Which one is better. Leave your computer all the time or turn it off once you finish?

I read here that some people use their computer as a heat source for their seedlings or new citrus plants. But my wife wants me to turn off everything including the printer to conserve energy.

I leave mine on 24/7. only turn off if I need to reboot or if I'm going away... also in te event of a storm.

I've not heard that computer usage increases the electric bill much. I doubt if it'd be more than 5 bucks a month. I had 3 computers all running when I used to live on the coast, my electric was still only 25 a month.

Personally, I never shut mine off. The only exception to that is if a really bad lightning and thunder storm is in action in my exact location. Then I will, even though I have a surge protector. Oh, and if you don't have a "SURGE PROTECTOR" you should get one. Many people do not and it really really is a good thing to have.

If you are running Windows you can (if you want), go into the control panel and then power options. There you can select the time you want for your monitor and or your hard drive. There is a set time for each and there is a never selection for each. I have mine set on never. You can also select for your computer to go into standby mode.

We turn off ours. It is a security risk if left on. If it remained on, the hacker can tunnel their way through and set up camp and other malwares without you knowing it. If we are not going to use the machine within 30 minutes, they are turned off, this way it is unpredictable for the hackers to use our machine as part of their army. Of course I have paranoid firewalls, both software and hardware and regularly deworm and diagnose our machines. If you have young kids, they are easily enticed to click on COOL links that can recruit the machine for malwares. I never use the machines used by our kids for any financial purposes and more private email, but occasionally use on web forums and other publicly available bulletin boards. It is even recommended to turn off your routers at night when you are not using it. This will give hackers a hard time getting to your machines and using them to fish out information from you or use it to stage attacks on others. Working in a financial institution makes me paranoid about security. American households with kids are the easiest in the world to hack to. Next easiest would be people who have less than the above average knowledge about security, and that means 99.9% of American adults, 1 of every 1000 are knowledgeable enough to prevent intrusions. But if you practice turning it off after you use your machine, that is a very big step in making our computer more secure.

Also we set it to minimize power consumption when there's 10 minutes of inactivity (except turning off hard drive in case of long downloads).

Hi Joe, I leave my computer on all of the time, I never turn it off. It makes life so much easier, not having to turn it on and set there and wait for everything to start up every time I want to use the computer. To tell you the truth, I never worry about hackers. - Millet

10+ years online and no hacker/virus problems. I dont even have a router at the moment. I just leave it on all the time. dont get why to shut it down if I'll be using it aain in just a bit. Maybe I take things too easily concidering all the problems on the net... but maybe thats the key to avoid problems

What can hackers do to your computer or bank account? They have to know your password don't they? And every time you log in it is inscripted.
I am just asking. Even the bank does not know your password. And even if they hack and get in to your bank account. Will you lose all your money there without any safeguard? I am not saying I have lots maybe they'd just say it's not worth it. Huh?
Like your credit card you are not responsible for any that you did not sign for.
I am thinking, out of the 400 million bank members, only 10,000 were hacked. Still that is 1 in 40,000. This figure just come out on top of my head. BTW. So it is still very small in comparison.

I really don't know the answer. and I want to be enlightened by all of this if possible.

security and convenience are oxymorons. Convenience is inversely related to security. Majority of people don't know that they've been hacked or that their computers were used to launch attacks.

If we see no evil, detected no evil, felt no evil, then surely it doesn't exists, and so I guess it should be alright for your daily uses. Just remember me from time to time. I have spent countless hours fixing systems of other friends and relatives and setting them up properly so that they can have convenience while I deal with security and inconveniences beyond what they see.

I leave mine on all the time. Your boards are made of many solder joints. Solder breaks down over time from constant temperature changes...

If you use a decent firewall you should have the option to "block all traffic" which basically blocks all ports on your system.

