I saw this comment on the Windfarm thread and it touched a nerve…

“The vast majority leave their PCs on overnight as it takes so long to start them up next day.”

How bl00dy true is that! My company has a policy of switching off PC’s overnight, but few people do because:

1. MS Windows takes ages to boot
2. You lose your context (we are mostly programmers)

But laptop BIOS’s have supported “Hibernate” modes and servers have “Wake on LAN” and it’s about time desktop PCs did the same. I reckon the overall energy savings would be significant.

people in ‘well meaning but too lazy to actually save the planet’ shocker

it’s exactly the attitude that ‘it takes too long’ that is the reason we are ALL DOOMED*

*well our childrens childrens children are

I quite agree mr wright.

My PC and the last 2 before have wake on Lan.

I use a 5+ year old workstation at work running NT over a 10Mb LAN and it’s up and running in well under a minute. If they’re talking about it taking too long to log on they need to get their profiles sorted.

Piss poor PC management then. I worked in a large IT office and one of the jobs of the security staff was to reprimand folk for leaving PCs switched on overnight.

johnners – depends on what software you’re running, I have a brand spanking new quad core at work, and to start up all my modeling software to start the day takes 2-3 minutes, none of it is network loaded, thats just the time taken to start all the apps. The boot is pretty quick itself. However mines a license server too so it stays on all the time so me and others can use the software from elsewhere.

My past 2 computers have had suspend/hibernate features but none ever worked properly, often keeling over and losing work.

I dont currently leave my home PC running but I used to as it was so bloody unreliable on boot that once it booted properly I didnt want to turn it off, but ultimately I should just have spent a while sorting the faults 🙂

It would save a LOT of cash and carbon if people did sort out the suspend/hibernate.

I agree with all the above

” they need to get their profiles sorted”

Our company has a policy also of storing profiles in our Chippenham office so they get loaded over the WAN. The idea is that developers can move offices/PCs easily, but in reality those people who move around a lot get laptops so no real need for roaming profiles.

The WAN capacity has been increased recently and this is helping, but still..

The bit about restoring context is true though. I usually have about 5 applications up with various things loaded. Hibernate can usually deal with this. Macs don’t have problem with it do they?

When I worked in an office I used to switch the PC on as I walked past on my way to the coffee machine, then log in as I walked past on my way to the post room. By the time i got back it was good to go.

Where’s the problem?

Sorry coffeeking, I was just talking a simple boot to logon screen so not a useful comparison. Simple OA environment too so I’ll shut up now.

Profiles over WAN open a whole new can of worms.

SST – well that’s what *I* do. But then my laptop hibernates 9/10 anyway.

SST, its not so much the boot time thats the problem, its getting everything back as you want it again the next day. Lots of people dont just use word or a company specific software with a fixed layout etc. For example I have 2 23″ widescreens, I put code in one window, output in the other. Or I use one package on one screen while using the other package in the other and things like dialogue boxes start popping up in odd places when you do this, when you have it sorted and leave it powered on windows seems to remember this, but powering off seems beyond windows and the windows and dialogues manage to completely re-arrange themselves each time – doesn’t sound like much but it really screws with your workflow so I can understand some of those who do leave them on. My monitors power off so I’m saving a good chunk, but as said in my other post I cant power off anyway.

Plus a lot of bosses expect you to be working AT 9, rather than booting your computer and fetching a coffee at 9. I’m fortunate enough not to have that.

Odd I have a 26″ and 19″ monitor running different windows in each, even after powering down it remembers where they last were.

If you’re a programmer maybe you could write a program to restore everything for you on boot up. If it’s a genuine problem maybe there’s a market?

Everything switched off at the wall in my office. Slapped wrist if you don’t.

90% of people aren’t programmers or other people would lose something if they switched off.

And as for not turning monitors off! 👿

XP does have both Standby and Hibernate options.

To get to Hibernate just hold Shift on the Shutdown screen and the Standby option will turn into Hibernate.

Also you can set the Power Options so that it will automatically Hibernate after being left idle for an hour.

My home PC gets switched off at the wall every night, but I’m using Vista so it takes less than a minute to boot from cold. My office PC gets left on so I can Remote Desktop to it from home, but it’s set to turn off the hard disk, monitor and throttle back the CPU when it is idle.

coffeeking: there are plenty of apps that automatically tile all your windows the way you want them. I would imagine that on two 23″ monitors such apps are essential.

If the offices are heated it’s all a big con. Any energy used by a computer left on is turned into heat. If there’s lots of computers, then obviously the heating system doesn’t have to carry the load. I think we are talking about insignificant figures here in terms of overall consumption.

However if you’re airconditioned, it’s a different story.

You lot obviously work at places which don’t care that much about security. Working where I do, we’ve always been required to switch computers off at the end of the day. Unfortunately our rubbish computer setup involving almost 5 year old PCs (which weren’t exactly state of the art then), lots of network stuff in the background we don’t know anything about, and excessive bloated mandatory software means it can take upwards of 10 minutes to boot in the morning. Fortunately I have a separate stand alone machine I do much of my real work on which isn’t saddled with all those issues I can do stuff with whilst I wait!

