Do you leave your PC's on?

[DontAsk]

Open up your PCs and find the transformer! There isn't one

Now go and find the schematic of a real PC PSU. You clearly don't have a clue! You need a bit more than O level electronics.

You could start with https://www.righto.com/2021/05/teardown-of-pc-power-supply.html?m=1

 

[Newchodge]

Now go and find the schematic of a real PC PSU. You clearly don't have a clue! You need a bit more than O level electronics.

You could start with https://www.righto.com/2021/05/teardown-of-pc-power-supply.html?m=1

Can I ask a nursery level question? Is the power supply the cable with a plug at one end and a connector to the machine at the other?

 

[Scubadog]

Regulated (via the Zenner diode!) transformerless PS -

PS with a transformer -

Unregulated PS with a transformer -

Open up your PCs and find the transformer! There isn't one!



They often fail whilst powering up, but not because of powering up.

O-level physics - it shouldn't hurt!

LOL - you make me laugh...literally non stop nonsense.

Really, you need to stop with pretending to know much about electronics or electricity. Probably best to go back to predicting doom and gloom....it seems to suit you better.

You see, ALL laptops are class 2 devices, that is they don't have a CPC for earthing. The reason...(your gonna love this).... They rely on a isolating transformer for both safety and signal isolation. Every single laptop sold in the EU....literally ALL of them!

The reason most electronics die on startup....in rush current and capacitor forming.....often resolved with.....you guessed it, chokes and transformers!

Maybe try a bit harder than o level....get yourself up to an electronics degree then come and talk PSU's. Your old hobby antiquated music electronics are....a bit out dated, probably best not to pretend you know everything based upon this.

Ha ha ha .

 

[Bob Morgan]

Can I ask a nursery level question? Is the power supply the cable with a plug at one end and a connector to the machine at the other?

Steady-on, Cyndy - You will soon be labelled a 'Luddite' by the 'Dodgy Brothers!'

 

[Kerwin]

I tend to turn my one-off simply because I live in a shared house, and if I go out, then turning it off means I need to enter the encryption password on my primary SSD to use the computer and thus stop my housemates from sneakily using my computer.

 

[fisicx]

Can I ask a nursery level question? Is the power supply the cable with a plug at one end and a connector to the machine at the other?

A desktop machine has a big chunky transformer and electronic bits inside the box that convert 240ac into a much lower dc voltage. It has to work hard to power everything so gets hot and usually requires a fan to cool things down.

Laptops don’t have room for a transformer so the power supply is squeezed into the black box half along the power cable. It doesn’t have a fan, it just relies on air cooling.

Phones and other rechargeable devices usually have their transformer in the plug. This will be tiny as your phone doesn’t need a lot of power. But they will still get warm.

 

[DontAsk]

Laptops don’t have room for a transformer so the power supply is squeezed into the black box half along the power cable. It doesn’t have a fan, it just relies on air cooling.

There's still a transformer in there.

 

[Bob Morgan]

Once unplugged, do not forget to squeeze the cable along its length in order to remove residual volts.

 

[DontAsk]

Once unplugged, do not forget to squeeze the cable along its length in order to remove residual volts.

I just hang my cables over a peg and let the volts drain out into a battery below.

Also make sure you always turn off the socket when you unplug anything to stop the electricity leaking put all over the floor.

 

[Irontoe]

I wonder how much the smart meter uses being on all the time?

 

[NickGrogan]

Regulated (via the Zenner diode!) transformerless PS -

PS with a transformer -

Unregulated PS with a transformer -

Open up your PCs and find the transformer! There isn't one!



They often fail whilst powering up, but not because of powering up.

O-level physics - it shouldn't hurt!

Rather than old circuit diagrams lets look at an actual PC power supply

Anatomy of a Power Supply Unit (PSU)

Power supply units don't break headlines like the latest CPUs do, but they're awesome pieces of technology. Let's put on our gowns, masks, and gloves, and pull...

www.techspot.com

This one is fairly typical and contains 3.

 

[NickGrogan]

I wonder how much the smart meter uses being on all the time?

They draw power before they measure it, so it won't show on your bills. Usage is around 8 kWh annually.

This is around £2.50 at current rates.

 

[Gill Courage]

We used to leave our desktops on 24/7 and dial in from wherever we were to access data. One little attack of ransomeware put a stop to that. Luckily my PC (the one with most actual data) and the server were not touched - only one less important PC with very little actual data. Lesson learned. Now I use a laptop at all times and switch it off if unattended for more than a couple of minutes. If it ain't attached to the internet, it can't be hacked and if it ain't on, somebody has to know several layers of passwords to get at anything sensitive. It's not just about the money but fixing an attack makes the costs of leaving stuff on overnight look cheap.

