on to save power", that's simply bollocks. For MacBooks I simply close the lid, as Apple's pretty awesome with their Sleep State. For Windows, I use Hibernate as that's quick on SSDs. For Desktop PCs, I would prefer to turn them off completely as leaving them even on Idle will be consuming ~100W per hour, or about an extra $180 per year. Unless you are doing a task like video editing, protein folding, crypto-mining, or downloading 4K-Linux ISO's.
Even for spinning disks the start-up stresses are not a real consideration. The standard power saving policy on windows 10 spins them down when idle.
My desktop boots off an SSD and I have a couple of spinning disks for media. Most of the time when I'm not accessing them those secondary disks are powered down.
@trongy: that's true for idling / sleep mode, and that is software managed during run-time. But hard shutdown / physically pulled the plug and cut the power, it will wear out the spinning HDDs upon startup
start-up is still a stressful time for electronics. Capacitors charging up, inrush current into transformers, and so on. Again, this is likely less of a problem in modern designs.
Not a thing anymore. Think about last year's RTX 3080 launch debacle where a combination of power quality and over current protection was crashing on systems with optimally sized PSU's. Nvidia slowed down their clock rate change in drivers and suddenly all those problems went away.
If a 320W maximum power increase can trigger over current protection on weaker PSU's but the computer otherwise starts fine, start up inrush current isn't a problem.
But think about it. We have moved from analogue to hybrid to mostly switch mode PSU's. Transformers and capacitors are there for filtering, not conversion. The motors in fans and platter motors in HDD's consume very little. You are right, in modern designs there is nothing left to draw inrush.
Incorrect. Ive been powering off my current PC for the last 11+ years and nothing has broken from 'wear and tear'. Its a PC not a car.
Have MAC for 7 years now and never turned it off only sleeps unless the table needs dusting.
Sorry I mentioned apple product and got neg.
Welcome to OzB.
Yep - Macs are never a "bargain" as such so get ejected from comments pretty quick.
(nothing personally against them BTW).
Powering off PCs is way more important than switching off lights. As a rule of thumb, anything that produces heat uses a lot of more energy.
Switching off your PC everyday also can help its performance.
Time waiting for shutdown
WWII so you really for it to shutdown?
- boot up
Which is nearly instant with a SSD
I usually have 2 Eclipse sessions, Oracle SQL Session, 10 browser sessions.
Usually take about 30 sec+ to just to shutdown, with the SSD (time taking from left off to resume working).
Even longer for boot up,. I'm not just browsing Ozb
Only time i restart for window upgrade or something similar. Team I'm working with, no one game enough to turn off and turn on for the day.
@boomramada: How dare people presume you only use your PC for ozbargain (+youtube / facebook / instagram)
@boomramada: I find that suspending to RAM (Sleep) is a good compromise. It resumes faster than a sneeze and last time I tested it used about 1W more than when shutdown.
I tried switching off my PC and the performance dropped to zero.
I'm on NBN and switching off the PC improved performance…
Is zero good or bad though? I mean wouldn't something that took zero seconds to complete be instantaneous thus represent absolute perfection?
A typical PC will consume something like 150-200W during mild workloads like surfing the web; if that PC is never switched off then it consumes 3.6-4.0kWh per day. A kettle might consume something like 1200W but will only run for something like 2 minutes per boil (if you're boiling something like 1L or a bit under), thereby consuming only 0.04kWh. Unless you're boiling something like 90-100L of water with your kettle every day, the PC is more power hungry. Also if you're doing things more demanding with your PC like playing video games, rendering videos, etc then that PC power consumption can roughly double. Overclocking computer components can easily drive that a lot higher as well.
Likewise, if you leave have a typical fluorescent lightbulb on 24/7, that'll consume somewhere in the ballpark of 10-15W. If you have something like 6 bulbs on all the time, then that's 60-90W total and 1.44-2.16kWh or in the ballpark of 50 of the above-described kettle boils.
Water heaters for your shower, etc consume a lot and will beat a computer for power consumption; air conditions can also easily beat a computer for power consumption if you use it for more than a few hours.
Of course I switch off lights. Why waste energy when you don't need to? It's such an easy habit.
A desktop computer uses 25-50x the wattage of a standard LED globe, and if you're like most people you're still causing carbon pollution with your power draw.
Switching off your PC everyday also can help its performance.
How? Collects less dust is the only performance benefit I can think of.
I'm not him, but I assume he's talking about the benefits of rebooting, where just sometimes having the OS and certain background programs reload will help them deal with process hangs or loops, or memory leaks, etc.
You're right. I forgot about systems with too little RAM.
@This Guy: Has absolutely nothing to do with RAM.
Operating Systems are massive complicated pieces of code that have to interface with software and hardware and as such issues to come up.
Unless you have a specific reason to keep your PC on 24/7 you should turn it off over night.
@Nereosis: This chain is discussing performance improvements from turning off a PC.
JS1 stated hangs, loops, memory leaks etc.
