[tek101]

It's cool ... :p :p

[meh209]

sorry for the misunderstanding, however my post wasn't meant to be interpreted as aggressive by any means... shrugs

[rikarius]

In response to dlauber the reason I don't turn off my comuter at night is that this is when I run the time consuming tasks likely to interfere with my work during the day. I use this time to do large downloads, updates, defrag, deep anti-virus scans and other scheduled tasks without interfereing with my daily computing routines. I suppose I could waste three or four hours a day doing these tasks to save a few cents but it just doesn't seem worthwhile to me. It is not just a matter of being green or start-up times it is a matter of time allocation and productivity. When the opportunity arises I do shut down my computers and let them have a rest but please don't assume that everyone has the same opportunities are lifestyles as yourself. Life doesn't work that way. One last point by calling those people lazy, plain dumb, selfish self centered, etc takes away from the point your trying to make and will never help to convince anyone of your point of view, and you point of view is all that it is, not factual nor informative just your point of view.

[Slik]

Sleep Mode: NO ! ! !
Hibernation Mode: Yes !
Slow to boot-up in Windows Vista SP2, but less chance of Sleep's Data Corruption and no chance of equipment damaging power surges or brown-outs. I also have surge protectors on all my favorite electronic toys and a Southern Company carbon-block Surge Varistor between my power meter and my home's electric wiring. I replace the wall-socket surge suppressors every year or two just to be on the safe side.

[Vernonboy]

I turn my computer completely off at the end of the day and in the afternoon when I am resting also and my electric bill is about $20 for each month and it took me about a year plus the interest for getting the XP computer since the lots of interest, so I am going to enjoy the lower electric bill and PC World wants us to get the latest, greatest overpriced product and I don't agree.

[Evildave]

At the end of the day, I shut down properly. During the day if I leave it, I sleep it. I think the UPS I have it plugged into could keep it up for a week on standby, so why worry about it?

Hibernate's OK, but it can be S-L-O-W if you have a lot of RAM and a not-so-speedy hard drive.

Sleep is OK, too, but it DOES require and consume power the whole time it's 'asleep'. Your computer SHOULD be on a UPS if you use sleep mode. It should be on a UPS all the time, anyway. And if the UPS is going to stop, it should send a wake/shutdown to the PC.

A UPS WILL consume power all the time keeping the batteries up, and monitoring line conditions, too. Mine eats about 35 watts day & night because not only is it a UPS, but a voltage regulator (i.e. it has a fat transformer in it to 'fix' 90 volt or less brownout conditions indefinitely - but that's not very efficient).

A notebook benefits from 'sleep', but once again it's drawing battery power the whole time. Leave it 'sleeping' overnight, and you might carve half an hour off the battery run time if it isn't plugged in. If you forget you slept it for more than a few days, your battery could be DEAD. If it is plugged in, it will be eating AC power to keep the RAM and batteries up, too. All of those deep cycles (discharge/recharge) add up to shortened battery life. If it can hibernate faster than it can shut down, hibernate, instead.

Another minor problem with 'Sleep' is it prolongs your login session indefinitely. Every little thing that is always running, made by all kinds of vendors (including the OS its self) is leaking (RAM, handles, resources of various kinds) while memory is fragmented, too. You need a nice reboot now and then to clean that mess up.

[charliewood]

Whoa! I use a 3000+ AMD chip, 2 GB RAM and the RC of 7 on a test machine with AVAST and a whole bunch of junk loaded at start. I can get online on a wifi hookup in 1:15 from a dead cold start. Who needs sleep mode?

[Paradox1]

An important part of the cost equation was overlooked in the article: During the time it takes for your computer to boot up - that 60 plus seconds - it is using that 120 plus watts. And that is 60 seconds plus that your computer would never be on if you were using stand-by. So if you don'tt use stand-by, during a month, your computer is on at least an extra 30 minutes just spent booting up. The result: 1/60th of an hour a day x 120 watts x 30 days = 60 killowatt-hours.

That means that you are paying an extra $7 a month (11.59 cents x 60 killowatt-hours) if you shut your computer off rather than use stand-by.

[Evildave]

I think there's a little something wrong with your math there:

30 days x 1 minute = 30 minutes = 0.5 hours
200 watts * 0.5 hours = 100 watt hours = 0.1 Kilowatt hour

So take whatever you're charged per Kilowatt hour (I'm apparently charged $0.07 - I looked it up) and divide that by 10.

So it costs a fraction of a penny to boot a typical desktop machine 30 times.

Now compare that to eating say 10 watts 16 hours (assuming 8 hours of use) 30 days = 4800 (4.8 KW/Hours) or about $0.34.

Give or take.

So the standby idea is just a convenience, and not a net savings in energy.

Of course, my TWO UPS units eat a LOT more than either. I could run a small fridge for the power they consume.

