shut down vs. sleep vs. on

[JHZR2]

Hello,

I try to minimize my energy use when my computers are idle. Usually I put the computer to sleep, but sleeping tends to still utilize a bit of battery power (Im talking about a unibody and last-gen macbook pro, as well as a sony vaio laptop running vista and a mac mini... and a dell laptop), degrading the battery.

Batteries can cycle a LONG time if kept in a really narrow range of charge, but still, im not keen on sucking down battery.

At the same time, Ive heard that sleeping, shutting down, etc. causes components to go through thermal transients which harm their life.

Which is the best way to let a computer sit, asleep, "hibernated" or plain shut down?

My macs shut down and reboot faster than my PCs go in and out of sleep or hibernate mode. I cannot tell on my vaio laptop (my dell does not have hibernation enabled) that hibernation is any faster or slower than total shutdown. I want to be sure that for any, I am not doing things that are bad for the hardware or for the OS.

Does lots of full shutdown/reboots cause a higher potential for fragmentation, harming/looosing OS files, or other performance issues, or is it better?

Thanks!

 

[Herz]

I remember when I went through A+ class the teacher was very much against Stand by mode. He insisted that if you use standby mode that you restart at least every 3 days. His reasoning was that windows will collect a number of errors that can only be purged when you do a full ststem reboot. The gradual accumilation of these errors can affect performance and even cause crashes.

However, the counter-argument is: Power buttons have limited life, also, the PSU will take damage every time you shut down and repower. Average life of the PSU as I find with my PC's is 2 years with daily shut downs and reboots and the PC's I leave on for file purposes and printing have never had a PSU replaced.

Your going to be using 10% of power in stand by mode, the average 400 watt computer uses I think 3 or 4 bucks daily, and more depending on how much power you require.

Hope I was help.

This info is for Pcs though, not sure if they apply to a mac.

 

[brianl703]

Hibernation is much faster than startup on my work laptop.

I do not use hibernation my personal laptop because I have a batch file that runs at startup to set the hard drive to performance mode (as opposed to power-saving mode). I have not found a way to make this batch file run when the computer comes out of hibernation.

I do use hibernation on my desktop PC if I'm not going to be using it again till the next day. Otherwise, I just put it in standby.

 

[DragRace]

I leave my PC's on 24/7 as I've heard shutting them down and powering them up every day is hard on components.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: defektes
the average 400 watt computer uses I think 3 or 4 bucks daily, and more depending on how much power you require.


I have yet to plug a computer that takes even close to 400 watts into my kill-a-watt meter.

The ones I've measured are around 100 watts with idle CPU.

At 10 cents a kwh, a 400W load would use 96 cents of electricity in a 24-hour period.

 

[brianl703]

I shut my work PC down when I leave for the day. I used to leave it on 24x7 but one day there was a power problem over the weekend which messed it up and I had to fix it.

 

[Herz]

Originally Posted By: brianl703
Originally Posted By: defektes
the average 400 watt computer uses I think 3 or 4 bucks daily, and more depending on how much power you require.


I have yet to plug a computer that takes even close to 400 watts into my kill-a-watt meter.

The ones I've measured are around 100 watts with idle CPU.

At 10 cents a kwh, a 400W load would use 96 cents of electricity in a 24-hour period.


I base it off of Gaming computers since it is what I usually mess with. Yes the wattage will vary depending on components and use. If you have a 750 watt PSU that just means you have the ability to pump 750 watts. Your computer may only be using 200 of it.

 

[Cutehumor]

my wife puts out sony vaio on stand by everyday since 2003. I have to reboot the computer when she complains if the computer is running slow. Haven't had any problems yet.

 

[labman]

The one laptop I use occasionally doesn't give an off option. It goes to sleep and then shuts off after a couple of hours. Last time I used it, a friend showed me a way to defeat the sleep mode. Could make sense for that computer since it goes months at a time unused.

Most computers will become obsolete long before anything goes wrong. My last one was still running fine after about 8 years of mostly being on. Same for the Power Mac that goes back into the mid 90's, mostly left on, and still highly useful for maintaining lists of Christmas cards. Well worth its keep.

 

[tmorris1]

Originally Posted By: defektes

However, the counter-argument is: Power buttons have limited life, also, the PSU will take damage every time you shut down and repower. Average life of the PSU as I find with my PC's is 2 years with daily shut downs and reboots and the PC's I leave on for file purposes and printing have never had a PSU replaced.

