- Joined
- 31 Mar 2002
- Messages
- 18,474
harrisburgdavid said:Don't you realize that it DOES matter if you leave it on? What does the computer run on? Where does that energy come from? The "health" of the PC is not the only part of that choice.
Most of the energy comes from coal burned in power plants cheaply at about 10 cents per 1000 watts. Your computer consumes about 300 watts per hour, so how many hours per day is it idling? Probably about 20, so that would be 6000 wasted watts per day and 2,190,000 per year. That's $219 you could save yourself (or your parents) and since a ton of coal makes 2,460,000 watts, almost a ton of coal that your computer consumes per year, just during the time it's not in use.
Since there are ~100 million households in the US, just think how many tons of coal we could be saving for your children, and their children. Computers are designed to be powered down just like TVs, which contain many similar components. At the cost of $219 a year, it's actually cheaper to allay your fears by buying the extended warranty which costs about $150 for 3 years. Much more, it's the more responsible choice for all humanity. Think about your grandchildren. Will they all be 24/7ing their computers off of nuclear reactors?
Global warming is a reality and polar ice is melting. Just look at all the natural disasters lately. Coincidence? The choice is yours, but now you know the real consequences.
Not to worry, the ice is coming.
Plus do you think planet was to really be in danger? Hell no, This place would either freeze over, in which all life on planet dies. Or it gets so hot, in which all life on this planet dies. Then the planet heals itself and another form of life begins to emerge.
We as humans can not destroy this planet, not frickin way. We are nothing in comparison to this planet.
All the nonsense of the environment and such, though don't get me wrong. I don't like to polute it. But all this is due to the fear of our own mortality. You don't wanna die, plain and simple. We screw up the planet, we die. Do the math.
As for the true topic of this thread, I have kept my computer on forever. It only gets shut down for the occasional update that needs to reboot the system. Or a power outage that causes my APC Backup to power down the system. No screen saver just power conservation, without the HDD shutdown. My system has an ABIT KT7A Raid MoBo with an AMD 1.4 Ghz CPU. HDD are 2002 and 2003 vintage Maxtors and they is like a Timex.
It's pretty much like any other modern appliance. It always takes more to fire it up than to let it run. A HDD has momentum, inertia once it is spinning. If ya shut down and reboot those drives have to overcome the resistance of them not moving. It takes less energy/power to keep something moving than to get it to move from a standstill. Same with all the fans. And all the circuits are all warm and toasty and just hummin along.