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I have a desktop PC and and it goes into S4/Hibernate after about 1/2 hour of it being on. Is it wasting electricity by turning it on and off and not just keep it on overnight in S4/Hibernate?

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    Why not just manually hibernate when done for the day? That way you save electricity, have the benefit of picking up where you left off (like with sleeping a laptop), and don’t have to worry about power-loss while it’s “asleep”.
    – Synetech
    Commented Sep 30, 2012 at 0:40

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Purely from a electricity point of view:

  • If you leave the computer on rather than shutting it down it will continue to use power until that ½ half hour is past.
  • After it has powered down it will use as little power as if it was switched off. (Generally this is very close to zero. But it is usually not completely zero)
  • When you want to use it it goes thought he usual POST, but then quickly boots into the previous state.

Now compared to a power off and a fresh boot:

  • You turn it off when you leave. Saving up to ½ a hour of electricity.
  • After that it uses minimal power. Identical as in the second step of S4. (unless you physically unplug it or turn a power strip off. Something which you would not do after waiting for half an hour).
  • When you want to use it it goes thought he usual POST and then boots. If probably boots just as fast (and uses just as much power), but you will need to restart a few programs. This costs a few extra seconds.

I am assuming you can start these quite a bit quicker than half an hour (which is your time out into S4).

So, from a purely electricity point of view you are wasting power if you do not power it down.


Note that this answers is from a purely electricity point of view. It does not comment on the ease of having programs already started. Documents already at the place where you left off etc etc.

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