Wi fi router

Silverbird65

I have the super router from TalkTalk. The advice is to leave it on 24/7 as it can cause problems switching off and on. Any advice re energy use. Have to save were poss.
Thanks

MattMattMattUK

Silverbird65 said:

I have the super router from TalkTalk. The advice is to leave it on 24/7 as it can cause problems switching off and on. Any advice re energy use. Have to save were poss.
Thanks

That router uses between 5 and 11 watts depending on what it is actually doing, how many devices are connected etc. at current prices gives you a range of £12.70-27.94 per year as a potential cost.

Turning your router off and on a lot tends to result in much worse download and upload speeds, as well as potentially long delays for it to reconnect, especially if it has been off for some time. 

victor2

Silverbird65 said:

I have the super router from TalkTalk. The advice is to leave it on 24/7 as it can cause problems switching off and on. Any advice re energy use. Have to save were poss.
Thanks

I believe they can cause problems with optimising the line speed if switched off a lot, which is why you are seeing advice to leave it on. Also any other devices (video doorbells for example) or services using WiFi will not work when the router is off.

How much electricity does it actually use? Do you have a plug-in monitor that will tell you? My Virgin router annoyingly uses about 11 watts, which equates to around 96kWh per year. But that's the price you pay for connectivity.

Maybe there are other areas you can save energy in.

The_Fat_Controller

Devices often fail when repeatedly switched on and off, they like to be left on and at a constant internal temperature.

Routers are designed to be in use 24/7/365

As above, frequent switching can confuse the line management system and be recognised as faults resulting in lower speeds.

If you wish to turn it off do so overnight, although that may mean you miss firmware updates as they are normally pushed in that period.

Silverbird65

Thanks I realise that it was just a suggestion from Martin regarding router energy consumption I read.

Astria

Silverbird65 said:

Thanks I realise that it was just a suggestion from Martin regarding router energy consumption I read.

It still stands depending on how you use your router. For example, if you only ever have laptop/phone/tablet connected and work during the day then turning the router off between midnight and 18:00 will save quite a bit of energy and shouldn't upset things too much. t could be possible that it could fail earlier than if you left it on 24/7 however, but if it's ISP provided then they will replace (but it could take a week without connectivity).

[Deleted User]

Turning off the BT hub over night wouldn’t work for us as we need Wi-Fi 24/7. Plus people that have switched to Digital Voice need the router on to use the landline. If there was a medical emergency in the night, waiting 7 minutes for the router to come online wouldn’t be good. 

I’m all for money saving but routers shouldn’t be a thing to economise with.

Workerdrone

Astria said:

Silverbird65 said:

Thanks I realise that it was just a suggestion from Martin regarding router energy consumption I read.

It still stands depending on how you use your router. For example, if you only ever have laptop/phone/tablet connected and work during the day then turning the router off between midnight and 18:00 will save quite a bit of energy and shouldn't upset things too much. t could be possible that it could fail earlier than if you left it on 24/7 however, but if it's ISP provided then they will replace (but it could take a week without connectivity).

Afraid not. The DSLAM at the exchange/street cabinet will interpret a sudden loss of connection as a link loss. Multiple link losses will force the DSLAM to retrain to a lower speed on next connection as it will assume the line is unstable at the higher speed. If you do this often enough your broadband will drop to a crawl. Ive seen a lot of this with broadband in older peoples houses where they can't get out of the habit of turning everything off on a night time.

Interestingly there is a standard for proper shutdown of a router know as a Dying Gasp, As Per (7.1.2.5.3 of ITU-T Recommendation G.991.2). This isn't implemented in many routers, but for those it is, this sends the appropriate power status bit to the DSLAM indicating it is going for shutdown. This in turn doesn't trigger line retraining on next connection. Most consumer grade routers are designed to be on 24/7 hence don't have a software shutdown function. usually its an off switch or yank the cable. As you do this once in a blue moon it makes little difference. 

ZolaBuddy

Working in IT I would be inclined to leave your router on 24/7.

Repeated switching it off and on again will cause problems further down the road and this also applies to PCs and laptops and NAS boxes that some people suggest switching off at night.

 The problem is that it causes undue wear on hard drives that will eventually cause the device to fail.

pochase

ZolaBuddy said:

Working in IT I would be inclined to leave your router on 24/7.

Repeated switching it off and on again will cause problems further down the road and this also applies to PCs and laptops and NAS boxes that some people suggest switching off at night.

 The problem is that it causes undue wear on hard drives that will eventually cause the device to fail.

I agree with not switching off the router and the NAS. I checked the standby usage and the NAS is using 0.5W when in standby.

I don't see any reason why you should not power off a PC or laptop working in IT myself. I have not seen many problems arising from powering off the laptop or desktop over night.

Ally_E.

Energy prices are too high to leave PCs on now, laptop maybe... but a PC in my house uses 2.4kW/h a day being on from 9am-11pm. Leaving overnight would add extra cost of £264 a year at current capped tariff.