Your going to be using 10% of power in stand by mode, the average 400 watt computer uses I think 3 or 4 bucks daily, and more depending on how much power you require.

Hope I was help.

This info is for Pcs though, not sure if they apply to a mac.


If a computer is costing you $3-4 a day then you have the most expensive electricity on the planet or the least efficient PSU. That about $1100 - 1200 a year. At that price I wouldn't even turn it on.

If someone is so worried about wearing out their on off switch or power supply, you might just as well leave it in the box it came in, it will last forever then.

I find that most quality machines will last for years of regular use. I haven't had a PSU or on/off switch fail yet (not that it can't happen). PCs are machines with a finite lifespan and they are getting cheap, so just use them, put them to sleep or turn them off. My guess is that it won't matter and you will never tell the difference between sleep and power off on your electric bill.

 

[Virtuoso]

I used to leave our machines on 24/7; now I put them to sleep at night. Sometimes I'll shut them down completely as a fesh reboot seems to speed things up if done bi-weekly or so.

I think it's hardest on the haddrives, but I've come to the point where I need to upgade anyway, so...

 

[greenaccord02]

If the computer sees daily use, it's better to not let the drives spin down. That may or may not happen in sleep mode. I usually keep mine up constantly and reboot once every week or two.

 

[PandaBear]

Thermal stress due to power on/shut down and the life of a push button are magnitude longer than the life of a typical wear and tear of many components like capacitor, and a lot longer than the design life of technology (are you still using a Pentium 2 by any chance?)

Typically sleep keeps a lot of peripherals running so it can wake up quickly compare to a full power down. These components use power while sleeping. defektes is correct that the data stored in the RAM/page file are not flushed out and start out clean if you just sleep rather than power off/restart, and that means all the poorly written software that leaks memory or resources would not be released back to the pool, similar to leaving a system running 247 running all sorts of software (+ more due to any potential bugs/mistakes in the sleep/wake up routines).

Most people replace their machines long before any power cycle or wear and tear worn out the machines. I personally shut down my machine because I don't want to pay for wasted electricity and I don't want a power surge to kill my components.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: defektes
This info is for Pcs though, not sure if they apply to a mac.


Thanks!

I can go in and out of sleep daily on my macs, and keep them up without issues for 30 days. Somewhere between 20-30 days they get a bit flaky, and then usually a memory hole forms with my browsers...

but this is great for PC insight, and likely useful for the mac too!

 

[ddrumman2004]

This 4 year old HP is rebooted about twice a week if needed. I just shut the cover as a rule.

My 6 year old desktop is never shutdown and usually runs 24/7. If I shut it down, I can't go to sleep at night as the drone of the fans lull me to sleep.

I once read that if a computer is going to fail, it will be on start-up.

Big power users around here are my stove, water heater and dryer. It's all the above plus ac unit in the summer.

 

[NJC]

Originally Posted By: tmorris1
If someone is so worried about wearing out their on off switch or power supply, you might just as well leave it in the box it came in, it will last forever then.

 

[Colt45ws]

I can usually go 30-40 days uptime with my Se7en machine at home. That only thing that gets me to reboot by that point are Windows Updates. Otherwise it runs fine.

 

[tmorris1]

Depending on the power settings, most laptops will spin down the HD when idle for a set period of time anyway. The components are a lot more robust than they used to be.

 

[youdontwannaknow]

you have to take the wear and tear related to thermal and frequent on/off cycling in perspective of the real usable life of the equipment. Chances are you will replace the equipment long before its "reduced life" is reached. Plus as has already been pointed out the quality of components has increased in the last decade or so.

About electricity - I measured the power consumed by my desktop pc using a power meter and it was at 85W running cpu intensive programs, 75W at idle, 55W in standby. So for the purpose of saving power and cost you are better off shutting it down. You arnt really saving anything in standby or sleep.

 

[labman]

100 watts x 24hr x 30day/mo/1000watts/kw = 72 kwh/mo

72 x $.07kwh = $5.04/mo to leave my computer on. Well I am going to using a bunch of the time. The time I would have to wait to reboot and restart my programs is worth something.

Since I am retired, I may take a break, have a cup of coffee, and check BITOG several times a day. Again I booted up and started things, my coffee might be cold.