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Thread: Turning off work PC at night

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    Default Turning off work PC at night

    Some companies encourage their staff to turn their work desktops at work overnight to conserve power. Considering that the monitors go into a hibernate mode themselves automatically what would be the wattage saving that can be had by switching a pc off that is only idling?



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    i read in one of yesterdays papers on the net that it costs 5 times the amount to run an x box or ps2 than it does to run a medium size refrigerator, and 4 times the amount to run a computer.

    Last edited by mango; 04-06-08 at 11:34 PM.

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    So does anyone have a figure for consumption by the "average computer"?

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    Firstly you are assuming they actually go into hibernate or standby mode. Hibernate for the computer shouldn't use any power as its a shutdown mode, but standby will.

    I stuck this article on the wall next to computers that were left on one day However I think the figures are much higher than what it should be. Standby is usually something like .5 W/h (so times that by computers then by time off, e.g. 16 hours). Not sure what the drain is just when its plugged in. Maybe find someone who has a Kill-O-Watt and test it.

    I would actually turn them off for another reason, which I've seen on computers where I work. One computer gets shut down regularly (my computer) and its still flying along, whilst many other computers dont get shut down. The others are all bogged down heavily, for some reason, restarting windows regularly actually makes the computers function better, I've heard it cleans out the error logs.

    Also if you have people doing "naughty" things on the computer and they download trojans/virii etc, it will cut the link to the outside world if they are shut down, I know where I work a couple of the computers that were left on and had been used for this had trojans on it and it screwed up the network which we had to deal with in the morning.
    Coding in C is like sending a 3 year old to do groceries. You gotta tell them exactly what you want or you'll end up with a cupboard full of pop tarts and pancake mix.

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    I am now shocked that ppl of today do not switch off idle computers !
    Everywhere I have worked (and also at home) in the past 30 years, where electrcal equipment was involved, it was power board mains switch off before leaving work.
    Alone for safety reasons!
    In some places I have even installed big handles or huge button switches to remind you of your duty.

    I think there seems to be a lot of confusion about standby mode.
    There are three possibilities that depend on the setup.
    1- The monitor is dark but the CPU is running. I bet that is the most common case and most ppl think it is power saving but the power could be anything between 50-200Watt.
    2- Suspend to RAM. Has to be setup correctly and many hardware configurations don't work properly on resume. Power around 5-20Watt.
    3- Suspend to DISC. Similar story as suspend to RAM but power = standby power of the PSU to supply the 5V rail. A really efficient PSU might be able to do that @0.5W but for the average elcheapo PSU it can be 5W or more. However, suspend to DISC should work even after power down at mains.

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    Senior Member roguefan99's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nomeat View Post
    I am now shocked that ppl of today do not switch off idle computers !
    Everywhere I have worked (and also at home) in the past 30 years, where electrcal equipment was involved, it was power board mains switch off before leaving work.
    Alone for safety reasons!
    In some places I have even installed big handles or huge button switches to remind you of your duty.
    I actually asked around at my work and got different answers. "I didn't know if anyone else was using it", "what about shared folders?", "It boots to slow, so I like it to be ready in the morning" (yet that person didn't do anything till the kettle boiled for their first coffee!). The best answer I got was "I dont like people knowing what time I started work". Oh thats because they got in at 9:30 and left at 4pm but thats not what their timesheets said (excel timesheet that they password protected )

    Thats for the comment nomeat, well our psus at work would be cheapys because they are Dells or HPs
    Coding in C is like sending a 3 year old to do groceries. You gotta tell them exactly what you want or you'll end up with a cupboard full of pop tarts and pancake mix.

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