Sleep 8 Hours or Shutdown Desktop PC Daily - Which Uses More Electric Power?

• 

  jelko on 03/01/2015 - 17:43

  Shutting down completely is more energy efficient than "standby" mode.

  Shutting down uses 0 energy while standby mode uses >0 energy.

  How much energy does your computer use in standby mode? Get an energy meter and try it out yourself.

  • 

    scrimshaw on 03/01/2015 - 20:07

    +1

    Not accurate, if you want your computer to use zero energy you will need to power it off at the mains. If your mobo has a power LED, you will see it lit up even though the computer is shut down.

    Your power supply still draws power from the wall and is supplying some parts of your motherboard with power. For e.g if Wake On LAN is enabled, the networking components of the motherboard will consume power as it needs to listen for the wake up command. PS/2 Ports may still be powered to listen for mouse/keyboard input events to wake up.
    USB ports may still be used to charge smartphones when the PC is off (this is a modern feature on many motherboards nowadays).

    So a more accurate statement would be

    Your Pc is still consuming power when:
    1. Shut down
    2. Hibernate
    3. Sleeping.

    Does not consume power when
    1. Mains turned off
    2. Unplugged.
    3. PSU's hardware switch is off.

  • 

    Diji1 on 07/01/2015 - 16:42

    Yes but you missed the point of the post: there is power draw for booting up as the OS is loaded, disks are turned on etc. This doesn't occur if the device has been asleep and I see there is minimal disk use when I wake it.

    So is 8 hours of sleep mode using less power than doing a cold reboot? If so I might as well use sleep mode.

    The computer is always on while I'm not sleeping.

    • 

      scrimshaw on 07/01/2015 - 17:11

      It's fairly inconsequential. Sure your computer will draw quite a bit of power (lets just say, an extra 100 watts) but it's a process that only takes perhaps 30 secs ~ 1 minute depending on how a) what OS you're using, as Windows 8 has very fast bootup times, and b) whether you're using an SSD or not.

      If you want even greater power savings, you could just hibernate, as it cuts down the amount of time required to get Windows loaded again.

      windows by default, enables hybrid sleep, which is a combination of both sleep and hibernate. So while newer versions of Windows no longer has a hibernate button, if you go into sleep mode and power off the computer, it can still restore it's saved state from the HDD.

• 

  emibel19 on 03/01/2015 - 19:16

  I'd certainly go with powering off overnight if you're not using it (I've been doing this for years). I'm not sure why you're comparing the power used by spinning disks with that used by memory. Sure the disks will be powered down while in standby, but so they are if the system is powered off (and you can set them to spin down if they are not used for a certain time while the rest of the system is powered up). I suppose it takes a little more energy to spin the disks up than to leave them running, but I think that would be more than offset by not using any power at all overnight (and they have to spin up when you come out of standby anyway).

• 

  Davo1111 on 03/01/2015 - 19:38

  +2

  umm sleep mode obviously. Startup isn't some massive surge that uses a huge amount of power.

• 

  iridiumstem on 03/01/2015 - 19:52

  I am just curious. Wouldn't leaving the computer on sleep mode wear the computer out as well?

• 

  tunzafun001 on 03/01/2015 - 20:04

  +1

  This is a valid question as boot cycles require more energy than many think.
  I would suggest using a charged laptop or energy meter

  Test 1 - reboot say 5 times, look at how much battery is left.
  Test 2 - put in sleep for 40 hrs (5x8)
  Test 3 - put in hybernate mode for same amount of time

  Then compare. I feel the shutdown will be Better than sleep. But hybernate (if your comp has it) will be pretty close or better than shutdown.

• 

  Davo1111 on 03/01/2015 - 20:38

  +2

  http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=power_mgt.pr_power_mgt…

  Reality: You only save a watt or two by turning off a computer vs. placing it in sleep mode. Forgetting to shut down your computer just a handful of times will negate an entire year's worth of incremental energy savings. Surveys and interviews with IT managers consistently conclude that policies "requiring" users to turn off their PCs at night result in only about 70–90% compliance.

  So yes you save by shutting down, it's marginal

  • 

    Diji1 on 07/01/2015 - 16:43

    Thanks, that is interesting.

• 

  Axelstrife on 03/01/2015 - 23:02

  Idk if you have a ssd or not but my pc takes under 30 seconds to boot so easy enough to turn off and on in morning.

  • 

    Diji1 on 07/01/2015 - 16:44

    Yes - but what if booting it up uses more power than leaving it in sleep mode overnight though?

• 

  na8an on 03/01/2015 - 23:07

  What about the macbooks, I have bought recently one and very happy with it, especially the time you close the lid and open you still be able to access the content in 2-3 Sec tops.

  • 

    dylanando on 04/01/2015 - 00:27

    +1

    i dont think ive ever turned my macbook off completely, just shut the lid and ive had this one since june last year. runs great! (maybe turned off once or twice:P)

    • 

      na8an on 04/01/2015 - 01:59

      I know, I must have turned off maybe just 3-4 times sine I bought in last june :p

      • 

        dylanando on 04/01/2015 - 16:24

        +1

        not matter what anyone says about mac, they truly are great.

  • 

    PVA on 04/01/2015 - 16:51

    +2

    c'mon, you can do that with Windows as well. Our Dell and Mac Air are the same in that respect, it isnt a magical Apple only deal

  • 

    scrimshaw on 04/01/2015 - 19:02

    +2

    We're talking about desktops here, I don't see how a Macbook or any other laptop with a single HDD relates to the OP's concern.

  • 

    ashanrath on 09/01/2015 - 08:41

    +1

    No different from any Windows/Linux box running an SSD.

• 

  ilikeradiohead on 14/01/2015 - 14:10

  I was actually interested in this too, and this (old) website estimates that a computer in sleep uses about 3-6 watts of energy/hour. I did a few calcs (which may be completely wrong haha), and calculated that turning my work computer off vs putting it to sleep saves about 15kws, which equates to only a few dollars over a year. It was actually pretty disappointing to find out, as I've been turning my computer off every day for years, and it takes 10+ minutes to boot up each day.

  • 

    scrimshaw on 14/01/2015 - 18:40

    it takes 10+ minutes to boot up each day.

    That's a seriously long time to boot, you either need to look into running less stuff on your PC, have a faulty HDD or you have very outdated hardware.

    • 

      ilikeradiohead on 14/01/2015 - 21:35

      My work has an extremely stingy it policy. We only upgraded from xp last year haha. And 10+ might be an exaggeration, everything feels longer while you're waiting for something.