Shutting down Windows XP

rory41444

Apart from saving electricity are there any advantages in shutting down my desk top over night? I prefer to leave it on as it takes so long to boot up each morning. In real terms its only about 10 minutes but it always seems longer. Or what about stand by - is that a good idea?

Can someone tell me what best to do? Thanks.

albertross_2

Fire risk.., hacking risk if connected to the net.

10 minutes is a bit long for a startup.

cwoodham

Here's a thread from a while back from the point of view of power consumption:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=14147

Here's two more:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=161501

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=139754

rory41444

Thanks. That's really useful. The computer gets switched off at nights from now on!

marleyboy

Other than the power usage issue, I find that a cold shut down allows the system to cool down and the hard drives to stop spinning, which in the long run preserves the lifespan of a pc. 10 minutes does seem a long time for a pc to boot up, how many applications have you got running on start up? I would suggest you disable or uninstall the programs that you dont need to run in the start up.

computerwoman

http://www.windowsstartup.com/
try this program it'll tell you if you need the program starting up on start-up and you can turn it off from here if you dont.
other than that
start
run
type-in
msconfig
go to the start-up tab
and see what is running on start-up
un-check what you dont need
re-start
hope this helps
cw

ravenfire_2

My main reason for turning off is the fire risk

computerwoman

ravenfire wrote: »

My main reason for turning off is the fire risk

am aware of this,
but if he/she is also having problems with start-up then this is the program to have, I got it off M$ marketplace, therefore he/she doesnt want to turn the pc off because of these problems, fix the problem, then he/she wont think twice about turning it off at night,
cw

Chippy_Minton

rory41444 wrote: »

Or what about stand by - is that a good idea?

Standby is a low power mode and you can quickly resume your desktop. Or press the Shift key and the 'Standby' option changes to 'Hibernate' which saves your working desktop and then switches off the computer. See Power Management in Windows XP.

rory41444

computerwoman wrote: »

http://www.windowsstartup.com/

Wow. Thanks Computerwoman. Thats me down to 2 minutes now! What a difference. I got rid of loads of stuff I wasn't even using. Thanks again.

ravenfire_2

computerwoman wrote: »

am aware of this,
but if he/she is also having problems with start-up then this is the program to have, I got it off M$ marketplace, therefore he/she doesnt want to turn the pc off because of these problems, fix the problem, then he/she wont think twice about turning it off at night,
cw

I wasn't disagreeing with what you put!

However, I guess working for a firm of Loss Adjusters and seeing just how many fires occur overnight with items left on does make you more careful about just what electrical items you have running whilst asleep!