My Ubuntu notebook boots in 30 seconds, BTW.

[smax013]

Paradox1 said:

The result: 1/60th of an hour a day x 120 watts x 30 days = 60 killowatt-hours.

Slight problem with your units. You magically go from watts to kilowatts. Your answer is 60 watt-hours or 0.060 kilowatt-hours.

[rcprimak]

While you are cleaning out the PC with CCleaner, eliminate unnecessary Startup items as well. In CCleaner, that's under Tools.

meh209 already posted a comprehensive explanation of how to limit startups.

[rcprimak]

A lot of security related slowdowns are caused by Boot Time Scans, which can be disabled. But you do lose some of your rootkit protections. In 64-bit Windows and in all versions of Windows 7, this is not a problem, as there are no known rootkit attacks for these versions. But 32-bit Vista or Windows XP are vulnerable.

[rcprimak]

If you use Norton and Windows Defender, you are running two antivirus on one computer. That is known in the business as a conflict. Dump one or the other.

[randomfactorink]

Ubuntu shuts down in less than 10 secs and boots in less than 2 secs from HIBERNATION (not inc. POST testing) on a 2.66 ghz celeron d 1 gb ram 5400rpm 80gb hard drive.
Yeah, I know... its amazing

[free2speak]

I power off to save energy, and to get a freshly booted PC everyday. I also have sleep mode on for short periods. I have found my PC likes to wake up too often. My PC takes approximately 1 min 10 seconds to boot so I turn it on and walk away for a minute.

[glakes]

I agree with the comments if not the tone. I start my computer and it is ready to use by the time I finish coffee and a newspaper. Then I turn it off just before I go to bed. It sleeps automatically during the day when I'm not around to use it.

[pizzaman]

Your suggestion for users to leave their computers in sleep mode rather than turning them off was very poor advice -- and pretty selfish for that matter.

Sure, it doesn't use a large amount of power. I'll accept your estimate of 1-10 watts, which wouldn't add much to an individual's electric bill. You're just talking about one person, though. If millions of computers were put into sleep mode instead of turning off the power, the load on the nation's electric power would increase significantly, adding to environmental pollution and putting additional strain on the grid in areas of the country that are already reaching their maximum capacity.

Personally, after shutting down at the end of the day, I hit the off switch on my power strip. How much power am I using when the computer is off? Zero. When I flip the power strip on, all the accessories are powered up and pressing the computers power button starts the boot. Yeah, I have to wait about a minute for Windows to be ready, but is that really such a long time? How impatient do we have to be? How much do we have to harm the planet to salve an unreasonable neurosis?

To be completely honest, my APC UPS never gets turned off, so I'm sure it's drawing a small amount of power to keep the battery charged even when the power strip isn't drawing any.

This post has been edited by pizzaman: 22 September 2009 - 04:45 PM

[pizzaman]

BobbyPhoenix, on 10 August 2009 - 12:47 PM, said:

LOL 1:06 to boot is painfully slow? I would kill for that. I'm still running XP and from when I push the power button to when I can click on anything and get a useful response is about 8 to 10 minutes.

You've got a serious problem, either with your hardware or with something in your configuration. Maybe even a corrupt registry or too many start up processes. It's not an XP problem. My machine has been through several motherboard changes, but XP has never been reinstalled. I boot in about 1 minute, including the post.

[hawk]

PCWorld, on 10 August 2009 - 09:50 AM, said:

Post your comments for Why You Should Use Sleep Mode here

I Cannot believe Jason Cross would even suggest doing his article and he himself proved it.
Rounding out Jason's 1.92 kwh to just an even 1. Stop and think just a second.... Multiply that times a million PC's, two million PC's?
2,000,000 kwh... Wow Jason, you sure are saving the U.S. a lot of energy.

Ok, so I'm being sarcastic, but in todays day and energy conscience age? How about just taking the extra time to boot your computer and
save the U.S.energy? (not to mention the polution it takes to make those kwh's)

[kb6ojs]

I'm a habitual user of sleep mode because...

• My primary system is a laptop, and I'm always on the go with it.
  
• When I need the system on, I need it on right-the-heck-now.
  
• The power drain is minimal, and unless I unplug the power "brick" from the wall it draws some current anyway, so why not put that current to use.

My wife's computer, however, is a desktop, and it's set to use hibernation instead of sleep mode. Once hibernated, the power drain is in single-digit milliamps, plus it resumes right where she left off rather than having to reload individual applications.

I only use a full power-off on either system when I need to do work on the innards of the machines. On the laptop, I use hibernation if I'm out and about and need to swap batteries and don't have access to a wall outlet to plug the power supply in, even briefly, to keep things "alive" while swapping out the battery pack.

Yes, I'm environmentally conscious, but everything in moderation. I balance that against my time, which would be wasted if I had to cold-start every time.

//Steve//