Leaving your PC on vs. Turning it off

[hismajesty]

Are you sure? According to this it costs ~5.18cents/kWh for Dominion Power in VA.

So: 350 * 24 * .0518 = 435.12

I assume since that's in cents I'd divide by 100, so $4.35/day, $30.45/wk, $1583.4/yr. That sounds pretty extensive.

[Tazo]

http://www.washington.edu/nebula/power.html

What about the graph on there?

[Topaz]

Mac's?

[tA-Kane]

Hmmm... ~$130/mo@5 cents/kWh does seem rather off... does someone else know another (more accurate) algorithm to calculate such costs?

Also, what does a Mac have to do with anything in regards to this?

Edit:
Oh yeah, I forgot... your powersupplies aren't a full kilowatt; they're only 350 watts... so it's more like:
(Supply Wattage / 1000) * hours left on * ($/kWh).

Comes out to about $13/mo for you, which sounds *much* closer to your real price to leave a 350 watted computer on for a 30 day month.

Edit2:
Also, remember that unless you're doing some really major stuff with your computer, you're probably not using the full 350 watts of your PSU, so the ~$13/mo is around the max you should set aside per month per single computer... but should expect leftovers. In fact, you're probably only going to need 1/3 at most... maybe even only 1/5 of that, from average gaming use + lots of idle time.

[Stealth]

I compromise: All my monitors go to standby after 10 minutes idle. The computers stay on.

My laptop gets hibernated if it needs to be moved. I don't leave it connected when it's fully charged unless I'm playing WoW.

[Akamas]

I usually leave my computers on.

[Topaz]

I've heard the consensus that Mac's suck electricity like mad, but I've never checked it out :-p

[CrAz3D]

What about as far as clearing of the RAM & virtual memory & killing un-needed processes?

After a while won't that stuff just build up & cause the computer to go much slower?

[Blaze]

I would leave mine on but all my fans are noisy and the LEDs are bright, so I hibernate.

[Eric]

What about as far as clearing of the RAM & virtual memory & killing un-needed processes?

After a while won't that stuff just build up & cause the computer to go much slower?

Don't use faulty programs and you won't have to worry about memory leaks.