Have you had any problems when turning off your router etc overnight?

fiddlesticks0

Hi, I've seen a significant saving having started turning off my electrical devices overnight for the past few months with the energy price increases. The only two devices I've kept running overnight are the BT Router and BT Youview recorder as I'm aware that BT suggest they should not be turned off due to overnight updates and a potential issue with the service flagging up an issue with the line if the router is turned off for periods, which can result is in performance issues when it is on. Whether or not this is entirely true or not - whether any supposed performance issues would be noticeable or not I don't know.

I'm wondering what results people who have tried turning off one or both of these devices have seen and whether it has caused any problems. I'm aware these aren't particularly high energy consumption devices but if there's no significant issues with turning everything off overnight, I'd like to do so. Thanks.

mr_stripey

My router is on a timeswitch (although this is more to curb teenagers use of the wifi after bedtime than to save money). 

No issues so far. It is off from 11pm - 6am and not had any problems to date.

pogofish

Not since the bad old days of dialup, when most ISPs only had a finite number of lines and you could have to keep retrying/dialling a different connection till you got one free again!

prowla

Yes - my WiFi stops working.

wongataa

There will be no issues turning off the Youview box overnight unless you want to record something overnight.

I have experienced reduced internet connection speeds that were due to turning the router off overnight in the past.  I don't know if it could still be an issue.  Why don't you do it and monitor the connection speed?  You will quite quickly find out if it is an issue for you.  If it is an issue then leaving it on all the time will fix it quickly.

Jonboy_1984

Your router and the local exchange “talk” to each other to establish the best connection speed for your physical line. Repeatedly turning the router off or rebooting it is read as a line fault and they automatically dial back the speed over time to try and give a more reliable connection. 

If you go into the routers admin screens you may find you can turn the WiFi off between specific times overnight, which would save most of the small amount of power it is using.

mjm3346

Jonboy_1984 said:

Your router and the local exchange “talk” to each other to establish the best connection speed for your physical line. Repeatedly turning the router off or rebooting it is read as a line fault and they automatically dial back the speed over time to try and give a more reliable connection. 

If you go into the routers admin screens you may find you can turn the WiFi off between specific times overnight, which would save most of the small amount of power it is using.

Openreach said something like that many moons ago I also remember that updates were generally scheduled for about 1 am so I don't know what would happen if the router was always off then (BT and not a fibre area).

400ixl

Modern Routers supplied by ISP's are updated via your broadband connection during overnight hours. Having your router switched off means you do not get these security updates putting you at risk.

You then have all of the devices connected to the network that may also be doing scheduled updates overnight which again may now not be getting them.

Line stability issues don't occur so much these days unless the line is a bit on the unstable side anyway, so not so much of an issue there.

Personally not worth switching it off for a few pence a month given the updating issues you may have by doing so.

brewerdave

There is a small risk of either the router itself or the power supply failing, if it is continually switched on and off - certainly happened to one of my D-Link routers in the past. Never came back to life one morning after overnight power down. For the small savings I'd leave it on.

Chino

brewerdave said:

There is a small risk of either the router itself or the power supply failing, if it is continually switched on and off

Switching something off at the end of one day and switching it on at the start of the next is hardly continually switching it off and on.

brewerdave

Chino said:

brewerdave said:

There is a small risk of either the router itself or the power supply failing, if it is continually switched on and off

Switching something off at the end of one day and switching it on at the start of the next is hardly continually switching it off and on.

Only my personal experience but ,as I said, a D-Link router failed and I was advised by ISP "technical support"  that the life would be reduced by switching off regularly. Also had the power supply fail on another router sometime ago when I was in the habit of switching off overnight.