Leaving the computer on, or shutting it off?
Most people I have met have an opinion about this, and I’ve also heard that some companies have a policy that forces the employees to turn off the computer after every working day, and if it’s a laptop they also have to lock it into a cabinet or a safe.
I just read a NY times article entitled Leaving It On or Shutting It Off, which talks about the savings and the effect on the machine this might have (thanks for the link, Pedro).
Personally, I always put my laptop at home into hibernation by only closing the lid, and try to remember to restart it once a week or so to avoid it getting sluggish. At work I usually leave the computer on from Monday till Friday, probably out of laziness when it comes to restarting every application, opening all files and projects etc, but I then shut it down every Friday before I go home.
How do you do?
33 Comments/Reactions
January 5th, 2006 at 14:49
Home: turn everything off, desktop and laptop.
Work: leave everything on … lazyness
January 5th, 2006 at 15:08
Turn-off for various reasons it is just inefficient to leave the machine running for several days unless of course it’s acting as a Server.
January 5th, 2006 at 15:17
Home and work: Turn it off.
At work we the policy to turn all non-server-pcs off
January 5th, 2006 at 15:28
I always shut down when I’m done for the day. Startup time is fairly fast, so it’s not like I’m losing out on anything.
I don’t have a computer at work, so that one’s always off.
Beyond just the energy savings (which are important), my computer is pretty noisy, and I don’t care to hear it when I’m trying to sleep.
January 5th, 2006 at 16:04
At work the laptop goes into my locker at the end of the day and at home I always switch off including the big switch at the back of the PC and the monitor.
January 5th, 2006 at 16:14
Turns it off at home. Usually leaves it on at work since I telecommunte every now and then.
January 5th, 2006 at 16:18
At my work we must leave the computers on. If turned off, they automatically starts sometime during the night. I think it’s for updates or other admin stuff.
January 5th, 2006 at 16:18
With my laptop, I always put him in hibernation mode like you, Robert.
My computer at home, I shut down every time I do something else (even if it’s just watching TV for some hours). In the night, I have to plug it completely off power since otherwise there would be some lights glowing in my room resulting in me unable to sleep.
January 5th, 2006 at 16:29
And I usually keep it turned on, even when I sleep. Don’t even know, it must be a habit. And I often wake up in the middle of the night, so when I can’t sleep I go on checking the e-mail two times a minute and reading LiveJournal
Heal me.
January 5th, 2006 at 16:30
At home I put my laptop into hibernation and often leave my desktop system turned on over night. I try to close it, but it functions as a file and printer hub for the entire network, so it’s not very often I can shut it down.
At work this system hasn’t been turnd off since September 5th (my first day), except for some rebooting.
January 5th, 2006 at 16:46
Work – Computer remains on 24 x 7 and is restarted once a week. I often have to reach my desktop from home for work relatted issues.
Home – Computer is off durning the day while I am at work on at all other times. Since I am often called at odd hours of the night/morning waiting for my computer to bootup after I have been paged at 3am isn’t an option that I can live with
January 5th, 2006 at 16:54
I always try to turn everything off. Remember that we need to save the power….
January 5th, 2006 at 17:54
I work from home, and always have my desktop turned on.
The laptop goes into hybernation/standby regularly.
January 5th, 2006 at 20:59
Home: When I leave the house I turn everything off, then cut the power to the computers.
Work: Leave the computer on at all times, running Folding@home.
January 5th, 2006 at 22:08
I do nearly always shut down my home pc. Sometimes though, when downloading huge files, I can leave the computer during the night or so.
January 5th, 2006 at 22:48
Home laptop: leave it in hibernate mode, occasionally reboot just for kicks.
Work: I shut down every night, partly to save power, partly for security. I’m less concerned about external attacks as I am about off-hours attacks from inside our network, which are often easier and less likely to be detected.
January 6th, 2006 at 4:00
Desktops: leave them on, but turn off monitors. Unless I will be away for more than a day, then completely off. Laptops, configured to hibernate and close the lid but off when traveling and not in use to save the battery charge. Servers: always off, joking!
Years ago there were lots of threads going around about power consumption, hard disk wear and tear and all that and whether you should power down your computers when not in use. Bah! To be honest, unless I’m traveling or there is a huge electrical storm coming I really don’t worry about it and have never had a problem.
January 6th, 2006 at 7:26
I have two computers at work, a laptop and a desktop. The desktop I leave on all the time but logoff or lock the computer when not in use. The laptop I shutdown every day and bring it home.
January 6th, 2006 at 13:24
Thanks for sharing, everyone!
January 6th, 2006 at 15:26
Turn it off during a storm (one friend motherboard is enough), when it’s time to go to bed (or I’ll never sleep), when my girlfriend or family members start worrying (it happens).
Leave it on when downloading and when I’ve fallen asleep at the computer. LoL!
Cheers.
January 6th, 2006 at 18:22
Work: Only on when I’m there. But that’s not quite rare
Home: Only off when I’m on travel. But at home, it varies.
January 7th, 2006 at 0:26
Us real geeks always leaves them on.
Since I use unix, I don’t feel the need to reboot either. Oh, and the power is free
January 7th, 2006 at 1:59
Home computer is turned off every night. I wish I could keep it on for downloads and uploads.
January 7th, 2006 at 8:23
I leave the server and desktop on @ home. I use them too frequently to justify waiting 10 minutes for it to boot.
January 8th, 2006 at 13:00
Again, thanks for sharing with us!
January 9th, 2006 at 8:53
Work & home: I turn everything off at night. It’s important to save energy, even if you’re not paying for it yourself.
January 9th, 2006 at 10:22
Work laptop: Off, there’s a problem with hibernating a laptop with 2 Gb memory. If I’ve opened Visual Studio, hibernate won’t work and I get an error message. Apparently it’s a known issue with Windows. Otherwise when I don’t use VS, hibernate works fine. We have to lock our laptops in a safe over the night, but I usually brings it home.
Home desktop computer: Off, I sleep in the same room as the computer. It’s too noisy to leave on.
January 9th, 2006 at 16:49
Maaike,
Definitely, I agree.
Per,
Hmm… Interesting to hear, I don’t have that “problem” with having 2GB RAM in any of my machines…
January 9th, 2006 at 21:23
I leave mine on all week until Saturday night. It’s off until Monday morning. I don’t even want to hear it and I just want to see a blank screen.
My hard drive doesn’t like a ‘cold start’, so I think leaving it on for the rest of the time is best thing to do to alleviate wear and tear.
Not very ‘Green’, but surprisingly it hardly effects my electric bill.
January 10th, 2006 at 9:41
Daryl,
Yes, I lke the blank screen look too.
July 15th, 2006 at 12:20
Hi i’m new on this board and have a question about a laptop i’ve just bought. How long do you think i can leave it turned on before i should take it off, for example if i left in on for the length of the weekend would that hurt it in any way?
thanks
July 15th, 2006 at 12:26
gian,
I think you can leave it on for the weekend without any problems; then again, naturally I can’t promise anything so it’s best to ask the retailer what’s recommended.
February 28th, 2010 at 5:41
if i was worried about the energy bill and thats why i shut my computer off?? i bet a fridge consumes more energy ..
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