Turn Router off when not in use or Not?

C_Mababejive

rolo1 wrote: »

Hi All

I have a Thompson wireless router which I turn off (from button at back of Router) when computer is turned off - Never had any problems so far -Touch wood.

However a friend has told me that it should never ever be turned off. Am I asking for trouble by turning it off each time when not in use, or is this advice just nonsense?

Do you turn your fridge off...??

No...keep it on.

Lakeuk

Leopard wrote: »

Yes, but do you turn off your modem as well as your router?

My router is my modem so yes it is turned off when not in use

fiddiwebb

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Do you turn your fridge off...??

No...keep it on.

Hmmmmmm......it's like saying do you ever turn your car off :whistle:

BillScarab

The only time I turn off my wireless router is if I'm on holiday. The rest of the time it and my modem are on.

I want to be able to connect as and when I want to without having to switch things on. Particularly when I'm on call and have to dial into work in the middle of the night. Also if the children get up before me they may want to go online so it's easier to leave them on.

luckymoneysaver

Lil306 wrote: »

This is MoneySavingExpert. Do you leave your TV on standby too, because it's low power consumption?
Just because this site is MoneySavingExpert doesn't mean every post made in the Techie section is by people asking how to save money..... and yes, my TV is left on Standby because I'm not a tree hugger. Maybe one day as a project I'll hook up a power consumption monitor to actually compare how much money is being wasted by leaving it on standby.

:rotfl::rotfl:

HAHAHA quite right too. Some Samsung models dont even have an off button. If you want them properly off you have to switch them off at the wall. The power consumption is so low now that there's not really much point to be honest.

I dont think i switch anything off really, (except the oven) lol. Whats the point if everything has sleep and standby modes. Its there for a reason. I only switch off if im going away.!!

amcluesent

As measured my router and cable modem are taking about 15 watts all up. For the amount it's costing it's not worth my time to walk over and switch them off and on every day. Same as the TV on standby is ~1W, so it's on standby so it can be activated with the remote. It's not worth my time to get up, walk over and switch it off and on.

thescouselander

Lil306 wrote: »

Just going a bit off topic here....

I'd really worry if it's hitting those kind of temps, shouldn't be anywhere near them

Are you resting the laptop on a cushion or bed and blocking the airflow, the safe operating range for most CPU's is usually something like -70 to +70c, I can't remember off hand, but 90'C is WAAAAAY over the limit and you're risking shortening the life of your CPU drastically. TBH I'd be surprised if those temps aren't in F which sounds more likely, a CPU could get to those temps and survive but if they're sustained not for long.

I thought that at first but its normal for my laptop apparently. I have an application that increases the fan speed a bit faster but the CPU still gets into the 80s under high load - temps are definitely in C. Normal operating temperature seems to be about 50 deg C

Apparently the maximum safe operating temperature for the Mobile Core Duo 2 processor is 100 dec C!

cybergibbons

There are arguments for and against.

I always leave my modem router on, mainly as the connection is used overnight.

With certain ADSL services, such as O2 LLU, there are good reasons to keep it on. They do continuously monitor the line stats, and change parameters based on these. The connection speed can drop if the line is synced frequently. I have seen this happen on a few occasions, especially on long line lengths with poor SNR.

O2 also periodically flash the firmware of the router remotely at night, and you won't get this if you turn it off.

However, my parents with BT ADSL, it doesn't make any difference if you turn the router on and off. They always get the same speed.

From an energy saving standpoint, it's minimal at best.

From a safety viewpoint, the number of fires caused by routers is so low to not be recorded.

I'm an electronic engineer, and have worked specifically in the estimation of mean time between failures, environmental testing, and in-rush current testing of telecoms equipment. I've also worked on hacking the hardware and firmware of home modem routers. I know modem routers quite well.

I've not noticed any difference whatsoever between routers which have a power switch on the front panel, back panel, or none at all. They are all hardware switches that simply interrupt the power, the same as pulling a plug. Again, I've not seen a router that has any circuitry in place to allow a graceful shutdown - they rely on the fact that writes to the non-volatile memory are rare, and anything else lost isn't important.

