Power down, Sleep or simply Log out.

Firstly forgive me if this is is in the woring section of the forum. Im really hoping someone can help me with this. I work in a large design studio with about 15 PowerMac G5s, iMac G5s and a few G5s Intels and we have recently been 'told' we have to save power. I was always under the impression that shutting down your mac every night was bad for it and the best thing to do is to log off during the week and then shut down at the weekend.
Anyone know why this is????
Im getting hassle from the energy manager (yes we have one of those) to come up with a reason of why we dont shut down at night....

Is there any options i can look at??? Is it best to log out and sleep and then shut down at weekends????

Any help would be great or any experiences of the best course of action!
Cheers
Burty

Im gonna have to disagree with that my friend. If you know that your computer will not be used for a long period of time( IE not till the next day at work) then its always best to shut the machine down and give it a rest. Keeping everyone on and hot can do nothing but ware things out faster.

In fact no shutting down your computer for extended perionds of time will start to show decreases in performance. Your memory needs a chance to fully reset itself and it doesn't get a chance to do this unless its fully powered off.

Im sure some may disagree with me but i can't see a benefit in keeping your machine running when there is absolutely no reason that should be. In the long run all your fans and heat syncs will thank you =)

thanks.

Thanks mate, i am coming round to that way of thinking, i was just wondering what was best for the mac as constant turning off and on can cause applications to go tilt especially entourage ive found.
All good knowledge mate! thanks for the input!
Simon

Burty said:

recently been 'told' we have to save power. I was always under the impression that shutting down your mac every night was bad for it and the best thing to do is to log off during the week and then shut down at the weekend.
Anyone know why this is????
Im getting hassle from the energy manager (yes we have one of those) to come up with a reason of why we dont shut down at night....
Burty

Click to expand...

sleep in the energy saver mode is made to save power. that is why it's there.

I set mine to sleep after 10 minutes of inactivity. when it sleeps, nothing is running so the components are getting a well deserved rest. or if I step away for some period of time, I enable it by pressing the power button.

DrEwTiMe42o said:

then its always best to shut the machine down and give it a rest.

Click to expand...

Machines do not need to "rest.

Keeping everyone on and hot can do nothing but ware things out faster.

Click to expand...

Putting the machine to sleep will allow it to cool down, stop the fans, stop the hard disks, and reduce the load on all components that are likely to wear out. Also, it saves the hard disks from the intense activity needed to load the OS at startup.

In fact no shutting down your computer for extended perionds of time will start to show decreases in performance.

Click to expand...

If you're running Windows 98, or Mac OS 9, then it might. On modern Macs, it won't.

Your memory needs a chance to fully reset itself and it doesn't get a chance to do this unless its fully powered off.

Click to expand...

Memory should not need to "reset itself" unless your system has completely kernel panicked...at which point it will tell you to restart it on the kernel panic screen.

It so happens that I have a highly impressive expert opinion on the question of whether it is better or worse for the computer, when it is in use most every day, either to turn it off at night (in order to save power and do your bit for reducing carbon footprint etc.), or to simply put it to sleep. (I'm talking here about the newer Intel iMac, in particular).
I actually emailed David Pogue on this question. And this is how he responded:
"No, there is no evidence one way or another about the effect on a computer’s longevity.
IF YOU TURN IT OFF EVERY NIGHT, you stress the electronics as it powers up and down.
IF YOU LEAVE IT ASLEEP, you stress the hard drive because it spins forever.
Basically, I think you should shut it down, then, if only to save power and pollution."

Dp

The original post was about saving power, in which case shutting down at nights and weekends is desirable.

If the reason for saving power is economics, then it is false reasoning, because the wear and tear of restarting, and therefore the potential premature wearing out of the machines, cancels out the gains of the power saving. It's a trade-off or balancing act.

If however the purpose of saving power is for environmental reasons (the power chain), then turning off unused appliances at nights and over weekends is certainly desirable.