I am curious as to how people use their computers, when it comes to power consumption. Would love to see what the results are
Nothing special, except I turn off suspend when closing the lid while the power cable is connected, because it's annoying when I want to just close the monitor during AX64 restores, Windows Updates, or whatever (especially when my software button doesn't work). Also disable auto screen turn off, because Windows doesn't detect my game controller activity. I usually suspend when leaving the computer for a long period of time, unless a shutdown is needed.
I have four computers. If I'm not going to use one for a while, I shut it down. I always shut down before going to bed.
When I leave the computer for a while, I put it on Sleep. At the end of the day, or when I go out i shut it off.
Exactly the same - used to turn off whenever necessary - but over the past year or so started using the sleep function (hibernate is disabled)
I grew up on systems with the "It is Now Safe to Turn Off Your Computer" shutdown screen, so hibernation always felt odd to me. Desktop: There's a ton of downclocking features with most hardware. So if you have the power options set up right, you're not really eating up a ton of watts leaving the machine on. The only real thing to watch is dust buildup from the fans being on. If you have an SSD you can probably shut the machine down and back on almost as fast, but obviously you're closing all your programs that way. Office environments though where you have a ton of computers then these functions pay off better. Mobile: Different story, better to enable any power saving options you can for idle times if you want to get the most out of your battery.
No Hibernate or Sleep here. And no Screensaver, but rather Power Options set to turn off screen after 10 minutes of inactivity. I turn my entire network off overnight about once a week and give it a fresh reboot when I wake up the next morning. Or when I go away for a few days I turn everything off. That's it.
My machine is always in "standby mode", I reboot 1 time per week. However, on new machines booting is quite fast, so I will probably turn it off at the end of the day, when I go to sleep.
I turn on my main machine first thing in the morning and keep it on sleep for the rest of the day. I used to occasionally leave it on sleep mode even throughout the night, not anymore as some time ago I woke up and when I proceeded to lift the display of my notebook, I realized with horror that the machine had been on all night and was boiling hot... Luckily nothing happened, but I know check regularly after 2-3 hours, for longer times I prefer to shut it down. It has never failed the sleep mode for more than a year, and I suspect this was due to an application I was testing, but as I'm not really sure, I'll leave it at that. As a precaution for long periods, I set the sleep mode using the start/power protocol, and then close the lid of my notebook.
I use my laptop like a desktop – usually 3 to 5 sessions a day. I always turn it - and the power, off after a session. (old habits die hard – I lived for many years in the tropics where lightnings strikes – and power outages were a daily occurrence – so best to be disconnected from the power mains) Sleep and Hibernation disabled as I never use either.
When I wan to use it I turn it on, when I'm done I turn it off. Maybe once a day , maybe 3 or 4 times a day, can see no benefit of having it on when I am not using it.
Always on, never put to sleep or hibernated. I only reboot when needed. The system goes off only when we have a power outage. My UPS decides when that happens.
I have an APC surge protector/battery backup that does a good job of saving energy and regulating the flow, so that even when everything is on it's not eating much juice. I think everybody should own one of these. A surge can be potentially more dangerous than any malware, and fry your entire box. Or during an outage having it not shut down properly when something is happening, like a defrag, can screw it up. If you're gonna spend a bunch of time & energy securing your box you should go the extra mile and take this precaution too.
Once a day or when leaving home, otherwise I use just a screensaver, sleep is disabled to prolong HDD's life span. My Notebook is nicely undervolted, so even when in use, it runs cool and quite, all connected devices take about 15W together when idle. Electrical devices are always stressed out the most during power on/off.
Definitely. With non-SSD hard drives, there's also mechanical wear to consider. In that respect, a hard drive is no different than an internal combustion engine. Most of the wear happens during startup when lubrication has drained away from moving parts and clearances change due to changing temperatures. When it's constantly spinning, temperature, clearances, lubrication, etc remain constant and there's little if any wear. I've always run my equipment 24/7. The only motherboard I've had fail was a used Win 95 unit that was dying when I got it. As for hard drives, I've yet to have one fail that wasn't at least 10 years old.
