Poll: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

[Simon Brown]

For a while I had assumed every computer users turned their computer off while not in use. It seemed like an unnecessary waste of the monitor bulb and energy cost.

Do you leave your computer on 24/7? If so, what tasks does it perform overnight?

[Mike Ryan]

I leave mine on all of the time. Usually because I fall asleep at the monitor working on something. However, I will usually put it into standby when leaving the PC for the night. It is just all circumstancial, to be honest.

[-Expiration-]

Well, since I work on a laptop, I always put the screen down before going to bed. It still is on, just in stand by mode.

I only turn it off once every month or so, or when it crashes.

[Dr. D]

I leave my personal laptop on 24/7 but in standby overnight.

We have three computers downstairs that are on 24/7, no standby. I think they auto sleep after a couple hours, but wake up in seconds like a screensaver.

My dad says it takes about as much energy as a lightbulb to keep computers on all night, and he doesn't want to waste time in the morning turning it on. (They are work/home computers).

All of our computers are only shutdown, or more, restarted when there are critical updates.

Tasks they do overnight? Nothing really.

[Yata]

Waste of power, and a health risk. If, for instance, the power supply decided to catch fire as did to usedHONDA overnight you have a hell of a problem on your hands. It also wares the computer's hardware down faster, and not rebooting leaves allocated but not in use RAM in suspension. I used to leave it on 24/7 but then we realized our eletric bill was around $400 USD (Insane, right?). So we started turning it off and not only did it get faster but the power bill did go down (With help of conserving other energy sources around the house.

Computers need to be rebooted, it's the only way they can refresh themselves. Keeping them on 24/7 is like telling a person to stay up for 168 hours without sleep (Equiv. of one week).

Also, before I stopped leaving it on it would take ages to boot. So of course I never wanted to have to boot it. But eventually after booting it a few times it went quite fast, taking less than a minute compared to ten minutes before.

[BoltBait]

I turn my computer off when not in-use.

[Helio]

I let it sleep, or turn it off, when I'm not using it in the day. I turn it off at night.

[Dalton]

I leave it on about half the time & off half the time.

But after reading Yata's post.. I think i'll start shutting it down.

[Ash]

I used to leave it on 24/7 but not anymore.

[Stephan]

I used to leave my PC on standby for the night and when I wasn't using it. But now my motherboard doesn't support standby (All the fans just keep turning etc.) So mostly it's off when I got to sleep. Unless I'downloading something, of course.

[vista?]

I switch my PC off - in these days our electricity bill would go rocket high if I did leave it on standby plus as Yata pointed out, it's "unhealthy" for the PC.

[jake2k]

I keep it on all the time unless I get tired of listening to the crappy stock power supply fan, most of the time it's just sitting there but sometimes it's downloading something or I'm rendering something in C4D.

[MattBlackLamb]

I turn my computer off if I'm not gonna use it for a few hours & overnight... I rarely have anything that takes so long I'd need to leave my computer on overnight & as it's in my room I'd have a hard time getting asleep, that's what comes of getting a cheapo PSU oh well.

[Dadashi Hatake]

I have dialup internet, so if I'm downloading a large file, I'll leave it on all night until I wake up and see its done. Other than that, I turn it off.

[Dalton]

I have dialup internet, so if I'm downloading a large file, I'll leave it on all night until I wake up and see its done. Other than that, I turn it off.

Wo.. I didn't even think you could have dialup internet anymore. :shock:

So... sloooowww..

[Leif]

On, most of the time when i am at home.

Always off when I am not at home, or asleep.

[becauseilearn]

I used to run a BBS on my Commodore Amiga 2000, so I had it up pretty much for most of the year unless I was doing some work that required me to restart the system.

Now I use Windows, and I might leave it on if I'm going to get updates. Right now I am looking at a couple hundred megs on a fractional T1, so I will probably be leaving it on tonight if it doesn't finish.

[Myrddin]

I let it sleep, or turn it off, when I'm not using it in the day. I turn it off at night.

Sums my answer up in a well-formed nutshell.

[Vain Vintge Boy]

Mines is always on.

On average, I maybe restart about 1 once a week.

But after Yata's advice, I might change

[HELEN]

Nope, I shut it off at night, even from the plug. I heard that some crazy hackers can turn on the computer when even turned off. I know it's unlikely to happen, but I just do it to be safe.

[Dalton]

I heard that some crazy hackers can turn on the computer when even turned off. I know it's unlikely to happen, but I just do it to be safe.

That sounds highly impossible..

[R3VENGE]

i turn mine off but i leave it on standby if i go on my playstation because i know im going to come back downstairs to it later

[ShadowsOfTears]

Mine's on 24/7 except I have it set up to go to stand by after an hour of being idle, and to hibernate after 2. I don't really see the RAM as an issue since I have 2 gigs of it. It doesn't seem to effect my electric bill either. Its still the same as it was every other year before I got a computer again.

For whatever reason my computer hates my boyfriend, so it always restarts when he's on it. So everything is cleared then.

[Yata]

I heard that some crazy hackers can turn on the computer when even turned off. I know it's unlikely to happen, but I just do it to be safe.

That sounds highly impossible..

That is impossible. You can't connect to a computer that dosen't virtually exist. By virtually exist, I mean the said powered-down computer dosen't exist on a virtual state until it's turned on. If you could do that, sites would have 100% perfect uptime.

[Simon Brown]

I recall an entry in computer stupidities about a news channel warning of hackers that could do such things.