Better to leave laptop on stand-by or turn off?

Question

I use my computer often in the afternoon after I come home from school- use it for 45 minutes, don't use it for 30 then use it again. Would it be more energy efficient to turn my computer off and then turn it back on again when I want to use it again, or just put it into stand by? A negative effect to putting it into stand by is sometimes I forget its in stand by and leave it like that overnight.

Another question related to this:

I can just shut my laptop lid with all the programs running and everything, and the laptop will go into like a "mini-stand by " mode- the screen goes black but all the programs appear within like 3 seconds after I open it. Is this version of the stand by, with a quicker start up time, more or less energy efficient than normal stand by? Normally when I shut it, I can still hear the laptop running for about 45 minutes, then after which it seems to go into a real stand by mode.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this! I hope I'm not too confusing.....

Answer 1

I recommend to turn it off so0o you can save the battery of your laptop

Answer 2

It will luse ur battery

Answer 3

turn it off

Answer 4

Hi. From an energy conservation stand point, standby mode uses some power to keep the RAM alive. The computer will use some power to store the info on the hard drive for hibernation. I think the best overall solution is use 'Power settings' to always enter standby after 10 minutes or so.

Answer 5

If you are not using it for less than an hour - istandby is the best way to reduce electrical wastage and prolong the life of your laptop!

Answer 6

It is more energy efficient to put your computer on standby. It's kind of like a car people waste more gas turning off there car (for a short period of time) then turning it right back on. Like say you are at your house and all your going to do is run in and out, maybe someone is even in the car, instead of turning off the car leave it on to save your gas. The same with a computer. I would say for your mini-stand by mode it's ok but it's better to do the full stand by. This is my opinion and I do this with my laptop. But if you know for sure that you are not going on your computer then turn it off. Good Luck

Answer 7

I have a laptop too.  What I do is if I know I am coming back to it in about 5, 10 minutes, I will put it on standby.  But if I know that I will be about 20 minutes or more, I turn it off.  Also, I sometimes put it on standby and leave it on all night too.  My friend said that is bad because the computer will lose a lot of power and might run slower.

Answer 8

I would say it depends on if you are running on the batteries or if you have it plugged into an outlet.  If I was using the battery Iwould turn it off to save on the power of the battery.

However if I am using the outlet then I leave mine on.  It is just like a desktop; if I am going away for a period of time and not taking my laptop then I would shut it down.  But normally it will be in the stand by mode so I can readliy start working on it instead of waiting for it to start up.

Answer 9

Its better to turn it off especially if it will be 30 min or more before you need it again.  Maybe try & find ways to cut down on having to turn it on & off all the time.

Answer 10

i would just turn it off, less electricity that way. your computer still uses electricity in stand-by.

Answer 11

ur computer is always drawing energy so turning it off will b the most cost efficient and will also give it more life in the long run

Answer 12

You may be confusing standby and hibernate. There is no mini-standby that I know of. The normal thing for a laptop to do when the cover is closed is to hibernate. That is a complete power off but memory is first saved. Standby uses power and is not what you want as a default on a laptop especially if it is running on batteries. The fastest restart is standby (a few seconds), then hibernate (30-60 seconds), then shutdown (over a minute). The choice is yours. I don't believe there is any added stress with a complete shutdown or hibernate over standby.

Note that the default for cover close can be selected in the power control panel.

Answer 13

Trivial difference in energy conservation.

Buy one compact fluorescent lightbulb, and do many times more good.

Answer 14

If you are looking for the "greenest" solution, then you should turn it off everytime you finish with it. Even in hibernation or stand-by mode, it is using electricity. It uses more electricity just sitting there than it does to turn it on and off. It may take longer, but really it doesn't take more than a minute or two to boot back up. We just happen to be in a "want it now" mindset.

Answer 15

if u are leaving it for say, 30 mins, then standby is fine, but also hibernate is  what i wouild say to do

because its like turning ti toff, only it saves everything for you to come back to!

Answer 16

The best thing to do would be to check to see if your computer has a "hibernate" mode. This mode uses very little if any power, and boots up quickly. Therefore, if you leave it in hibernate all night by accident, it's no problem, and if you want to use it again, it still boots up quickly. In fact, I hibernated my desktop computer, unplugged it, and left it there for a couple days, and it booted right back up from hibernation when I plugged it in and turned it on again. So if your laptop has that feature, you should use it.

Answer 17

It would be better to just turn off your laptop

Answer 18

I am for turning off everything you are not using.

Answer 19

It's not confusing at all. It's what I do all the time.  I almost never turn my computer off. It's not hurting my laptop, and the laptop is going into sleep mode pretty quickly.  You are not wasting energy, and it is better to do what you are doing than to turn it on and off all the time.  You are still saving energy by not turning it on and all all the time as you do seem to be like me, you have the same use pattern of using it for awhile, putting it down, picking it up, putting it down, picking it up, etc.  As it goes dark right away, you don't have to worry about the screen getting ruined by a picture getting burned into a screen, ie, as we have no screen savers, but you aren't doing anything to hurt the computer. Actually, if you were to pick up your computer about 3 minutes after you stopped working on it you would notice that it had already cooled down.  I don't know what kind of a computer you use, but i use a Power Mac and they run very very hot, so you know when they are on and when the juice is running to the machine.  I was shocked to realize how quickly the laptop cooled off telling me that it was infact asleep.  So, don't worry about forgetting to turn it off, it's doing it for you.

Answer 20

A laptop uses energy as long as it is plugged in. When you close the lid the laptop goes into hybernation and that uses much less energy than leaving it open. Standby uses basically the same amount of energy as hybernation.

The best answer is to turn off the computer and unplug it. That is the only way to truly stop the energy drain.

Take care,

Troy

Answer 21

what id recommend is to use your computer as much as you can everytime is on, and also just turn it off, it's better

Answer 22

I think anything longer than 10 mins, it should be turned off. Your laptop will last longer, and you can conserve energy too. Also if you forget about it, no harm done.