Broadband wireless routers - leave them on or switch them off?

MarkBargain

Do readers usually switch their wireless routers/modems off overnight or when out for the day? I always do as it seems a waste of electricity to keep them running, plus that's good security. It has never caused me any problems as it starts up in about the same time it takes to log into Windows 7. However, my friend has just joined Plusnet and the instructons advise to always keep the router switched on as apparently switching off may disrupt the broadband. I'll advise him to follow those instructions, but it seems a bit of a waste of energy to me. I know it doesn't use much power, but aren't we all supposed to be conserving energy?!

Spank

I leave it on all the time.

dixiebb

I keep mine on , but switch off at night if not using . By and large, they are designed to be left ON. :cool:

penrhyn

I only switch mine off when I go away for a few days, they are designed to be run 24/7.
The power they consume is fairly minimal, around 10 watts, say 240 watt/ hours or 0.24 Kwh a day.

Dave_C_2

I leave my BT home hub on all of the time, however I use the option to switch off the wireless overnight.

Too many disconnections can spoil your profile. The home hub randomly disconnects itself every couple of days:(, without me adding any extra.

Dave

Alter_ego

Turn mine off at night, no problems for 5yrs, I'm a plusnet customer.

Kimberley

I've always turned my BT Router off at night and I have had no problems for 8 years.

MarkBargain

penrhyn wrote: »

I only switch mine off when I go away for a few days, they are designed to be run 24/7.
The power they consume is fairly minimal, around 10 watts, say 240 watts a day.

That's probably only around 5p a day then, but still nearly £20 a year if kept on 24x7 (which adds up for all 20M households on broadband!), so I think I'll continue to switch off overnight. I would hope routers are build to stand being switched off, and I can't see why it should affect a broadband service really.

Nilrem

I leave our modem and router on all the time (along with the secodary switch), and have done for about 10 years now.
The power they use is minimal (5-15watts), and it takes anything up to a minute or two for them to reboot fully which combined with their location, and the fact we're all on odd sleep patterns here is a pita

esuhl

penrhyn wrote: »

The power they consume is fairly minimal, around 10 watts, say 240 watts a day.

"Watts" is the unit of power - i.e. 1 joule per second. If a device uses 10W of power, it uses 10W of power whatever the time period - you can't multiply that by 24 to get a "power per day" figure.

It's like saying that the top speed of my car is 100mph, so it's top speed is 2400mph a day. You might be able to travel a distance of 2400 miles at that top speed, but the speed of 2400mph doesn't actually refer to anything - nothing is travelling at a speed of 2400mph just like nothing is using 240W of power in your example...

If the router is using 10W, that's 10J/s or 864,000J (10 x 60 x 60 x 24) per day.

Hope that makes sense! :-)

somersethillbilly

Mine is on 24/7, no problems.