From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Aug 14 17: 8:41 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from dt011n65.san.rr.com (dt011n65.san.rr.com [204.210.13.101]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2573815228 for ; Sat, 14 Aug 1999 17:08:36 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Doug@gorean.org) Received: from gorean.org (master [10.0.0.2]) by dt011n65.san.rr.com (8.9.3/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA06602; Sat, 14 Aug 1999 17:07:59 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Doug@gorean.org) Message-ID: <37B604E0.9BAA39C@gorean.org> Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 17:08:00 -0700 From: Doug Organization: Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Authority X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 4.0-CURRENT-0811 i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Kendall Shaw Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Leave workstation on or off? References: <001101bee553$fa4e3bf0$0200a8c0@orfice.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Kendall Shaw wrote: > > Is it cheaper to turn workstations off at night and, or leave them > on? I'd heard the idea before that you damage electronics > by turning it off and on. I am really surprised that your question did not evoke more responses. This is one of those "religious" topics that people usually have very strong feelings about. In the "Old Days" (TM) PC manufacturers tried to cut cost any way they could, and industry standards were such that it actually was possible to fry a computer by turning it on and off too often. However, a kind of vicious circle has evolved, where it is now very possible (and in fact, they often do) to build electronic circuits that can eliminate the "on/off power surge" that used to be such a problem. Think about it. How many other pieces of high end electronics do you own (like a television, good quality stereo, etc.) and how many of those manufacturers tell you to leave it on 24/7 because the power cycle is going to damage it? But since PC manufacturers have been getting away with this BS for so long, some of them try to perpetuate this myth so that they can continue to cut corners. Personally I don't do business with those kinds of people, but if you're using bargain basement PC parts (for whatever reason, hey, it's your box) then you should be more cautious. At the same time, someone else already pointed out that the box itself draws less wattage than a 60 watt light bulb. It's the MONITOR that is a huge power sucker, so I always enable the dpms features of my monitors, and turn them off for extended periods of non-use. HTH, Doug (Is it possible to be an "old fart" at 33?) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message