Do you leave your computer on?

[bigsnowdog]

Historically, I have always shut down my G4 when I left for work, or for a weekend.

Do you leave your computer on all the time, or do you shut it down when you leave for the day? What do you do with your monitor? Have it go to sleep, or use a screen saver?

I just spent about $1,000 on a new NEC monitor and would like to do the best thing for it and my new Mac Pro.

 

[Hellhammer]

I always sleep my computers when I leave home. Start up takes too much time (have like 30 startup items) and I don't see any need to do that.

 

[jonnymo5]

I usually have my computer doing something during the day while I'm gone so I always leave it on. The cooling is great so as long as you keep it clean and don't block it off that will not be a problem. Although if the computer is really idle then might as well turn it off. I have the monitor go to sleep or I turn it off. No sense having it running a screen saver all day if nobody is there to see it. Plus saves a little electricity.

 

[eawmp1]

My beast sleeps

 

[GoCubsGo]

I only put it to sleep unless I leave for extended periods of time.

 

[johnnymg]

Historically, I have always shut down my G4 when I left for work, or for a weekend.

Do you leave your computer on all the time, or do you shut it down when you leave for the day? What do you do with your monitor? Have it go to sleep, or use a screen saver?

I just spent about $1,000 on a new NEC monitor and would like to do the best thing for it and my new Mac Pro.

I sleep my MP (with OCZ SDD boot drive) whenever I leave the house. Less than 5 Watts sleeping vs ~200 W while ON.

cheers
JohnG

 

[gullySn0wCat]

I turn it off. Not rebooting at least occasionally can lead to a pretty severe performance hit, from experience.

 

[bigsnowdog]

I sleep my MP (with OCZ SDD boot drive) whenever I leave the house. Less than 5 Watts sleeping vs ~200 W while ON.

cheers
JohnG

What about the monitor?

 

[SandboxGeneral]

I never turn mine off. They always go to sleep when I'm not using them. My iMac is currently 20 days without a restart or shutdown. It's not the longest it's gone, which I think was 60 days before a restart. Restarts only come when Apple or other app updates require them.

The only time I actually shut it down, is if I am going to be away from home for an extended period of time, or when a storm comes through and I unplug all my expensive electronics from the wall (UPS included) and wait for it to pass before plugging them back in.

Now when I was a Windows guy, I shut it down every day. Sleeping in Windows has traditionally never worked well at all in my experience.

 

[dime21]

Let them sleep when not in use. Letting the computer sleep, and letting the monitor go into power save mode, will reduce the power consumption to almost nothing, just a few watts. It will also give you an almost "instant on" when you sit down to use it again, versus the minute or two for a cold boot.

Just letting it run 24/7 is not a great idea though. Aside from increasing your electric bill, it also wears out all the moving parts much quicker. Things like hard drives, fans, power supplies, are all rated for a certain number of hours. You chew through those hours very quickly when the machine stays on and running 24/7.

 

[dime21]

or when a storm comes through and I unplug all my expensive electronics from the wall (UPS included) and wait for it to pass before plugging them back in.

Now when I was a Windows guy, I shut it down every day. Sleeping in Windows has traditionally never worked well at all in my experience.

That's a good point about the storms. Consumer UPS's typically have very crappy surge protection ratings. They don't protect against surges and spikes very well at all! They are designed more for power outages and brownouts. Look at the joules rating and you'll see.

Agree on the Windows too, it has never ever worked well, in any of the Windows versions I've used (98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes you get a blank screen. And sometimes you get a blue screen.

 

[TheDoc]

I have a few different processes that run through the day that require the machine to be on at all times.

I turn off both of my monitors when I'm not home though (not sleep, fully off).

 

[psychometry]

I run several hard drives in a hardware RAID 0 configuration, so unfortunately I can't let the computer sleep. I usually leave it on all the time unless I'll be away from it for 8+ hours.

 

[goodcow]

I turn mine off, because I have a cat that likes to hop on things like the keyboard.

 

[thepawn]

I run some distributed computing efforts (SETI, etc), so mine is on 24hrs.

 

[H00513R]

I sleep mine and only turn it off during bad storms. I'll reboot after updates as normal.

