I want to save the power and the wear and tear, so I turn it off at night. Standby is virtually off, but the memory is still powered up. However, if you lose power in standby, you can lose your data. I use standby during the day when leaving the computer for awhile.
It depends on how you use your computer. I'm homebound and suffer from insomnia so I'm in and out of the den here at all hours. I never know if I'll be back in 15 minutes or 4 hours so I leave my machine on. If you're away from your machine, sleeping 8 hours, working or going to school by all means, save the electricity and the wear and tear and shut it down.
Standby works faithfully for us in a number of office and personal computers. I would recommend always saving your work prior to going into standby mode. You can either manually enter standby or just set the power settings to go into standby after, say, 15 or 20 minutes of inactivity. If you don't use your computer for days at a time then powering all the way off makes more sense.
Might be different with a modern OS but when I got my Windows 98SE machine years ago I tried all the power saving standby stuff and it never worked right. Sometimes the drive wouldn't unpark, other times the display would default to 640x480 256 color VGA. Got to the point that I just stopped trying to deal with it. I think the only thing that on now with this system is turning the HD off after 20 minutes of inactivity....
With Windows XP, standby works MUCH better. We routinely use it on all machines here. Standby is not perfect, but machines have problems for other reasons that are not standby related.
It also saves much more power than before because the computer power consumption has gone way up over the last several years (since Win98). On a typical desktop, the power drops from 100W at idle to 95W with HD spun down to 1W in S3 standby.
You save roughly $60/year for each hour per day you put the machine into standby over just the HD off. So, if the machine is in standby for 4 hours per day, you would save $240/year. This assumes $.20/kwhr like we have here.
The great debate continues, here are
twoversions of it.
Turning on the hard drive a few times per day, is considered normal usage and should not pose any problems.
If a drive is turned on and off excessively on a daily basis, then this could affect its longevity.
Personally, I shut the system/systems down at night, when I'm away from the home office or when a computer is not being used for any lenght of time. Hate to waste energy!
Bev.
===================================================
Please don't send me questions about your system by DCF Messenger.
Post the issue in the appropriate Board, where they will be answered.
I have researched this extensively and have come up with this:
On or off? Depends on how you use your computer. If you are on and then off all day long, Leave it run.
If you only use it on occasion, shut it down.
POWER CONSUMPTION:
I have 4 computers. 3 of them draw .8 Amps.
My Dell Dimension 8400 draws 1.6 Amps!
At $.10 per Kilowatt Hour, That's $.18 an hour or $4.32 per 24 Hr. day!
My Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) Monitor takes .08 amps. Ad that into the equation and you're talking $.26 an hour - $6.24 a day - $187 per month! Just to leave my computer on all the time? No thanks.
I shut my computer OFF when I am not using it for more than 4 hours.
WEAR AND TEAR:
People generally think that leaving a PC on and running is wear and tear.
I believe that it's not so much the continuous running of a system that is torture on the
hard disc/Motherboard/power supply, (but it is a major factor) it's the start/stop (Heat up / Cool down) that kills a system.
The parts expand and contract from the heat up and cool down. This makes the soldered connections weak and eventually fail.
It takes 30 minutes to get a computer up to operating temperature.
If you turn your machine on to check your mail but you don't have any and are now going to work for 8 hours? Shut it down for sure.
If you do leave your computer run all day and night, buy a bottle of clean compressed air and clean the cooling fins for the processor. (unplug the computer first) It will get clogged with dust and get even hotter. I blow out my whole system once a year. (tip: don't let the cooling fan spin or remove it first. Making it spin too fast may wreck it. also, be careful of the wires - they are fragile).
On or off? Depends on how you use your computer. If you are on and then off the computer all day long, Leave it run.
Our baseline (SF area) is $.12/kWhr which goes up to $.19/kWhr. No discounts for off use unless you have a different type of meter.
I can say we use very aggressive power management here. Systems go into standby after 10 minutes of non use. No hardware failures after over 5 years of service (less on some newer machines).
It seems to me that there is no real data on what causes a computer to fail. There is mostly just guessing. I wouldn't be surprised to find that what kills a HD is not wear and tear, but failure due to manufacturing defect. Just my guess.
