Turning computer off at night

I'm no expert on this, but I believe so. If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will come by and correct me.

If you have an older computer though (like I do), coming out of sleep can cause errors (as a computer ages more and more). Restarting the computer corrects that, should it happen.

Microsoft has fixed some of the bugs in the sleep and hibernate options with XP and the more secure Vista. Can't say anything about the status of Windows 7 but I bet they only improved the viability of the power saving options.

So Tomkitten... what's you OS?

Here is a couple pages that try and define two of the terms and like many things in language the definitions vary a little:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_Hibernate_and_Standby_in_Windows
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers-sleep.html

My OS is XP but I'm considering 7. Is there much advantage to 7 over XP in power usage?

I have been told differently, but with my pc and my vista computer hibernate and sleep are not the same. If I leave the computer on long enough, it goes into hibernation, and never wakes up. I face a blank monitor in the morning and have to force a shutdown with the power button before doing a complete restart.

My keyboard has a button on the upper left with a big Z on it. I use that for overnight useage. It wakes up almost instantly. When I remember, I do use the power button on the monitor. Even in sleep mode, it still feels warm to the touch. It has to be wasting power, and I've never felt that heat was good for electronics. Likewise, my printer stays off till I need it. I also cover it with a newspaper, just to keep the dust out of the innards. If I used the computer as you do, I would probably leave the printer on.

I'm assuming that since Windows 7 is leaner and less resource hungry then XP and Vista that it will be a bit more efficient.

Though you have to make doubly sure your computer is compatible and can run Windows 7 considering your skipping over Windows Vista.

All electronic components die of fatigue. The slow heat affects the components. After all electronic components are composed of adulterated metallic elements on silicon. Hard drives are the first to go. I have lost many hard drive from the heat as I left the computer on 24/7. Now I try to it off when I can. For IT folks they like to leave it on all the time cause they don't like the hassle of starting up the network. It takes probably an hour or two depending on the size of the network. They can afford to replace hard drives and computers even. They have the budget..

Standby keep a little power on the ram memory and when you hit the power button the computer come up within a second or two to the same point you had place it in standby mode.

The power used is very minor in this state.

Hibernate is similar but the ram of the computer is written as a large file to your hard drive and then the power is removed from the computer.

On power up this large file need to be rewritten back to the computer ram and the time to reboot is a great deal longer going for a few minutes instead of a few seconds. The power used in hibernate is the same as a shut down system almost zero.

Thanks. Standby seems a good choice.

There are several reasons to turn your computer off if you are not going to use it for a period of time. First, you save energy. Second, even during hibernation in most versions of Windows, there is some action on your hard drive and other hardware; this of course decreases the life-span of the components. Third, at least through XP, turning off your computer will reset parts of the operating system and clear some of its caches. Fourth, any time your computer is on and you are connected to the internet, even if you have a layered protection of security applications, you are subject to hazard; turning off you computer help reduce these chances.

This is not correct. There is no action on your hard drive (or in any other part of the system except the clock) when a computer is in Hibernate mode.

Yes except for whatever minor power it take to monitor the power switch as that is not a hard wire switch but is under main board control.

With computers on a network you also can have the "off" computer monitor and power the network card to be able to be woke up by a network command.

The only way to kill all the power to a modern computer completely is to unplug it.

Hibernate turns off your computer and saves power, and when the computer turns back on, desktop is how you left it; sleep keeps the computer on, but is near-instant getting your computer back online

I prefer hibernate to save power personally

Realistically, for the average home computer user, leaving a computer on nearly 24/7 is not going to affect the life expectancy of your components to where you will notice it. Most people need a computer upgrade every 2-3 years anyway, and most quality components are certainly built with enough tolerance to run at, or close to idle, for that amount of time, with other periods of greater use. Now, if you are gaming all day long, that's another story...

I shut my computer off at night now, because it's got a massive power supply, very hot overclocked i7 CPU, and a powerful GPU that cranks out a lot of heat. The thing basically doubles as a space heater, and with this summer heat in the midwest, I don't want it heating up my bedroom so much while I sleep. For the winter though, it's great to keep on! Saving power is not a huge concern, because running one PC at home all the time, with the price of electricity, is negligible.

The power to refresh the ram is very very small in standby mode far less then a night light.

On second thought, if you're using a brand name PC (Dell, HP, etc.) 24/7, there could be a good chance of your PSU (power supply) failing before the time comes to upgrade your whole computer. Usually this is the one component that these companies really skimp on, since the average consumer doesn't care about the PSU specs.

Another good reason to build your own computer!

Hell I just take power supplies out of junk computers and keep them around and that had come in handed more then once even if my wife had complained about keeping junk.

Second, if a computer or a part of the computer is going to die early they are going to likely to do so in the first thousands hours so burn them in before the warrant is gone.

Many of the brand name computer makers specifically give you a case that will not accept a standard atx or similar power supply...when it inevitably fails, they want to charge you a couple hundred for another inferior, proprietary PSU.

Better to build your own computer and invest in quality parts!

I never ran into any such problem when dealing with desktops of course if I did I would just stick the power supply into a case of it own and run the wires in.

The desktops tend to be under my desk in any case and I could care less about looks or not to the tune of a couple of hundreds dollars at least.

Right now my main computer have new parts and parts from two generations of computers past back to the window 98 days.

Yep, that's a fine option for those of us who aren't worried about aesthetics...your average home user though doesn't want a bunch of wires running out of the back of the computer that connect to a rogue power supply! But, whatever works...