 

[SandboxGeneral]

I turn mine off, because I have a cat that likes to hop on things like the keyboard.

My cat only does that when I am actually trying to use the keyboard!

 

[SandboxGeneral]

That's a good point about the storms. Consumer UPS's typically have very crappy surge protection ratings. They don't protect against surges and spikes very well at all! They are designed more for power outages and brownouts. Look at the joules rating and you'll see.

Yep. I don't care how good a UPS claims to be, lightning can screw them up and fry your electronics if it is powerful enough. I have experience with this at work. Lost two servers and a client PC under an industrial grade UPS unit.

 

[Dr McKay]

I never turn mine off. They always go to sleep when I'm not using them. My iMac is currently 20 days without a restart or shutdown. It's not the longest it's gone, which I think was 60 days before a restart. Restarts only come when Apple or other app updates require them.

The only time I actually shut it down, is if I am going to be away from home for an extended period of time, or when a storm comes through and I unplug all my expensive electronics from the wall (UPS included) and wait for it to pass before plugging them back in.

Now when I was a Windows guy, I shut it down every day. Sleeping in Windows has traditionally never worked well at all in my experience.

My Windows 7 Beast goes into Hibernation if Im leaving for longer than a day, startup times from hibernation on mine is generally about 5-6 seconds to 'resume' Windows, Never really used the sleep option before.

Resume times for Windows have drastically improved from Vista onwards, now its hit and miss whether it beats Mac in times, for instance my Packard Bell laptop (Windows 7), which has roughly the same power as a MBP, wakes up from Sleep about half a second after my friends MBP ( I got bored so we compared). But my Desktop (Windows 7), which has a 2.8Ghz i7 core, 8GB of RAM, 2 x 1GB Video cards and 2 x 1 TB Harddrives starts up quicker than my friends new iMac. Not trying to show off specs, just dont know which of the deciding factors has much effect in startup times.

The time my machines get turned off is when they restart from any Windows updates, which seem to be less and less often now-a-days.

 

[SandboxGeneral]

My Windows 7 Beast goes into Hibernation if Im leaving for longer than a day, startup times from hibernation on mine is generally about 5-6 seconds to 'resume' Windows, Never really used the sleep option before.

Resume times for Windows have drastically improved from Vista onwards, now its hit and miss whether it beats Mac in times, for instance my Packard Bell laptop (Windows 7), which has roughly the same power as a MBP, wakes up from Sleep about half a second after my friends MBP ( I got bored so we compared). But my Desktop (Windows 7), which has a 2.8Ghz i7 core, 8GB of RAM, 2 x 1GB Video cards and 2 x 1 TB Harddrives starts up quicker than my friends new iMac. Not trying to show off specs, just dont know which of the deciding factors has much effect in startup times.

The time my machines get turned off is when they restart from any Windows updates, which seem to be less and less often now-a-days.

I have Win7 on my office PC and have never tried sleep or hibernation. I actually leave it on all the time so I can RDC to it from home or on the road when I need to. My sleep experience was all on XP or prior versions of Windows. It's good to hear they improved that feature under 7.

 

[fortunecookie]

I always keepy office pc since its constantly downloading my emails (tons of it). It has been like that for years. I turn of my lcd though to savr on electricity.

 

[bigsnowdog]

I also run crashplan as a backup method. It is not clear to me what implications there maybe for that.

 

[peskaa]

I turn off, and also flip the switch on the power extension to kill power to the speakers/external drives etc. Main reason is due to a pair of small, 2kg cats that happen to run over keyboards that ruins the concept of sleep.

Plus I save electricity from not having speakers and so forth powered all the time.

 

[Glen Quagmire]

I turn mine off. Why waste electricity and money?

Do people leave their TVs on when they're not watching them as well?

 

[mjsmke]

I leave mine on sleep over night and when im out. The monitors are on sleep too. If im downloading stuff over night i leave it on with the monitors off.

Its nice to come home from work and not have to wait for it to start up. Plus im working on being able to access it from work so i can set it to do stuff while im out.

I only restart every 1-2 weeks. And leave it off while on holiday.