Should I turn my Computer off or just leave it running

[leon]

Hi Guys, with today's technology and the fast start up time for Computers/Desktops is it a problem to shut down and start up a few times a day rather than keeping the thing running.

Years ago one was told, turn it on in the morning and the last to use it to turn it off.

My machine now with all the new SSD drives and fast Processors fires up and is ready to go in about 30 seconds.

So what are the thoughts on this please.

Leon

[mura_gadi (Steve)]

I just use the sleep function during the day, still turn off at night.

Sleep lets you fire up instantly just about and uses very little juice.

[sharkbite]

Ditto on that.

Sleep works really well -

over time, w10 also learns when you are least likely to be using the machine, picks that time and wakes to do system updates.

[glend (Glen)]

Personally I always leave it turned off unless I am using it. No sneaky Updates to worry about, and no wasted Watts contributing to global warming. I also turn off all power switches at the wall socket, when not in use, to defeat all the instant on power consumption devices, and never have to worry about spike surges during storms. Obsessive compulsive, maybe. My son laughs, but his house metre sits there ticking over constantly under the load of all of his ready to use, all ways on, devices.

[LonelySpoon (Neville)]

I always turn off if not using.

I have one mechanical HD tower in the observatory and an SSD laptop. Tower is started first as I set everything else up. Laptop takes just 10-15s to start.

ATM only issue is getting at the power for the powered USB cables running to the mount to switch them off. On the list to change.

At the house, I leave my desktop on all day as it sends weather data to the Weather Underground 12 hrs a day. Shut down overnight.

[redbeard (Damien)]

Originally Posted by glend

personally i always leave it turned off unless i am using it. No sneaky updates to worry about, and no wasted watts contributing to global warming. I also turn off all power switches at the wall socket, when not in use, to defeat all the instant on power consumption devices, and never have to worry about spike surges during storms. Obsessive compulsive, maybe. My son laughs, but his house metre sits there ticking over constantly under the load of all of his ready to use, all ways on, devices.

+1

[astro744]

If you always leave it on you will find performance drop perhaps after a few days because Windows will cache just about everything in case you need it.

Windows 10 on an SSD starts up very quickly even on my 2008 desktop PC so I always shutdown or leave on if I getting back on it in an hour or so. I never use sleep function.

[oska (John)]

I leave mine on all the time. It boots fast but my "environment" takes many minutes to start/setup. Sleep can be unreliable in terms of system/driver stability. I have blocked auto windows updates.

One thing to consider: With solid state electronics, statistically they generally only fail (without external factors like surges) being turned on or off from the mains. You notice when you switch it on and it doesn't.

Standby current in well designed devices is negligible - in the order of milliamps at 3.3v or 5v which equates to cents (or grams of CO2) per year at 240v. Sure some (few?) are not well designed but in all fairness without doing a proper power audit how would you really know? Switching everything off at the wall wont save you from lightning induced surges unless you unplug them. And for less severe stuff brownout/ESD protection is generally included in most things as it's commodity chips now days.

Taken in context with the on/off failure dilemma and you may well be doing more harm than good in the long run. This has been true for more than 20 years.

In 40 years of computers I've only lost 2 things to lightning. One 38k dialup modem and a 16 port ethernet switch that had a long outdoor run - that one blew the top off the main chip! In all that time, while others ran around like headless chooks when a storm was coming, I'd just ignore it and "carry on".

[leon]

Excellent, thank you all for your input and suggestions.

Leon