What do you do with your PC when leaving it for more than 8 hours unattended ?

eirman

What do you do with your PC when leaving it for more than 8 hours unattended ? If you haven't tried hibernating before, enable it and try it out. Do your bit for the planet !

RotalicaV

My laptop goes into standby but my pc stays on like donkey kong.

I recycle.

zilog_jones

Unless I'm making the PC do something while unattended, i turn it off. Not really bothered about using hibernate - Windows has a tendency of going a bit pear-shaped without regular reboots.

Orion

Like zilog - the only time I leave it on for long periods unattended is when I've stuff downloading. This is usually when I'm in work. I check it during the day (logmein.com) and then power it off remotely when the downloads are finished. I do turn the monitors off though.

Stephen

I turn it off if its not doing something useful such as downloading or encoding video. Or when I sleep, it sounds like a jet engine.

projectmayhem

yeah if i walk away and the PC isn't doing something for me, i just turn it off. if turning your PC on/off is a chore, get more RAM

like zilog said, windows enjoys a reboot every now and then anyway

EOA_Mushy

zilog_jones wrote:

Unless I'm making the PC do something while unattended, i turn it off. Not really bothered about using hibernate - Windows has a tendency of going a bit pear-shaped without regular reboots.

The same & fully aggreed on problimatic hibernates.

unklerosco

eirman wrote:

Do your bit for the planet !

Turning it off would be doing ur bit, if u aint gonna use it for 8 hrs it dont need to be on..

aidan_walsh

unklerosco wrote:

Turning it off would be doing ur bit, if u aint gonna use it for 8 hrs it dont need to be on..

Unless you're running a server.

tuxy

eirman wrote:

If you haven't tried hibernating before, enable it and try it out. Do your bit for the planet !

how much power is used in hibernation mode compared to just leaving it on?

melekalikimaka

hibernating powers everything down but the hard drive i think so not much, i leave mine on, hibernating is more hassle than its worth and i usually have something downloading, poor emule likes to take its time, especially on rareities

layke

Or downloading large files. I haven't turned mine off in a week. When it becomes a bit snotty with my I reboot it, but thats all.

(I also recycle).

Rollo Tamasi

aidan_walsh wrote:

Unless you're running a server.

or a missle defence system? :rolleyes:

DonkeyStyle \o/

I used to leave it on while folding(@home), but then not for 8 hour streches.
It's not really a big deal to power off and boot back up later.

Khannie

No sense in leaving a computer on to do nothing just so you can save yourself the 45 second boot time.

I do leave mine on if downloading overnight, but otherwise I like to keep it off. I've gotten into the habit of leaving my work PC on overnight. This thread is a fine reminder to get my finger out and stop doing that.

DemonOfTheFall

I'm pretty sure that hibernation mode entirely turns the PC off, just is meant to be quicker to boot back up.

SeanW

Sometimes I run a game server on my PC, or I'll have a large/slow file transfer going on, or I'll use it as an alarm clock lol, so I tend to just turn off the monitor at those times.

If it's not going to be doing anything though I turn the whole lot off and plug it out.

Oh, and hibernation does turn everything off, it takes the contents of your RAM, system state etc, dumps it into the hiberfil.sys file. Then when you turn on the PC again, it pulls the contents back from hiberfil.sys and leaves you back where you were when you put it into hibernation.

It's a good idea on paper but not perfect.

matdabomb

Be abit helpful and if you leave on for 8 hours downloading something or not use http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ . Just leave it running and mabye someday you can be called a very good citizen for using 8 hours worth of power.

BTW This is coming for someone who hasnt turned his comp of in over 2 weeks . But running that makes me feel i am doing the world good and probaly am. And no i dont leave on for Bittorrent. It is scum and everyone breaking copy right should please take your hard drive and BURN IT.

LunaC

Swith it off unless I'm downloading stuff.

Ruu_Old

Just the monitors off here.

astrofool

Hibernate saves the ram to the hard drive, and switches everything off (bar maybe status LED's). Standby mode turns off everything, but keeps the RAM powered.

Lump

I don't understand why anyone leaves their PC on when it's not doing anything like downloading, or encoding. Makes now sense to me, you're costing money and causing pollution. On that note it really pisses me off in work when people leave their computers on over night etc..... Aside from costing a tonne of money to run them, it's causing pollution. I think the IT people should built in an auto shut down if the PC is idle for 1 hour, and have it go to Standby after 30 minutes of not being used.

John

TerrorFirmer

I turn it off unless I'm either using it, or downloading something (in which case I turn off the monitor if its downloading but otherwise idle). Don't see why you'd bother leaving it on, need to reboot every once in awhile anyway or my computer gets cranky

sarahn11

i leave mine on while downloading.....which is pretty much all the time, if ive nothing doing, ide turn it off. sometimes i used to turn it off while i was sleeping, but not really anymore since stuck s new zalman fan into it


i do turn off the monitors when i go to work or out or whatever...


i also recycle!

byte

PC gets switched off maybe once every week or two. Monitor goes into standby for the most part.

m_stan

I use the energy saver options on my Mac to put the computer "to sleep" ater 20mins, the screen "to sleep" after 5mins and the hard drive "when possible".

Aside from that, I never turn it off. I never reboot unless I have to for a software update (rarely needed). Therefore it can be on for months at a time.

Hopefully these options are helping save the planet since it's pretty much permanently on !

christophicus

Hey Eirman,do you go to revo-europe by any chance??

Cabaal

My PC in work I reboot every evening but leave it powered on, I pwr it down at the weekends.

My main home PC I turn off when not in use and my server machine at home I leave on 24/7 doing numerous things

Willymuncher

I switch off the monitor and leave the pc on all the time.

Lump

Willymuncher wrote:

I switch off the monitor and leave the pc on all the time.

Why?

tman

i'd only ever leave my computer on unattended if i'm downloading something, or doing some encoding. which kind of negates the use of most of the poll choices.
so it's always a case of just switching the monitor off

gnashrr

I download and let it scan for spy/mal/adware and viruses. Add that to the poll as an option, I'm sure I'm not alone.

seamus

RotalicaV wrote:

My laptop goes into standby but my pc stays on like donkey kong.

I recycle.

\o/ someone like me.

Laptop goes into hibernation when I close the screen. But my PC stays humming like an airplane (I have an old Athlon, it gets awful warm) constantly. I don't leave the PC on all day very often though.