Unless you are running very janky software, you are not going to get those with a modern install of Windows unless you are running to little memory for the programs you want to run.
Windows is sand box with in sand box with in sand box. Modern hardware has very low power draw states. Windows is stable and secure enough that unless you annoy a script kiddy or a government you will be fine leaving most PC's on 24/7.
Windows generally works better, with the right hardware, when left on 24/7 as it can do back ground takes like updates and defrag HDDs in non active hours.
I'm too cheap for a seedbox and I have requirements to meet… so no.
At home I turn off my work pc/laptop, not gonna waste my power. At work I leave it on 24/7, just sleep it when I go home.
ironically, at work I'm required to supposed to shutdown every night. Which isn't going to happen, it would be a huge productivity hit to restart everything I was doing the next day. I try to shut down once a week but that means Friday afternoons are spent trying to tie up loose ends.
At home I shutdown when Chrome has consumed all my memory and things start locking up.I usually get a few weeks, and then it's just a restart. So I'm up pretty much 100%.I think PCs are smart enough to go into low consumption mode when they aren't doing anything. I'm not interested enough to find out… not sure why I'm interested enough to write all this.
We got a bunch of dell latitude 4000’s as ‘workstations’, I say that cause anything more than 2 programs and 3 browser tabs and they heat up and has the fan going 100%. Very poor cooling design sucking from the bottom through a 2-3mm gap to the desk and exhausting onto the screen hinge bar area, which forces the hot air down again to the desk, which can then be re-consumed by the intake fan.
If I lock the laptop and walk away the fan still cranks about 80-100% so it must go off at home otherwise we get no sleep.
I'm trying not to judge someone/something I don't know… But this appears like lack of organisation. There's always a way to save or square things away for simple start-up. And when you arrive at work 5min early each day, turn on pc, and set yourself up for the day in the same time. You'd save more time holding off for a toilet break.
Its a few clicks to reinstate a project… Unlike physical workers, like-say carpenters building a house. Unloading trailers, tools, ladders, hooking-up power & compressed air etc.
Again, not judging. I could be way off the mark.
In a perfect world, with locally hosted stuff, yes. Unfortunately, reconnecting to network resources can be painful when (a) everyone's logging on at the same time on the morning and (b) your company refuses to adequately maintain/upgrade network gear on the name of cost saving.
@ashanrath: …and if you leave a document open, the cursor is still sitting where you were up to. Some apps are trying to get smart in this regard, but a long way off.
I don't know whether anyone has tried to measure how much time is lost by being interupted (maybe 30 minutes to recover from a distraction??) well I reckon a shutdown multiples that by everything you had open.
Yes, it's definitely because I'm trying to juggle too many balls. But does anybody get to just work on one task at a time and close it down before starting something else?
@ashanrath: Just keep in mind that if you have files open from a network resource, those files likely won't be backed up as the option to backup open files is usually an additional option that has to be purchased and in my experience, few companies bother buying it.
@apsilon: Oh of course not, and honestly anything of a decent size I work on a local copy. Honesty, the main reason I leave it on overnight is to avoid our horribly unoptimised login script taking up to 15 minutes each morning.
My laptop pretty much switches me off everyday…
If you do turn off your PC each day make sure to only do so via the OS or power button, because if you turn it off at the wall/unplug it from the wall/turn the switch on the PSU off, when you then turn it back on a relay (part of a circuit that limits the large spike of current as the main capacitors in the PSU charge) has to switch on, which wears it out over a few years of being turned off and on each day.
So I shut it down via the OS, then sometimes turn the switch on the PSU off (after maybe 1 min). From what you have described, that would be a bad thing to do as well?
It would be bad if you did it each day.
From time to not so much.
TBH I did not know about this until recently when I came across a post on the Jonny Guru forums where Jonny himself talks about the damage it can do.
In almost 30 years of working IT and dealing with probably 10s of thousands of PCs in that time, I've never had a PSU fail in this way. It is a possibility but I think the odds are so small it's not even worth considering it.
Is that a thing?
I've never know anybody to avoid the button right in front of them, and reach under/over/around everything for the GPO
Why wouldnt you turn it off?
Downloading GoT 4k
Why bother, the ending ruined the whole thing.
Thread Hijack:
Seasons 1-4 were golden
Season 5, half was pretty good.
Seasons 6-8 was a descent into stupidity.
@Kangal: Dude.. I still remember reading the leaked spoiler on Reddit for the last few eps of S08 and thinking "no (profanity) way they choose to end the show this way". Unfortunately I was wrong and they (profanity) it up beyond recognition.
SHHPOILER
Pfft. Warhammer is 40k
I have 48TB media server running Kodi throughout my house. Also torrents. Many reasons to leave it on all the time.
I wouldn't count that as a desktop PC. That's a server. Completely different.
I turn off my PC all the time. The fan noise it makes in my room is maddening in the night and if I put it to sleep, the PC likes to wake up randomly when I haven't even touched a key.
They're on 24/7, 365 days, 8ish years.