Thinking about energy costs and just wondered if anyone had an idea how much electricity the average desktop computer uses if it is left on all day (and half the night! LOL)?

Not sure but any electrical item that is left on when not being used is a total waste of energy....unless you are using your computer all day and half the night?!!

I have broadband so it is easier to leave the computer on all the time rather than keep turning it off and on - don't think that is very good for it anyway.  I do use it a lot too. :)

http://www.maximumpcguides.com/how-much-electricity-does-my-computer-useTry this link :)

Thank you. As things go in the home, I think computers come out pretty low in power usage, but I might try putting it on standby more often to see what effect that has (if any) on my bills. :)

I always put my laptop to hibernate if I'm not using it rather than shutting down all the time, If I did that I too would have it on/off all day!

What's the difference between standby and hibernate?

What's the Difference Between Standby and Hibernate?
In Standby mode, power is saved by shutting down the hard drives, fans and monitors. These are high power consumption devices. The computer still uses power to save the data in memory, so you can restart very quickly (however, if power goes off while in this state, the data in memory will be lost).

In Hibernate mode, XP saves the data in memory to the hard disk. Then the power is cut off completely, so this preserves more battery life. When you restart, it takes a little longer because the data saved on the disk must be restored to memory. Of course, this method uses disk space to store the memory data.

If you're using the XP theme view, you might not see the Hibernate option when you select to shut down the computer. First try holding down the Shift key to cause the Standby key to change to Hibernate. If that doesn't work, hibernation might not be enabled. Go to Control Panel | Performance and Maintenance | Power Options (or just Power Options in classic view). On the Hibernation tab, check the box that says Enable hibernation and click OK. 

Hope that helps :)

Oh right, thanks. :)

If you do use hibernate expect to see a lot of disk space disappear. The hibernate files are huge. Several hundred MB to over a gig worth of disk space.

  maybe I'll stick with standby then!

Just a tip, the file will exist even if you don't actually put your laptop in hibernate. The option to use it used to be on by default for XP, I'm not sure if that's still true. That's one setting I turn off the minute I build a new PC. (Yes it's on desktop PC's too). The file is hidden as well so you don't know it's there soaking up your disk space. The settings are in Control Panel > Power Options on the Hibernate tab.

Under Power Options, Hibernate mine has the box checked to enable hibernation and says the file size required to hibernate is 510 MB which doesn't sound too huge to me as it also says I have 59,753 MB free disk space.  Does that sound OK Lori?  (You can tell I am a techno dummy can't you :-P)

I've also read that you can get problems with your system when you use stand by or hibernate - is this very common or not?

Well it's 510 Mb that you don't need to waste (usually it's about the same size as your RAM or a bit larger, depends on how many programs you run at once and how much memory you use) - I turn mine off myself. I've never used hibernate so I can't answer that one but yes, sometimes things don't wake up from standby. I wouldn't say it was common but the best thing you can do is save any file you're working on before you leave your laptop. That way if you crash or it doesn't wake up properly you haven't lost anything.

Techno dummies are the norm. I'm lucky I got a job working with software engineers. I knew nothing when I started but they taught me to build my own system. Plus I did customer support for our own systems so had to learn the hard way - helping others. I spent the first 2 weeks saying doh! sorry will have to get back to you. LOL When I run into trouble I ask our IT manager. I was telling my OH I feel sorry for people who don't have the sort of access and knowledge we do (he's a software engineer). It must be really hard sometimes.

I also always switch my monitor screen off by the button as well as using standby if I'm not using the pc for a while...

Thanks for your help Lori. :)

I also always switch my monitor screen off by the button as well as using standby if I'm not using the pc for a while...

My monitor goes off on standby anyway.  Was interested to find out that the flat monitors use less power than the CRTs - didn't know that.