I can tell you that one very well known failure mode in semiconductors is aging related to heat and high current in the microscopic wires causing metal migration. That is why they do life testing at elevated temperatures and voltages. Shutting the machine down reduces the currents to near zero and the temperatures to ambient. It does result in thermal stresses, but I have seen no data to indicate that is a real issue.
I think the analogy of the car is a good one. Think of the huge thermal stresses in an engine. However, no one says, leave the car running in the garage when you are going to use it again in 20 minutes. In fact, they did have engines that shutdown at red traffic lights. The issue (if I recall correctly) is that they didn't always start very quickly rather than wear and tear.
I figure that turning off electrical equipment when not being used is my way of helping out the environment and saving some money at the same time. Also, during the summer, it keeps the house cooler.
The pace of change is such that these days many business PCs are obsolete in terms of processing power before solder related failures become an issue. This is especially true in companies that have a lease hire agreement. They tend to renew their PCs before they're even out of extended warrently. Therefore overnight power consumption is my primary concern.
Saying this, I wouldn't put an HD onto standby after 10 minutes, in my personal book that's too much spin-up spin-down time. I favor a 30 minute cycle. At least then the HD won't spin down in the time that it take an employee to make a cup of coffee.
My primary point of failure is actually laptop HDs, they don't last very long over here. It's probably a mixture of climate and vibrations more than anything else.
PETER345
5.8K Posts
0
October 15th, 2007 02:00
I want to save the power and the wear and tear, so I turn it off at night. Standby is virtually off, but the memory is still powered up. However, if you lose power in standby, you can lose your data. I use standby during the day when leaving the computer for awhile.
Peter
Message Edited by PETER345 on 10-14-2007 08:52 PM
Hawkster66
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October 15th, 2007 03:00
europa303
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October 15th, 2007 08:00
Hawkster66
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October 15th, 2007 14:00
PETER345
5.8K Posts
0
October 15th, 2007 15:00
It also saves much more power than before because the computer power consumption has gone way up over the last several years (since Win98). On a typical desktop, the power drops from 100W at idle to 95W with HD spun down to 1W in S3 standby.
You save roughly $60/year for each hour per day you put the machine into standby over just the HD off. So, if the machine is in standby for 4 hours per day, you would save $240/year. This assumes $.20/kwhr like we have here.
Peter
shesagordie
12 Elder
•
46K Posts
0
October 15th, 2007 19:00
The great debate continues, here are two versions of it.
Turning on the hard drive a few times per day, is considered normal usage and should not pose any problems.
If a drive is turned on and off excessively on a daily basis, then this could affect its longevity.
Personally, I shut the system/systems down at night, when I'm away from the home office or when a computer is not being used for any lenght of time. Hate to waste energy!
Bev.
===================================================
Please don't send me questions about your system by DCF Messenger.
Post the issue in the appropriate Board, where they will be answered.
KnaufIT
2 Intern
•
318 Posts
0
October 18th, 2007 13:00
MrGearHead
4 Posts
0
October 24th, 2007 05:00
KnaufIT
2 Intern
•
318 Posts
0
October 24th, 2007 06:00
KnaufIT
2 Intern
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318 Posts
0
October 24th, 2007 06:00
PETER345
5.8K Posts
0
October 24th, 2007 14:00
I can say we use very aggressive power management here. Systems go into standby after 10 minutes of non use. No hardware failures after over 5 years of service (less on some newer machines).
It seems to me that there is no real data on what causes a computer to fail. There is mostly just guessing. I wouldn't be surprised to find that what kills a HD is not wear and tear, but failure due to manufacturing defect. Just my guess.
I can tell you that one very well known failure mode in semiconductors is aging related to heat and high current in the microscopic wires causing metal migration. That is why they do life testing at elevated temperatures and voltages. Shutting the machine down reduces the currents to near zero and the temperatures to ambient. It does result in thermal stresses, but I have seen no data to indicate that is a real issue.
I think the analogy of the car is a good one. Think of the huge thermal stresses in an engine. However, no one says, leave the car running in the garage when you are going to use it again in 20 minutes. In fact, they did have engines that shutdown at red traffic lights. The issue (if I recall correctly) is that they didn't always start very quickly rather than wear and tear.
I figure that turning off electrical equipment when not being used is my way of helping out the environment and saving some money at the same time. Also, during the summer, it keeps the house cooler.
Just my two cents.
Peter
KnaufIT
2 Intern
•
318 Posts
0
October 25th, 2007 06:00