Frequently Asked Questions

Should you turn off your PC before leaving work each day?

submitted by: Melinda Miller - Information Systems Director

I seem to be getting this question more and more these days. It’s nice to see staff is thinking "green" and looking for ways to save energy and reduce the Town’s cost! The simple answer to this question is "Yes". Turning off your PC at night doesn’t hurt the equipment and it does save more energy than just letting it go into hibernate or sleep mode.

Here are a few myths I’m sure most of you have heard…

Turning your PC off uses more energy than leaving it on. Not true. The small surge of power you use when turning it on -- which varies per PC make and model -- is still much smaller than the amount you use in keeping it on for lengthy periods.

Turning your PC on and off wears it out. A decade ago, there was something to this, but not today, say Hershberg and others. It used to be that PC hard disks did not automatically park their heads when shut off, and that frequent on/off cycling could damage the hard disks. Today's PCs are designed to handle 40,000 on/off cycles before a failure, and that's a number you likely won't reach during the computer's five-to-seven-year life span.

Screen savers save energy. Not true. Screen savers, at a minimum, can use 42 watts; those with 3D graphics can use as much as 114.5 watts, according to Don McCall, a Dell product marketing manager who does power measurement studies for the PC manufacturer. "It's absolutely wrong thinking that a screen saver will save energy," he says.

Your computer uses zero energy when "off." That's true only if it is unplugged. Otherwise, the PC utilizes "flea power," or about 2.3 watts, to maintain local-area network connectivity, among other things, McCall says. In "hibernate" mode, your PC uses the same 2.3 watts; in "sleep" mode, your PC uses about 3.1 watts. Monitors do use zero energy when turned off. (Monte Enbysk, Microsoft)

Another benefit of turning the PC off every night is that it restores memory to full capacity and helps keep the PC from slowing down due to "memory leaks" that occur in every PC throughout the day. So turning it off daily may actually improve your PC’s performance. The bottom line is that you can, and should, turn your PC off at night unless you have a compelling reason not to. Every little bit helps!