POLL: Turn your Mac off or leave it on every night?

[Jim]

Where do you live that you can reduce your electric bill by $40 a month without going into negative territory?

My electric bill is only $10 to $15 per month. But then, I was brought up to conserve from an early age.

If your bill is that high, that's another reason for me to NOT leave my computer on (I always turn it off)!

I'm in Texas. I work out of my home about a fourth of my projects. I have a lot of gear... it adds up. I conserve as much as possible, too, but I have to run the AC when the temp outside is more than 80 or so, which is typically from April to October. I had a $300 electric bill last Summer.

[cbergm7210]

Yes, I am in St. Louis and work the studio from home full time. Summer bills are around $250 for me here.

[mhschmieder]

It usually hovers around 100 or above during the six-month summer, now that I'm out in the Central Valley (though these people think they're part of the East Bay, which in my view ends just the other side of the Oakland Hills). I just sweat it out, just as I wear sweaters in winter. I rarely ever use heat (maybe once or twice a month for a couple of hours in winter), and never use A/C. It didn't occur to me that your heat is electricity-based, which explains a lot. That's the way it was when my family lived in Alabama as well. But now that you're getting wind power in Texas (via electric power grid), maybe things will even out.

[Jim]

Actually, the wind power available here is more expensive than the nuclear, gas & coal varieties. This is likely due to the startup costs for infrastructure, and transmission distance. Hopefully, it'll get cheaper after they recapture their initial investment costs, and wind power becomes more available.

[twistedtom]

Actually, the wind power available here is more expensive than the nuclear, gas & coal varieties. This is likely due to the startup costs for infrastructure, and transmission distance. Hopefully, it'll get cheaper after they recapture their initial investment costs, and wind power becomes more available.

In the paper last year it said that a round half or the cost for wind is in supporting programs for education and to promote it. I feel a better way to promote wind power would be take away the extra charge thus making it more competitive with other forms of power.

I just got my own nuke up and running and I get free hot water too.

[monkey man]

Ha ha ha! Good one, Tom.

My electric bill is only $10 to $15 per month.

$80 a month here, and I don't use elec heating or cooling ever either. Once I start firing up the full rig later this year as opposed to just the Mac, this figure will surely blow out further, so I remain in awe of your achievement, Mark. I s'pose the fish tanks and pond pump, even though I've reverted to cold water from tropical to eliminate heating costs, don't help any. Cripes, if I could reduce mine to around your figures, Mark, I'd be able to save a whole lot more for music gear than 11¢ an hour, my baseline default. Great effort; well done, man!

I feel that the rebooting helps to keep gremlins at bay and I also appreciate the power-cost saving.

Same here, Nick. Despite what many say, OSX benefits from re-booting to clear caches and fragmented RAM.

I've also managed to reduce my electric bill by about $40 / month by turning off my lights when I leave the room, and shutting down my computers at night.

What's best for the computer and electronics is one of those debates where both sides have valid points. So, in the end, I favor the cost-cutting option.

Agreed on all points, Jim. In fact, I can't imagine my Mac's not slowing down were I to simply put it to sleep instead. For one thing, I never was convinced it'd fully awoken after naps back in the day when I attempted the alternative approach.

[mhschmieder]

The bummer is that our rate went up because we didn't use 10% less than last year. One shoe fits all, you know? Never mind those who are already conserving to the max, and certainly don't bother factoring in that there are two more in the household than a year ago! Who hires these geniuses?

[monkey man]

The Emperor. Figures. LOL

[Gingau]

I pretty much leave my iMac 2.8 ON all the time, as I did with my PowerbookG4.
When I had the PPC9600 and Centris I did shut it down each night.

I use sleep at night and when out for the day, and my aquarium screen saver when stepping away for 1/2 hour or more.
I will shut down if gone for a day or more, or to use it as a maintenance procedure.

This way my setup is immediately available when I sit down. (I keep a number of Safari windows in my dock - that's a pain to restart.)
Very little electricity is used when sleeping, but I do save on that by not having AC (NYC apt). Ceiling fans work wonders.

Mixing board, converter, and Hard Drives generally only get turned on when in use. Hard drives in use will sleep when idle.
I always quit Music making software when not using - sleeping drives aren't kind to them.

[kgdrum]

Where do you live that you can reduce your electric bill by $40 a month without going into negative territory?

My electric bill is only $10 to $15 per month. But then, I was brought up to conserve from an early age.

If your bill is that high, that's another reason for me to NOT leave my computer on (I always turn it off)!

wow!! , I am happy if my electric bill is under $100 per month i turn off as much stuff as possible i think NY has higher electricity rates..........................

[Radiogal]

I turn my Mac off and then also turn off the walloutlet with a switch. I have a UPS power back up unit with alarm.

[Jim]

I turn my Mac off and then also turn off the walloutlet with a switch. I have a UPS power back up unit with alarm.

Doesn't your UPS start beeping when you turn off the power to it? Mine do, when the AC power is removed, unless I switch them off.

My last electric bill was just over $300. It was in the nineties for most of last month here in Dallas.

[Radiogal]

I turn my Mac off and then also turn off the walloutlet with a switch. I have a UPS power back up unit with alarm.

Doesn't your UPS start beeping when you turn off the power to it? Mine do, when the AC power is removed, unless I switch them off.

My last electric bill was just over $300. It was in the nineties for most of last month here in Dallas.

Yes it would.. LOL Sorry, my misstake..The power switch on/off button is of course not lead to the UPS.. but between the UPS and my MAC...

[Jim]

I live in an old area of town, with lots of tall mature trees. We have electric power delivered by high powered wires on poles. Every time there's a storm it seems, my power gets knocked out by a falling tree branch snapping a wire. We also get what are called "brown outs" where the power just suddenly quits for a few seconds to a few minutes. I have four, count 'em... four, UPS in my home. Plus my security system and wireless phone all start chirping when the power is removed. It's quite a cacophony, and when it happens at night, I have to get up and switch off the UPS and disconnect my security system battery and the telephone to get any sleep.

The bright side to the brown outs is that I get to see for certain whether the backup batteries in my UPS are working. I guess that's a bright side.

[mhschmieder]

This might get too O.T. if I go into detail, but after over 100 hours of research a few weeks ago, I decided against a UPS for the home. I feel they do far more harm than good overall, in terms of protecting gear as well as audio interference.

If anyone is interested, I might actually have a WRITTEN copy of the summary of my discoveries, that I could send in PM.

In a nutshell though, my home computer and studio setup is now 100% wired into a ZeroSurge 15 amp, 8 plug "block"-style True Series Mode surge suppression unit. It only cost $200, which is less than the Monster MP3500's I'm trying to unload on CL.

Two of the outlets are unswitched, so that's where I connect my modem and router. Even the unswitched outlets are protected though. I don't believe this is the case with non-series mode units, but documentation is often incomplete in user guides.

We have had serious weather events and power events in the few weeks since I made this switch, and I have had zero problems, even if I forget to turn off the surge unit at night or when out of the apartment.

Back on topic though, I still turn off my Mac when done, as well as the audio interface and hard drives. My iMac is so old by now that it is noisy all the time, and regardless of what people say about wear and tear of power switching, I still feel I'm less likely to have catastrophic hard disc failure by turning it off when not in use than in leaving it on like a server.