Home PC do you turn yours off at night?

gabyjane

Ok this will be an ongoing argument in our house i reckon and was almost another one today..funnily enough me and sis were talking about this yesterday so thought id'e ask on here..think im going to be with the minority though!

In our old flat we bought a lovely new pc..£1k at the time so not a rubbish one by any means..we left it on all the time..absolutley no probs..we moved house plugged it in and again left it on all the time (went into saver mode at night but not off)

When we bought this house we bought a new pc and it is absolutely fine if on BUT for some odd reason if it is turned off it hates it and refuses to restart or work properly. We had this a couple of days ago..running fine..dh turned it off 'just because he felt like it'! and we had a nightmare getting it back on..again i come down this morning and it's a no go..just runs through the start up pages over and over and over..when it does finally come on (turned it on at 9.10am this morning and clicked into action at 9.55am) it is slow and takes forever and a day and is very frustrating and annoying!

So dh says he will do as he likes (see sis he is forthful at times!) and sis says to turn them off..fair point BUT this one doesn't like it so why oh why cant he just leave it on?? I know some will say buy another pc blah blah but its absolutley fine when left on and usually a good pc!

So yours on or off?!

renegade

Definitely OFF!

Why would you want it left on all 24/7 ?

I turn mine off whenever I have finished with it, and turn on again when needed. I am sure this saves on the electric.

gaming_guy

I have always turned mine off - it frees up RAM (which firefox takes up due to memory leaks) and saves electricity.

Startup times aren't really an issue for me as i don't use windows any more.

Taffybiker

No computer should take that long to boot up. I suspect you have a different problem than just whether to switch it off or not.
Have you run a virus check? Are you making regular backups? It sounds to me like the operating system may be partly corrupted.

exup

if its struggling to turn on then there may be a problem - what is its operating system?
There could be lack of RAM (esepcially with Windows Vista which eats resources just to run by itself).
There could be quite a few programs starting up with the operating system that you don't need or even know about not saying you have malware, virus' etc but just background programs such as quick time, real player, msn messenger . . . .)

Leaving a PC on 24 hours will consume power, obviously, but will also shorten the useful lifespan of your hard drive(s). You could be looking somehwere between 3 and 5 years for a hard drive before problems start happening, such as bearings wearing out. If alot of the time the harddrives are running during the night when the PC is not in use then it starts to become clear that they wil have a shorter lifespan.

Shutting down also can save work, reset connections (as would shutting down routers and modems).

Nice_Username

I turn EVERYTHING off at the plug - PC, printer, modem, monitor, TVs, digibox, DVD players etc.

Has probably cut our electricity bills by over 20%:)

DCFC79

Yes you should turn it off unless of course its downloading, i do think there might be a problem with your pc though OP if it takes that long to click into action

debitcardmayhem

I use hibernate, and then restart weekly(or if any updates require restart). Hibernate does not use any electricity and saves time switching back on.

DCFC79

Nice_Username wrote: »

I turn EVERYTHING off at the plug - PC, printer, modem, monitor, TVs, digibox, DVD players etc.

Has probably cut our electricity bills by over 20%:)

i dont turn the tv box off at the mains as its usually recording stuff but i do try to turn other things off at the plug

2010

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

I use hibernate, and then restart weekly(or if any updates require restart). Hibernate does not use any electricity and saves time switching back on.

I go along with this and you can even switch off at the mains at night and it boots up faster next day.

Simon_B_2

Nice_Username wrote: »

I turn EVERYTHING off at the plug - PC, printer, modem, monitor, TVs, digibox, DVD players etc.

Has probably cut our electricity bills by over 20%:)

We do the same everything is off, tv's computer, wifi etc at the plug before we go out or go to bed, there is no need to leave anything running