Wear and tear isn't an issue either. The component count is low, and many routers use a single chip design. There really isn't much to go wrong, either keeping it running all the time, or switching it on and off. The one caveat here is that the low voltage sockets aren't designed to be plugged/unplugged many times, unlike a laptop power socket. So don't turn the power off by pulling the low voltage lead.

Overheating from leaving it on is a myth. A well designed, properly functioning router will not overheat. Also, even if it is hot, as long as it is working and is not on fire, then it is not too hot. These single chip solutions often do generate a lot of heat in a small package.

That's not to say there aren't issues with turning them on and off though.

I had a flatmate who insisted on turning the router off over night. This was fine with the supplier's router. When that broke, we swapped to a Belkin router. On the second morning, the router had reset to default settings. We put it down to something random. But then it happened the next day, and then every couple of days after.

I decided to look into it in more depth, and found that the problem could be avoided by
a) Unplugging the low voltage socket from the router, rather than turning off the mains power.
b) Using another mains adapter.

It turned out that the mains adapter when turned off had some really nasty spikes, followed by a long slow decay to 0 volts. This was causing havoc with the non-volatile memory in the router. The other adapter turned off in a much cleaner fashion. Adding a couple of supply smoothing capacitors in the router sorted this out easily.

Another weird situation I had someone who claimed that their router only worked if you turned it off for 5 minutes every hour or so. They had been doing this for a long time. They also said something rattled in the router and it was out of warranty.

On opening it up, I found that the heatsink (a piece of metal attached to a chip to increase surface area and improve cooling) had fallen off. It was only attached with a small, sticky pad, with no mechanical fixings at all.

On watching them turn it on and off though, I had notice the technique was to rather roughly pick it up to access the switch and the back, turn it off, and then pretty much drop it back onto the pile of wires buried behind the TV. It's quite likely that this action had caused the sticky pad to fail, resulting in the router actually overheating.

fiddiwebb

amcluesent wrote: »

As measured my router and cable modem are taking about 15 watts all up. For the amount it's costing it's not worth my time to walk over and switch them off and on every day. Same as the TV on standby is ~1W, so it's on standby so it can be activated with the remote. It's not worth my time to get up, walk over and switch it off and on.

I suppose its your own personel choice if you wish to either leave on or turn off your router/modem or any other electrical equipment and this old chesnut will no doubt rage on.

I myself can make the effort to turn items off when I need to, not much hardship there.

You mention you leave your TV in standby as well and it's not worth your time to walk over and switch it off every day because of the amount its costing you, I presume you also leave the other items that are connected to your TV on in standby as well, ie. DVD player, Freeview/Sky, surround sound and anything else, so it does start to add up if you take that into consideration.

I am not an ardent tree hugger but I like to think I am doing my bit to conserve our power and also our enviroment not just for me today but for other people in the future.

It may not personaly cost you much to leave your router/modem or any other electrical equipment on per day/year but if you imagine the millions of other people in the UK who do the same then it amounts to millions of watts of wasted power every day ( what's that amounts too in a year?)
I wonder what that costs in hard money that just gets thrown down the drain every day because we can't make the effort/time to just switch items off.

Less of a "me & today" culture and start taking responsibility for not just tommmorow but also your childrens future, I know it sounds extreme but it's true.

Anyway back to the Argumental panel show

DebtHater

My router stays on all the time, unless it starts to slow down, where a simple reset does the trick.
But this may be down to being convenient, seeing as I too have an iPhone and like to watch Youtube/listen to radio whilst in bed.

I think of it this way. I have a telephone answering machine next to the router and plugged into the same extension cable as the router. You wouldnt switch your phone off, would you? So why is the router staying on a major issue for some people?

And it might be worth noting, I have no interest in saving energy to "save the planet" or anything. I am interested in saving money on the electric though, so my TV get switched off completely (I have a wireless remote to switch it all off with one click)
The reason why I have little interest in saving the planet is thus; When I travel down the M20 past Maidstone and see the newsprint factory kicking out loads of smoke, literally covering its surroundings, I think "whats the point?". Poor attitude, I know, but what is the point in the Government putting pressure on everyone to conform to save the earth, when businesses will continue to be selfish in order to make their profits!