Our aircon is on a timer, so is turned off at night. I suspect the extra heat generated by all the PCs left on at night is partly offset by the saving in less aircon used to heat the place in the morning.

My uptime is whatever the shonky Norfolk powerlines can supply without cutting out 😮 Turn my PC off? What an odd thought… (Gentoo Linux) I have cut down the number of machines on my network though 🙂

Windows laptop for work strops all day if I haven’t rebooted it or turned it off. But then Sims.Net can’t seem to run for more than 8 hours without locking up…

Epicyclo: your heating argument is totally spurious. Heat is just a byproduct of a PC, whereas it is obviously the main purpose of a heating system.

Guess which one is considerably more efficient at heating a room?

Too_Punk_Too_Funk: So does Gentoo Linux not let you turn it off then? 🙄 maybe you should try Vista?

I hibernate my work PC at night. It takes about 5-10 minutes to turn on though. But I’m on work time, so I whack it on, go make a cuppa tea and chill out for 5 minutes. 🙂

I’ve been considering a low powered mini-itx (800mhz ish) for home (tiny server), so I’m not using as much juice through the day and night.

all my desktops can hibernate

{withdraws in quiet disbelief, closes door on thread}

Oh, I could turn it off… But it is much a server as a desktop in some respects.

If I tried Vista I would _have_ to turn it off…

I know my systems and I know which I trust 🙂 Can you honestly say you know what is going on inside your Vista box?

If the PCs in our classrooms are left on, the cleaners flick the circuit breakers to off. Switching them back on again trips the breaker in the next room, so I have to unlock that room and climb onto a desk to switch it on again. Still only takes a couple of minutes to boot and log in though.

2. You lose your context (we are mostly programmers)

I am too, but the tools I use remember their context, as does my brain…

I am in charge of the IT in a school and they have recently gone over to doing computerised registration in the morning. Now most teachers leave their computers on as it apparently takes too long to boot up after they have got to their class room late from drinking their coffee. I have setup a shutdown command from the server and that seems to be doing the trick!!

Guess which one is considerably more efficient at heating a room?

So if the power that a PC uses doesn’t go to heating a room, where does it go?

Still a spurious argument though

If the offices are heated it’s all a big con.

Don’t know about yours, but mine tends not to be between May and September.

2. You lose your context (we are mostly programmers)
As a programmer/developer whatever the current term is, I switch mine off each night so that I do loose context, plus it takes what about 10 minutes max to boot and load the enviroment again. A nice amount of time to put the kettle on and ponder why your code isn’t working 🙂
I’ve tried hibernate, but i’ve found it can be a bit hit and miss wrt to network services.

aracer: erm not all the electricaly energy in a PC becomes heat energy you know. There is noise, moving parts, light etc.

aracer: erm not all the electricaly energy in a PC becomes heat energy you know. There is noise, moving parts, light etc.

Light from what? Why do the moving parts use energy given conservation of momentum? What do you think happens to all that noise and light after the PC generates it if it’s in an enclosed space where the noise and light doesn’t escape? The point I’m making here is that with conservation of energy, all that electrical energy you put in either stays in the room the computer’s in or leaves it in some form – what forms of energy the computer generates are leaving the room?

Meanwhile, with the heating for a large building, how much heat is lost outside the building with exhausts, hot pipes etc.?

(oh I do love a pedantic OT argument 😉 )

You lot must be using rubbish development environments – all the ones I use come back in exactly the state I left (I even normally get a choice of multiple states). It’s far more of a problem normally restoring the state of my brain in the morning.

Light from what?

The monitor, if it’s left on, plus various status LEDs on (at least one on the front, another couple on your network card and several more on the motherboard).

Why do moving parts use energy…

Erm…. that’s how they move?? Electrical -> Magnetic -> Kinetic
And that kinetic only generates a tiny amount of heat (decent PC fans use fluid bearings so friction is minimal).

what forms of energy the computer generates are leaving the room?

Most of them? Heat, sound, light, magnetic,…

I think you need to sit down and think about it for a moment. If 100% of electrical energy eventually becomes heat in every electrical device then why would you ever need something specifically designed as a heater? You could just stick the telly on to get warm 🙄

Are you seriously suggesting that heaters are some kind of elaborate con?

You guys who’s desktops take a long time to log on need some serious help. It’s not my speciality but I’ll come and tell you what needs doing for 500 quid a day. And that’s cheap.

Losing context? Might be worth getting a memory. Everyone works in a context, everyone multitasks. Presumably the rest of us are better at gripping the context when we start everything up in the morning. Any programmer/developer that does not checkout their code before they leave and check it in when they come back into work should also question their programming ethics, they’re doing it wrong. Or their company is.

Think you got your checkins/outs the wrong way round there samuri.
But no I don’t checkin code at the end of every day, just when I am finished making my changes (which may be the same day or may take a week).

As someone who had to use a PC at work, but actually deals day to day with buildings and what happens in them almost all offices don’t have a problem with heating but with cooling instead.

Why do the moving parts use energy given conservation of momentum?

it’s called ‘friction’ :o)

well that’s not my area of speciality either. 😉