 

[Kerwin]

We used to leave our desktops on 24/7 and dial in from wherever we were to access data. One little attack of ransomeware put a stop to that. Luckily my PC (the one with most actual data) and the server were not touched - only one less important PC with very little actual data. Lesson learned. Now I use a laptop at all times and switch it off if unattended for more than a couple of minutes. If it ain't attached to the internet, it can't be hacked and if it ain't on, somebody has to know several layers of passwords to get at anything sensitive. It's not just about the money but fixing an attack makes the costs of leaving stuff on overnight look cheap.

Buy a Yubikey, and most of your problems will be solved.

 

[macScot]

Laptops use less energy due to normally having more efficient processors, so helps save us on energy costs, and we did start switching off gadgets (work from home) as well as the TV, media box, soundbar, etc. rather than leaving them on standby.

It's easy to set up shutdown and wakeup on the mac computers and I also purchased some smart switches that allow me to turn off the main extension in both the living room area for the Tv and media devices as well as the ones in the office. I usually tend to forget to turn them off occasionally but then my phone is usually around and I end up using the app to turn them off. Also set a timer on the switches to turn on automatically, mornings for the office equipment and evening for the TV and media.

My usage has dropped by approximately 50KWh per month on average based on EDF energy hub, though due to the price increases the costs are similar to what I was paying several months back. So far I expect to save about £200 over the course of a year with these measures in place.

 

[IanSuth]

My eldest has got thru 3 power supplies in the last 5 years - it's a high spec computer that's running hot for about 18 hours per day. Every power supply has failed during startup, never whilst running.

Last one i had that went a cap blew on power up and in doing so a spike went through the machine taking out a lot of peripherals and confetting the inside with little bits of paper

 

[fisicx]

I just hang my cables over a peg and let the volts drain out into a battery below.

Never tried that. I usually just give them a good shake.

I’m more worried about the 5g towers heating up the water in the pipes causing hydro-magnetic interference with my wi-fi. Because Bill Gates is using the wi-fi to send nanobots into my laptop giving it a virus blocking the truth about Harry and Megan. You can read all about it on Karen’s Facebook page.

 

[neeliross]

Yes you are right, we should save energy and i also switch off my PC before leaving.

 

[japancool]

Because Bill Gates is using the wi-fi to send nanobots into my laptop giving it a virus blocking the truth about Harry and Megan.

He doesn't need to do that. He already did it in the Covid vaccine.

 

[Russ Michaels]

With the current energy dilemma, we've been brainstorming ways to save energy, something cropped up that I really think is worthy of sharing with you guys.

Historically (well up until tonight) we've always left our office computers switched on. Some will need to remain on for RD connection and the servers, but we can switch off 11 computers each night.

Each computer has a 500-550W power supply but typically runs at 180W, so the calculation is as follows:

11 x 180W = 1.98kW @ 82p per kWh = £1.62 per hour

We can go from 24hr running to 8hrs running - a saving of 16hrs per day!

That's £25.92 per day - £808.52 over a 31 day month saving.

the problem with shutting down your computers when you leave work, is that this stops windows updates from being installed, as they generally at night when the PC is not in use.

So if you are going to do this, then you should adjust the windows update schedule on every system accordingly, either to happen first thing in the morning or in the evening before people leave.

If you have an IT person who can manage this for you, then you can also use a 3rd party RMM solution for doing that which makes it a lot easier. I use action1.com (which is free) to manage all the patching of my systems and also for some of my clients.
If you want something more comprehensive, then pulseway is an affordable solution for small businesses.

 

[DontAsk]

the problem with shutting down your computers when you leave work, is that this stops windows updates from being installed, as they generally at night when the PC is not in use.

Never seen the "update and shutdown" option?

So if you are going to do this, then you should adjust the windows update schedule on every system accordingly, either to happen first thing in the morning or in the evening before people leave.

Interrupting their work.

 

[abodeology]

With the current energy dilemma, we've been brainstorming ways to save energy, something cropped up that I really think is worthy of sharing with you guys.

Historically (well up until tonight) we've always left our office computers switched on. Some will need to remain on for RD connection and the servers, but we can switch off 11 computers each night.

Each computer has a 500-550W power supply but typically runs at 180W, so the calculation is as follows:

11 x 180W = 1.98kW @ 82p per kWh = £1.62 per hour

We can go from 24hr running to 8hrs running - a saving of 16hrs per day!

That's £25.92 per day - £808.52 over a 31 day month saving.

Thanks for this. I’ll be turning off everything from now.

 

[paulears]

I've been doing this since the price hike - the synology NAS drive is less effective as all the computers try to update in the limited hours they're on - so less instant - I now often have to manually download big files that haven't appeared, I've also had a rise in start up failures or the usual windows update and shutdown tasks - never an issue when they were on 24/7. The saving is obvious, but I really had a totally stable system - now the start up order is trickier as some devices are less happy re-linking.

 

[Peter Morris]

Well, as I know, so long as you reboot at least once a week, it's okay to always keep it powered on.

 

[catshill]

I use the sleep function on my Windows PC to reduce power when I leave the office. This allows for quick boot and for overnight backups. Once a week I’ll shut down or reboot the pc.