How Often Do YOU Turn off your computer?

Amazon link i used: Amazon

 

Looks like the same thing but sold on two different pages...

 

Normal shut down takes longer because your system is closing it's processes in a safe manner, however a shut down time that is 5~6 minutes long usually means something's not right (a lot of apps running for example) and I would look into removing the crap on your computer and doing general maintenance.

 

I hibernate my pc when I go to bed. I don't like shut down command. I probably never used it since I began using XP.

I don't leave it on when I'm not in home because of the high risk of power outage. If it wasn't that way I probably would leave it on indefinitely.

 

^this. go to run and type in 'msconfig' then click the 'startup' tab. there will most probably be a lot of things on there that you can disable, but make sure you know what you're disabling before you do it.

 

Forced shutdowns are somewhat dangerous for the computer. Running apps get killed and disk operations stop abruptly. Both cause data loss, risk corruption, and the latter can even damage the drive (if it was in the middle of a write operation).

For me, I use standby if I'm going to leave my comp for up to 2 hours, and turn it off if I'm not going to be using it for over 4 hours (either for going out, or for sleep). I've also got laptops if I don't need the power of a gaming computer.

 

Removing > Disabling

People install so much crap on to their computers it's not funny.
The last time I fixed my mothers computer (and gave her Firefox), her browser looked like this:

I swear she had all the Bonzi Buddies (and all their friends), and some stupid Smiley Factory thing. Her (ancient, Pentium 2? @ 650MHz) computer took 5 minutes to shut down. Now she's got a better computer than me (sans video card) for her FARMVILLE.

 

Also, why isn't there an option for "at night when I go to bed" in the poll? Badly made poll?

 

totally agree. but some programs, iplayer for example, you don't want to remove, just disable from startup.

 

Always on, even when i'm on vacation
No hibernate, no sleep mode

My Desktop PC only goes off when it needs to reboot for updates, power failure (gotta buy me an UPS soon) or other needed reboots
and if i do hardware upgrades, replacements.

I like to be able to access my pc from anywhere, anytime, I like to put on my AppleTV (2nd gen, jailbroken and xbmc on it) and stream my TV episodes and movies to my TV downstairs any momment without turning on my pc first, i use "Sickbeard" to download my TV episodes automated with Alt.Binz as usenet client (i don't like torrents, never use it), that unpacks the tv epsiodes in my shared map, so basicly i don't have to do anything besides setting up sickbeard and alt.binz 1 time, everything else is automated till the unpacked tv episode in the shared folder.

Just need to turn on my TV and my AppleTV and stream when i come home

I only download between 01:00 and 13:00, cause then the downloads only accounts for half (200 gig only counts for 100 gig on the counter everything downloaded between 13:00 and 01:00 is fully counted)

My pc also serves as backup and share for my homenetwork, basicly it's a home server, that stores the backups from the laptops (4) and the tablet pc's (2)
it stores all the pictures from the wife and all my tv episodes, it's not needed to print (i have a lan and wifi printer)

 

Mine is only off when I need to reboot. I'm downloading or sending files when at school, on it during the day, and usually watch something or listen to my music on it to get to sleep

 

once a month maybe?

 

I heard turning it on and off does more damage than always leaving it in sleep. So I put it to sleep when I don't plan on using it for a few hours. I completely turn it off every two weeks or so, to empty the RAM.

 

how come? what damage does switching off do?

 

I don't remember the details but I heard that some time back. And I prefer my computer to be always ready, so I would leave it in sleep mode regardless.

 

If I am not on it, I just turn it off

 

Switching a computer on and off multiple times a day will shorten its lifespan. Switching a computer off once or twice a day and using standby the rest of the time will not shorten its lifespan by much. Hibernate is the same as switching it off (in terms of BIOS power state). Just use the computer sensibly and you won't have to worry about it.

High end power supplies are different. They won't go from 0% to 100% straight away, but will instead build up a small charge (say, 3%) to produce less wear on the parts before powering up (only adds 1-3 seconds to the process). Likewise, when shutting down, it'll actually keep around 10% power for a few seconds before shutting down, which lets the system cool itself better after turning off (the fans will spin for a bit, but the components won't be producing heat so it helps keep the parts in good condition).

 

I rarely ever turn off my computer. I leave it idling throughout the night.

Recently, I've been getting a lot of blue-screens and fatal system errors, though so the computer is shutting off/restarting by itself.