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Weekend Open Forum: Do you turn your PC off at night?
For years we have heard the pros and cons regarding turning off your computer each night. Those in favor of the practice usually point to energy savings as their main reason for doing so. The trend of “going green” is no longer new but it’s hard to turn a cold shoulder to saving money, especially in this economy.
Those who are concerned with security point out that leaving your computer connected to the Internet unattended could make you vulnerable to attacks, however unlikely it may be. If you live in a small space like a college dorm room or keep your PC in your bedroom, leaving it powered on at all times will certainly add more heat to your surroundings – not very desirable during summer months.
Sure, you could set your PC up to go into hibernation mode to conserve energy and eliminate heat output, but several people complain that their computer behaves differently after coming out of hibernation and a full reboot is needed to remedy the situation.
Those who are against shutting down daily point to a long-running belief that booting and rebooting is hard on components and should be avoided as often as possible. Others run software in the background 24/7 like Bit Torrent clients of Folding @ Home. Some users simply want to gauge how stable their system is by measuring how long it can keep running before a reboot is necessary.
So, what’s your take on the subject? Do you typically shut down your system(s) at night or leave everything running for days, weeks or even months at a time? We’d love to hear your reasons in the comments below!
Image via LHF Graphics / Shutterstock
User Comments: 140
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I have always been of the opinion, leave the computer on. Set the monitor to go into reduced power state. The main reason I choose leaving the system on, think of a light bulb, how often do they pop when they are on? Rarely. How often do they pop when you turn them on? Almost always.
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I always hibernate my PC and laptop and at times i turn them off when I go to sleep. I find it unnecessary to leave my PC on unless im downloading overnight, Its difficult to sleep if my PC is on due to noise and lights in my PC.
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Turn all four CPUs off. Turn off both routers and the cable modem (power bar #1) Turn off both printers and the scanner (power bar #2). However, leave LCD monitors in sleep mode (hate the power buttons).
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When I first got into computers and had more than 1 drive in a computer I used to turn off. But I had 2 fail on boot within a few months and decided not to turn the system off. But in recent years I no longer have much (any) disposable income, so I have my PCs sleep or hibernate after 4 hours of inactivity.
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Turn off my PC?
Why?
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A nice playlist and then
shutdown -s -t 3600 && exit
and then ZZzzZZ
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Mine is on 24/7 and on a UPS. I access it remotely. It goes to sleep after 20 minutes of non use though.
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Xclusiveitalian said:
I turn it off when i'm done using it in general. Booting time isn't bad, and I feel it does 0 damage having to turn it on/off. That's like arguing that leaving your car on all day will keep it from breaking because starting it up. I would think leaving it on will wear your hardware out.
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marinkvasina said:
Well i don't turn my system off for days sometimes even weeks.
I never put it in sleep mode.
I usally let something download with Bittorent, upload stuff to youtube
or just run database checks and backups.
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Much of the time it is just hibernate but only when I need to apply updates do I end up having to restart it, only to hibernate it when I'm done using it
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i keep my pc on 24/7 and my server hasn't been rebooted in 5 years!
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If I won't be needing it for more than 3 hours I turn it off, my media server on the other hand is on 24/7 and I use it as a 2nd desktop.
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ebriatic said:
I often let my computer on, most of the time because I use it as a ftp server, but usually I let it on for maintenance (defrag or antivirus scan)
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Unless you're really poor and you think the electricity from an unoccupied computer is going to add up to a significant amount, why would you turn off your computer? I leave it on and always logged in so I have quick and easy access to it at anytime. Think about it. Sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night and need to watch some porn in order to get back to sleep. Having to wait for your computer to turn on will only prolong the process. Leave your computer on, and support porn the porn industry.
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Always off. Only takes the time it takes to get my coffee to be up and running with a fresh boot.
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yowanvista said:
Mine stays on busy torrenting overnight.
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Mine is turned on around 7.30am in the morning, and rarely off before 1am the next morning, every day. I tend to leave it running during the day, but almost always turn it off at night. As others have said, having an SSD really makes start-up time so much faster to a point where its really quite possible to load the OS everytime without any real delays.
Sometimes I leave it running overnight when busy doing other duties, but if I know I'm going to be out of the office for a few hours I'll turn it off during the day as well.
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slamscaper said:
I don't like accumulating dust inside my rig for no reason, so I shut it down completely when it's not in use.
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Never turn it off, usually suspend it when it's not in use, unless I'm downloading something (which I do occasionally, for example when a new MMO turns free to play).
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wow lots of people turn their system off.
In 24 hours my system usually off about 30 minutes for a quick rest.
And in the night always torrenting some files.
Already done that for about 4 years and the only problem i have usually comes from dust.
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hibernate or die.
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I shut mine down every night. Like in the article, It just does't 'feel' right after sleep/hibernation...Although standby is useful sometimes for short periods.
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treetops said:
I leave mine on if I am torrenting or downloading a game of course how else would you anyways. I turn my computer off if I will be away from it for more then a hour. And definitely over night. The life span of computers from what I have noticed is significanlty reduced when left on all the time. They seem to slow down faster, like a cassette tape recorded over to many times. They catch more viruses, my dad only uses his computer for work and manages to get all sorts of problems\viruses\malware\corrupt drivers on his computer, his computer is always on and he store files in his recycling bin which for some reason drives me nuts.
I have no technical know how to prove this, but it is simply what I have observed throughout my 18 years of computing.
p.s. I checked my dads history he only uses it for work ^^
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Renrew said:
Mostly off.
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i cant stand the thought of leaving it on overnight. i turn my PC off every time i leave the room for more than an hour. if i expect to be back within an hour then i just put it to sleep.
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