Why do people not shut down PC's?

By Zlain
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Grand Master

+LogicalApex MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

-AV runs scheduled scans at night

-Windows updates run at night so they don't bother me

-If I need my computer remotely I can get to it

-Computers don't really use much electricity now

-Powering it off just to help Go Green is a crap reason

All of those could be accomplished with the computer being allowed to sleep... Just saying.

 

Scheduled tasks can wake the computer from sleep and complete (similar to how Windows Update will wake a sleeping computer to update).

 

When attempting to access the sleeping computer the packets should wake the machine out of sleep. It wouldn't be instant access (might delay you by a second or two), but you can still have remote access to a sleeping machine.

 

Computers don't use much electricity when you let them sleep so they draw little power :P

 

It takes less energy to run my rack server than it does to run my desktop. And my rack server is a lot more powerful computing wise (Dual Xeon E2690 and multiple HDDs)...

 

But it is your money spent on the Electric Bill. Spend it how you choose :)

Grand Master

Dot Matrix

Posted
Posted

I understand most points here about keeping the computer on. I fail to understand those folks who use boot time as an excuse. My computer boots in seconds. Are we now living in a world where people can't wait a few seconds for something? That is pretty disturbing when you think about it. There is no reason that the average/gamer user can't wait a few seconds.

How cute. If only IT cared about boot times when creating enterprise images.

Your PC doesn't run off batteries. If my tablet or smartphone was wired directly to the mains, I'd shut it down too.

My tablet is plugged in when on my desk, and runs all night long.

Grand Master

Nashy

Posted
Posted

how long does it take for your system to boot? heck I start mine from cold every morning and it takes a whole 15 seconds to get from power on to desktop...

 

About 10 minutes from cold to all my startups are done loading.

Grand Master

compl3x

Posted
Posted

If I shut my computer down, then the NSA won't be able to spy on me.

 

Aren't you ignoring their convert spy satellites which they use to track every person on the face of the earth 24/7?  :woot:

Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

In an age where energy bills are going up, climate change is in the news every day, why aren't more people just shutting down their PC's when they aren't in use? These "stand by" or "hibernation" modes do exist, but why not just shut down if you don't plan to use your PC for a good few hours? I've yet to see any legitimate reason for home owners to not shut down their PC's and yet every day I see people make comments that they don't shut their PC down. Why?

Why would I? Power is cheap and my CPU will usually throttle itself anyway unless I left a game running.

Rookie

Jeff Mitchell

Posted
Posted

My PC is generally left running all day but I shut it down at night.  I've never had a PC where sleep/hibernate worked properly, so I turn off all power management.

 

When I turn on in the morning, my SSD system drive boots to desktop in less than 10 seconds.  So the fact that I've powered off never bothers me.

 

Oh, on the climate change thing?  We're so far gone that the only way to solve it is for society to go back to the stone age.

Grand Master

The Evil Overlord

Posted
Posted

I shut mine down, but that's because I prefer to,

I'm no ecowarrior, just don't see the point in my machine running if there's no need for it to be, plus with an SSD the boot time is usually between 50-90 seconds so it's not like I'm waiting forever..

Grand Master

Yusuf M. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

I don't see the point in keeping the fans spinning when I'm not using it. I only leave it on to let a download run overnight every once in awhile. Also, I have a SSD so my boot time is very low.

Grand Master

ozgeek

Posted
Posted

- Uses little to no power compared to the same household without a computer or 2. I have 2 PCs running. One as a server.

- My bill only gone up $100 since I became a customer back in 2002.

- So I could teamview into my PC from work and set some TV shows to be recorded or start downloading some games on Steam so they are ready to play as soon as I get home.

- To steam movies and recorded TV shows to my ipad or 55" TV.

Grand Master

+Random Stranger Subscriber¹

Posted
  • Subscriber¹
Posted

i usually shut down, if i dont forget, or i am not running a program that is doing something.

 

my system loads up in 30 sec, so its not a big deal.   previous system, with vista was taking well over 2 minutes before i could run a program, so i never shut it off.

 

sleep/ hibernation always worked like crap.

Grand Master

Sir Topham Hatt

Posted
Posted

This is the first time I am hearing this.  What makes you think SSDs should not be put to sleep?

 

Google - seems to be no evidence either way but the fact is, SSD = seconds to boot, so why have it wasting power over the years?

Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

 

Google - seems to be no evidence either way but the fact is, SSD = seconds to boot, so why have it wasting power over the years?

 

because I don't want to restart all my software and get everything back up the way I want it again. hence my laptop is on all the time and sleeps only when I bring it somewhere, my desktop is always on  and my two media centers are of course on all the time(one also doubles as part server), plus my GF's laptop and computer. power is cheap and over here clean as well. If our power companies are selling our hydro power to other countires and buying back brown coal power that's not really my problem. that power is only on paper anyway, the power I use comes from the nearest hydro plant. even if it didn't I wouldn't care, it's not computer or standby electronics that are the issue anyway, and the only way to clean up that is to build more nuclear plants, NOT to use less pwoer. the world is using more and more power that can't be changed, we need to focus on more clean nuclear plants not closing them due to irrational fear. 

Grand Master

Nashy

Posted
Posted

you either have way too much software preloading on startup... or you have some slow hardware.....

 

Bit of both.

I don't need top end hardware to do what I do on my PC.  It runs my games and software.  And I have plenty of things open on Windows startup, because they're things I need to use.

Enthusiast

Polarman

Posted
Posted

My PC is on an average of 5 hours a day(evenings) and a wee bit more on weekends if I'm not too busy. So total ON time is about 15%-20% a week.

 

I see no point leaving it on continuously. Boot time take about 30-40 seconds anyway. Definitely won't kill me.

 

P.S I'm the one that pays my electric bills.

Grand Master

leesmithg

Posted
Posted

I shut my PC down each day.

I'm not made of money.

Plus, no one should waste electricity, even if they have the money to do it.

It costs you at least 50 times more in energy to shut down and reboot rather than sleep mode.

 

You by shutting down and re-booting your PC is the one wasting energy.

 

Then there are the components expanding, decreasing, expanding, decreasing in size, the wear and tear on these items are making their lives shorter and short with the continual

 

shut down, re-boot.

 

So hippy, you want to save the worlds resources, then what you need to do is sleep your PC unless a re-boot is required to update system files.

Grand Master

ozgeek

Posted
Posted

I shut my PC down each day.

I'm not made of money.

Plus, no one should waste electricity, even if they have the money to do it.

 

Those who don't actually use electricity is the one wasting power. The power stations will continue to genreate power regardless if you use it or not, and if un-used will jsut go to waste and to coup costs from that, they increase power bill like they already are doing us in CQ.

 

It is actually cheaper to moderate your power usage. Not too much not too little. Besides electronic equipment is designed to be left on. On, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on. Especially bad for the hard drives.

Grand Master

leesmithg

Posted
Posted

Those who don't actually use electricity is the one wasting power. The power stations will continue to genreate power regardless if you use it or not, and if un-used will jsut go to waste and to coup costs from that, they increase power bill like they already are doing us in CQ.

 

It is actually cheaper to moderate your power usage. Not too much not too little. Besides electronic equipment is designed to be left on. On, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on. Especially bad for the hard drives.

Power companies store the energy and then sell it on to other companies as excess or off-set it against future use.

 

Like if you put solar panels on your porperty, if that is the roofs, garage roof, panels in garden, where ever, the 'what-you-don't-use' gets stored in blocks and energy companies will offer to buy it from you.

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