It depends on your operating system. On more recent versions of Windows you should be getting a secondary dialog box when you select Start…Shut Down. The dialog will ask you whether you want to go to Standby, Shut Down, Restart, or Restart in DOS Mode (if you’re still running 9X).
If you’re selecting Start…Shut Down…Shut Down, then you’re turning your computer off.
Just a second for the powerstrips and, if you do any kind of work at all, pick up a UPS (Uninterruptible POwer Supply). They may be a bit expensive, but the extra five minutes of uptime during a blackout has saved me some work. And if you have power flickers, like we do here, you won’t be typing along and have eight hours of work disappear.
I just wanted to point out one thing that differentiates this thread from the usual “turn off vs leave on” debate. The OP states it’s running a “overclocked 3 gig processor and a couple fans”. Surely this would be a major factor to consider. I know very little about overclocking but, from what I understand, they run at higher tempertures and require more cooling and energy. Perhaps it would be best if you turned it off Phlosphr. At the very least, it would be using more power idling then a normal computer (I wonder just how many fans would constitute “independent fans for all major temperature generating components”). Hopefully someone will be along who knows more about this kind of stuff.
That’s quite the computer, ahem… I mean “Personal SuperComputer” you got now. Let us know if you ever find the need to upgrade to the entire 2 Terabytes. I don’t even know how you could fill up that much space. 
BTW, my personally preference is to leave it on. I haven’t had any problems yet.
I’m getting rid of my machine and getting the new one because It is fully upgradeable for 10 years…so the sales woman told me. My children can use it and it won’t be out of fashion…and I don’t even have children yet. I bought the extra powers trips from the manufacturer. They were highly recomended.
Actually the cooling system in the new machine is not really even a fan system but more of a mini-airconditioner with refrigerant and all. I’m getting the impression I will need an inservice on the goings on inside this thing. I’m getting wooshed by the specs and I don’t like it.
“I’m getting rid of my machine and getting the new one because It is fully upgradeable for 10 years.”
How would she know what the technology is going to be in 10 years?
I care for a couple of hundred machines used by teachers and students. I had been telling them to leave the systems powered on and let the computer go into standby.
I’m changing my advice to ‘shut it down Friday night’. The problem is that Windows isn’t as stable as I had expected. Yeah, it’s really the applications, or hardware, or hamsters causing the problem; but the fix is a restart.
I asked the same question Handy - and I got a pad answer that when looked up is on their website. It doesn’t actually say anything about future technology, but it does say something for the people developing it.
You can still leave them powered up all the time and do a ‘warm reboot’ which windows needs fairly often, but I can’t see any harm in shutting them off over weekends - I don’t shut mune off because it is used sporadicaly over the 24-hour period by 3 users who are on for between 10 mins and 6 hours with unused periods of rarely more than 3 hours. Not worth turning it off really
I like to leave my iMac on all the time.
A- Instant access when I wake up.
B- I can still receive IMs all night. Given that I converse via computer way more than telephone, this is a godsend.
C- Now I host my own site, so shutting down really isn’t an option.
D- Sleep mode is nearly as good as being off.
E- If someone I need to talk to comes online after I leave the keyboard, but before I’m asleep, I can catch them.
F- I can drop what I’m doing at night and pick up right where I left off in the morning, just by picking up the mouse.
G- iTunes. I always fall asleep to music.
Phlosphr - Holy Crap!! Which system did you get, the Gamer for the bargain price of $4,000 or the Extreme at a mere $7,800?
I bow to you.
May I suggest that with that machine, you could be the photo link server for the SDMB. How many times have posters needed to link a photo that they took with their digital camera (or a scan) only to not have access to such a service.
Well??
I got the professional…errr…my wife and I got the professional. I was extremely interested in the 45" monitor but refrained as my 19"flat with the ATI Radeon™ 9800 Pro AGP 8X Pro Graphics with Accelerated 256bit MemoryBus is fine. As for being the SDMB image server…I do not have a website, it has been my problem, my nemisis even, in the past when I want to post a pic. Add that to my knowledge of servers and you get a high improbability.
I’m thinking more of a family server, for my immediate relatives once we get a website up and running. This machine will host that will no problem at all. And will hopefully be perfect for my design cad software that is coming along with it. Space design software can get tricky if you don’t have the machine to host it. Now we will.
There’s one advantage to leaving your computer on all the time: You could cure cancer (or at least Alzheimer’s).
Folding@home is a Stanford project that uses distributed computing to study how proteins fold into their distinctive shapes. ‘Distributed computing’, in this case, means using computer cycles on your home computer when it is idle or under-utilized.
One word of caution: that computer you linked to comes overclocked by default from the manufacturer and folding at home will run it at 100% capacity. This will heat a small home. Monitor the CPU temp carefully if you decide to run folding@home. I agree with engineer_comp_geek, if the temps are below 45C, you are not putting undue stress on the system.
My Windows ME is about two years old only, and I don’t get those options. I click Start -Shut Down, and get only "OK, “Cancel,” or “Help.”
Try Start->Settings->Control Panel->Display. Select ‘ScreenSaver’ tab, at the bottom, Energy Saving properties for Monitor - Settings.
Pick shut down time for monitor and hard drives.
If this doesn’t work for you, it may be conflicting with APMC settings in the BIOS - go into your BIOS settings and adjust the preferences there to coincide with the windows selections.
Thanks, Myglaren. I had “never” for monitor and hard drive. I changed it to 5 minutes. I also had “never” for system standby, and I also changed that to 5 minutes. Does this sound correct? Anyway, I will soon shut down and see what happens.
Don’t ‘Shut Down’ - just walk away from it. Give the mouse a shove when you come back.
Barbitu8 - My wife is running ME and she has " start-shutdown then a list of options if you click the down arrow next to shutdown - check it out. I’m sure it’s there is you have ME.
You can’t have it both ways. It takes a lot of electricity to produce significant heat. So either your computer draws a lot of power and produces a lot of heat (and you’d save a lot of money by turning it off), or not.
As a quick back-of-the-napkin number, you can assume that 1 watt consumed continuously for a year will cost $1 (based on $0.12/kWh, which is typical). So if you have a souped-up PC with no power-saving that cranks out the heat and draws 250 watts, that will cost about $250 per year to keep it powered on continuously. If you leave your 400 watt 21 inch screen on (with no power-saving mode), that’s $400 per year. Not chump change.
Power-saving features can really help, but the biggest power saver of all is to turn it off.
The “wear & tear” argument is a toss-up - some components don’t like to be shut on and off, other components will.
:smack: Omigod! I never checked that down arrow!! There it is.:o Thanks Phlosphr. Now for the energy saver options for monitor, hard drive, and system standby, what do all those time options mean and what should I chose?
Also note- power used = that much more pollution and global warming.