You should always delete all of your cookies & temp internet files when your done for the day. Anytime you use online banking you should do the same as soon as you are done with your bank transactions.

laaz: it actually boils down to what make and model of motherboard and components. Server computers with heavy duty cooling fans and power supplies are meant to be kept on 24 x 7. Some cheap hardware that are often used in home computers would melt when the fans or power supplies are problematic and aggravated by being continuously on, but depends on make or if you have a "lemon". Some simply overheats when continuously on, and if your house temperature fluctuates, and so will the relative temperature and you have the same solder fatigue problems arising from such diurnal fluctuations. It is no longer a wonder for me that convenience is more overpowering factor that we will always have to invest a lot into the security of our office computers.

Benny: hackers can install key-loggers on your system. It keeps track of your keystrokes. The data that you type becomes encrypted only during transmission, but not during typing. What you type can be intercepted by tiny programs installed without your permission. Then the keystrokes are relayed through some cookies which can be read and picked up when you visit some unsuspecting sites where the hacker have implanted the cookie harvester and decode them for their own use. This simply bypasses all the firewall protection when done through cookies. If you disable cookies, you could not use all the sites, like for example, if you set the cookies to expire frequently, you become a Guest when you try to get back to this forum. Thus it becomes inconvenient. What is worse is that the hackers doesn't even have to use key loggers anymore. The hacking keeps on evolving. There are trojans that now can control your firewall settings so that they can override them during their transmissions or communications, others can insert their own rules into your firewalls. Worst still are programs installed that it simply waits after you log-in into your online bank account, so it doesn't need your password. And then while you get up and get some drinks, it fires up a hidden window where the program sends money transfer transactions without you seeing them currently, and if you don't inspect your records, you will have that line item next session you log in but the money has been withdrawn elsewhere. The hackers study how to interact with major bank's system. It is now an organized mafia activity and have world wide network. Lately they have planted workers at the FBI and major banks to make their jobs easier and untraceable. The way this is evolving, the only thing left useful with the internet are the web forums.

So the forum are not in real danger, but online transactions will have more inconveniences such as everyone to be very vigilant about their monthly statements and transactions. Convenience is the exact opposite of security.

Computers are now cheaper relative to my energy bills. I can get a very good $199 computer (without OS), but my monthly electric bill is $250. Turning on and off a non-server computer to prolong its life doesn't make sense to me compared to security, energy savings. But that's just my style, and why I am doing it. No need to follow my recommendation if you think it doesn't make sense, at least you've heard my side.

And usually we buy new upgraded computers every couple of years or less.

I build my systems once a year. I have been in the computer business for quite a few years. I have yet to have anything compromise any of my systems... Once in a while some minor trojan may get through, but most are very easy to detect & remove if you know what your doing.

I don't use online banking or use my credit card online. I will tell you nothing is secure on a computer. Any code written will have its holes. ALL software can and will be reverse engineered, thats a fact.

When I was in college I did quite a bit of hacking, spoofing & exploiting, and I can tell you the majority of systems are not very hard to get into...

It's a different case with home computers that are setup default and families with kids. How can we explain the more than 1 million existing computers out there in the USA households that are compromised? They have been part of of criminally syndicated bot nets and are often traded in the black hat market for access.

It may be hard to get into major systems but not on the average household. We are running electronic fund transfer and we are, our office and our colo's being flooded with more than a million attacks each day. So far we have not lost a single penny due to successful attacks.

I tried to keep my computer on but after two days, it says not enough memories to go to the internet. Happened twice now.
Also twice it froze on me.
I think I may have a virus also.

Benny

I turn mine off for two reasons ;it costs a lot to leave it on and also because if it costs a lot of money it must cost a lot environmentally. I am aware I take more than I should from limiterd resources, and that now I am going to have to nurse citrus through winter it'll be more! I also have a heat lamp for my cats. Other than that I am religious about turning off anything we don't need on, and we have the lowest environmental impact we can, energy saving lightbulbs etc. We only switched the heating on for four days this winter.....like I say, it'll probably have to be different now we have plants to thing of, but I'll be being as careful as I can.

I never used to think about the environment at all, but now I do the side effect has been that our bills dropped tremendously, which has meant a little more money is free and that can only be good!