Quick Question....

[Pale Rider]

I figure it costs me around US$20-US$35 per month to keep the computer running 24x7 with both monitor and computer having a power-saver mode which consumes much less than full power.

Figure that a normal computer from a couple years back consumes around 330 Watts for 30 days at 24 hours per day. That's 237.6 kW hours of electricity at whatever your monthly rate is. The co-op I am part of uses a sliding scale based on overall load and seasonal expectations. But if your computer is set to enter a reduced power state (most are) then for at least 1/3 to 1/2 of that time, your computer is drawing only a fraction of what the full-time load would be (close to 1/2 the normal usage).

So lets say a full-time load for my computer is 240 kWh per month. If I leave it in automatic reduced power mode and it enters that mode 1/2 of the time I would be using:
240 kWh * 1/2 monthly hours = 120 kWh for the full-load usage
240 kWh * 1/2 monthly hours * 1/2 load = 60 kWh for reduced load usage

Grand total = 180 kWh per month for a computer left on 24x7 but using a reduced power state when left alone for more than 10 minutes. My cost on that right now is around US$20. During the school year, my home systems only see about 4 hours per day of heavy usage, to the number drops considerably as my systems are generally on reduced power consumption.

Hope that helps answer your question.

It sure does... and then some.

I've tried setting my computer to "sleep," or "hibernate," only to find the thing full on half the time. It would hibernate, and then next time I look at it, the monitors back on. Some program would wake it up, so I gave up on that.

So, I think I'm going to just turn my screen saver off so that program doesn't run, and when I get up from my computer, I'll just lock out all internet access with the Zone Alarm, and shut the monitor off.

[CockySOB]

It sure does... and then some.

I've tried setting my computer to "sleep," or "hibernate," only to find the thing full on half the time. It would hibernate, and then next time I look at it, the monitors back on. Some program would wake it up, so I gave up on that.

So, I think I'm going to just turn my screen saver off so that program doesn't run, and when I get up from my computer, I'll just lock out all internet access with the Zone Alarm, and shut the monitor off.

The motherboard will have a setting to enable power-saving mode for the hard drives, the video-output and the CPU. I usually turn off the hard drive power down, set the video-out to 10 minutes, and the CPU to 20 minutes. The problem is that Windows XP likes to auto-fire a lot of processes which can wake up your monitor, hard drives and CPU despite your best efforts. It really takes someone who can sit down and look over your system to actually get all the settings optimized, and even then there is a good chance that one or two setting could get overlooked.

BTW, I leave mine on 24x7 so that maintenance tasks like hard drive optimization, updates and anti-virus scans can all take place while I sleep. That way my system is primed for best performance when I need to use it. This means that my usage overall is probably closer to 320 kWh per month which would be around US$40 per month even with my optimizations to the power settings.

[jackass]

I turn my computers off every night...and have done so for 10 years. NEver had a problem with any of them from "thermal wear"

[Hagbard Celine]

How do you keep your computer from slowing down? I delete my temporary internet files, defrag, clean-up the hard drive, run spybot/adaware programs--the works...and yet all my computers eventually begin to slow down after a while. Even my work computer. Especially my girlfriend's computer. How can you reverse or treat this condition?

[nevadamedic]

How do you keep your computer from slowing down? I delete my temporary internet files, defrag, clean-up the hard drive, run spybot/adaware programs--the works...and yet all my computers eventually begin to slow down after a while. Even my work computer. Especially my girlfriend's computer. How can you reverse or treat this condition?

Quit downloading porn.

[Hagbard Celine]

Quit downloading porn.

Haha. I tried to pos-rep you for this but I couldn't. Seriously though, how can I clean up my girlfriend's computer? It's slower than slow.

[Kathianne]

Quit downloading porn.

I constantly had that problem with PC's. Not so with the Mac I bought out of pique with PC.

[Hagbard Celine]

I constantly had that problem with PC's. Not so with the Mac I bought out of pique with PC.

So you recommend a mac? I'm seriously considering getting one. I'm tired of Bill Gates' bs.

[Kathianne]

So you recommend a mac? I'm seriously considering getting one. I'm tired of Bill Gates' bs.

I had 5 pc's between 1995-2004, that's just about 1 every two years. My first was Compaq, probably the best-lasted the longest. I also owned Dell, Gateway, and HP.

The first cost over $5k, the Dell about 3k. I bought the G5 when the Dell started the slowdown, then froze. I've yet to like the mouse, but that is my only complaint.

[Mr. P]

Slow puter? Hmmmm

I've seen anti virus programs slow them way down, Norton in particular.
Programs that boot on start.
Temp files.
HD Fragments.
Tracking cookies.

[jackass]

Back it up and restore it to original of you have the cd's. They are also sometimes loaded on a seperate part of the hd.

[nevadamedic]

.... leave your computer on, or turn it off?

I've heard both, and I've always turned mine off. But what does everybody else do, and why?

And if you leave it on, how much electricity does that eat in a month?

Here is an article on this exact issue.

http://tech.yahoo.com/blog/null/14848

[diuretic]

If you're cheesed off with Windows then give a Linux distro a try. The friendliest is Ubuntu. You can run it off a live cd which means you can try it without installing it. If you want to install it you can dual-boot with Windows quite easily. Ubuntu is based on Debian which is a very stable distribution.

On the XP Pro I use Alwil Avast! as the anti-virus programme, it's free for home use and automatic updates come in a couple of times a day. It's not intrusive and I don't see a slowing on the machine. I also use Sygate personal firewall (free again) and that also doesn't seem to interfere.

I also turn the computer off if I'm going out or going to sleep.

[Yurt]

Haha. I tried to pos-rep you for this but I couldn't. Seriously though, how can I clean up my girlfriend's computer? It's slower than slow.

how much memory she have? memory makes a huge diff.

how many background programs are running?

in the run section, type "msconfig" you can see most stuff from there. not all, but enough to allow you to disable most that slow you down.

[shattered]

.... leave your computer on, or turn it off?

I've heard both, and I've always turned mine off. But what does everybody else do, and why?

And if you leave it on, how much electricity does that eat in a month?

On. 24/7. Period.

Doesn't eat much electricity at all.. There's 4 computers running, air, lights, appliances, etc.. and electric/gas combined is about $130 a month.