virgin hub (power off ? to save money?)

Euphoria1z

Hi

just wondering, is it worth switching of my virgin media broadband hub at the mains to save electricity over night or just leave it on with all the lights flashing? what kind of savings will I make if any? or not worth it? currently its just left on overnight but im trying to get in the habbit of turning of things at the mains to save electricity as my bills are too high.

( I read somewhere they use more energy than tvs on standby?)

thanks

spud17

Everything you could possibly want to know, probably under £10/yr

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4796534

debitcardmayhem

If it is possible just switch off the wifi overnight cuts the consumption by about 1/2 half (evening and weekend spud :beer:)

kwikbreaks

In the winter just look at it as background electric heating...

Tyler_Du

Not sure if it would affect your router, but I'm sure I read somewhere that turning one off overnight can seriously affect your broadband speed.

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Broadband-down-your-phone-line/Switch-off-router-at-night/td-p/1467680
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/speed_tips.shtml#router

Nilrem

Tyler, that won't affect cable broadband as it works in a different way to ADSL.

forgotmyname

Look on the back of the unit it will say how many watts it uses.

As a guide 1 watt = £1 a year if left on 24/7.

I did start turning mine off a while back but its 8 watts. And sometimes it connected at slower speeds so i gave up.

Mine is 8 watts. So very little to be saved.

cookie365

When you restart the shub (assuming you're using it as a router too) all your devices will get new IP addresses - unless you've manually allocated them.

Just bear that in mind if you have say a wifi printer with rubbish firmware that can't cope with a changing IP address.

But if you just connect a laptop to it and nothing else it shouldn't make a difference.

esuhl

As I said on the thread below, my (old, not-very-energy-efficient) Netgear router uses a fraction over 5W of power.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=63504773&postcount=14

This works out at a total cost (at 13p per kWh) of £5.69 a year.

So... if you turn it off for 8 hours overnight, you'd be saving £1.90 a year.

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

If it is possible just switch off the wifi overnight cuts the consumption by about 1/2 half

I'm not sure whether that's true, but, if so and you just switch of wi-fi overnight, that would make a saving of £0.80 per year.

And that's all assuming that you have the same old router as I do -- I suspect that ones made in the last few years are a fair bit more efficient and the savings would be even less.

datostar

These Virgin Superhubs are delicate beasts and are pretty good at losing connection, dropping wi-fi, resetting and changing security settings of their own accord. Leave well alone I say and don't provoke it by cutting off its power more than absolutely necessary.

Strider590

When I was using a BT Homohub, I tested the power saving feature and found it barely made 1W difference.

All it really did was turn off the LEDs, because an awful lot of stupid people think that light = high power consumption. So I think BT added this feature because it's easier than educating idiots.

My father was always a pain in the behind for following you around the house, turning the lights off behind you and then moaning about wasting electricity, but go into a room and turn on an electric heater and he wouldn't say a word.