How often do you reboot your computer?
 

How often should you?

I once heard Kim Komando say she leaves hers running all the time. I find that wasteful, not in terms of electricity only, but all those motors running generating heat, and also the hard drive spinning at a jillion RPM.

How often should it be rebooted? I have no idea. Rebooting the computer I now have takes about 10 minutes. Its got an old gateway brain and was pieced together about 5 years ago.

I turn them completely off when not in use. So at work, it's daily. At home it's probably 2-3 times a day. Takes a couple minutes to restart. I'm walking away when they shut down, so I have no idea how long that part takes.

I have no idea what the correct and proper practice is.

Glatt and I are as one.

I used to never reboot. Lately, I've begun shutting it down at night, and it seems like it moves faster now, and takes less time to boot up when I turn it on.

It used to take 6-7 minutes to come out of it's coma.... and now it boots up in 3 or 4 minutes. I think it was overheating, being left on all the time.

I'm trying to figure out what "other" could mean, since the bases are pretty much covered by the other options.

Something like "I don't reboot, I just buy a new computer every day."

So, whoever answered "other" please to let us know what isn't covered by the other options. I'm curious. kthxbai.


:lol:

other: I killed a hobo

Ah, yes...how could I forget? :)

My laptop got a new hard drive & extra memory, and now seems to run hot. I turn it off after every session now, figuring it's better for it & me (keeps me from being on as much as before)

I put 'other' Shawnee as there was no 'I shut down whenever not in actual use' option.

The best choice is Hibernate, if your system can do it. It uses only tiny amounts of electricity and "boots" back to where you were in like 5 seconds.

But my system can't do it for some reason. It just reboots.

I have that.

I'll try that

My sole remaining Windows box requires a reboot every other day or so. My Linux machines get rebooted whenever the kernel gets updated or the power goes out for more than five minutes.

At home - since I use it so rarely, it gets turned on and off with each use. At work - almost never. It takes forever to get things running in the morning if I shut it off. Plus, more often than not, I am leaving half finished things on there that I will need the next day.

At work, we leave ours on for backup purposes. So here it is whenever I install software, am prompted to by an update or tell someone to as a first step when they bitch that their (insert software name here) isn't working.

At home, I shut down the laptop when not in use.

Dang I meant to vote daily .... not never!!! poop

poop daily, never vote

Thoughts:

PCs vary according to power consumption. Most of them use as much power as two big light bulbs (incandescents, not the compact fluorescent curly-q bulbs). More modern systems use only as much as one bulb. Power consumption will rise during heavy usage - constant hard-drive access (such as constant virus scanning), or 3d graphics card usage.

If you don't plug into a decent UPS, I think you should not leave the system on 24x7. Power glitches can make your power supply work harder, and it will probably fail faster.

We are entering an era where PC makers are trying to produce more efficient systems. The CPU makers are producing CPUs that don't eat power. The power supply makers are cranking out efficient power supplies. Solid-state disk drives are coming online, which eat a fraction of the power of regular drives.

All modern operating systems have suspended states (like that "hibernate") to save power and boot time. Google is taking a different approach, working on an operating system that boots in seconds. So a system can go from completely off to completely ready in 3 seconds.

If I can't fix a problem by killing a process, doing a kernel upgrade, or there's a power outage, then there will be a reboot. I'm running Linux. Current uptime is 27 days.

Haven't had to reboot due to crash with the new Win7 computer yet (going on a year now). It gets shut down whenever it'll be unused for more than twenty minutes. Boots up in less than two minutes.

Mine also runs slowly with graphics or games like poker on pogo. Occasionally freezes as well. I can't see where a more frequent reboot would change that.

Shut down overnight. - During the day I put it in stand-by/hibernate or, when I know I will be away for hours, will shut it down.

Printer and other periphery I only turn on when needed and turn off afterwards.

Slow Windows starting is not due to Windows. Many programs (ie Adobe Reader) load all kinds of preliminary programs when you first boot the machine. Therefore the program (ie Reader) appears to load faster when you click on it. Meanwhile you might blame Windows for taking so long.

I have forgotten the command. But you can view a list of all programs that must load when Windows first starts. Then remove many of them so that Windows boots faster.

Or simply Hibernate. Hibernate is a complete power down so that programs need not reload when you restart the machine. So that Windows can reboot much faster.

mine still takes 3-4 minutes to come back from hibernation

i just timed this. it takes this POS 8 minutes to boot from off. jesus. i must have been spacing out pretty bad when it seemed like 3 or 4 minutes.

In Win 7 it's Control Panel -> System Configuration -> Startup (tab)

There is a much more comprehensive startup tool in Sysinternals:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb963902.aspx

However, if your system is booting for 8 minutes, then the first 5 minutes are still Windows doing its thing. Windows has always been a slow booter.

From cold... 7 takes 45 seconds to come up, and virtual XP (including outlook express and photoshop), just over a minute. Under 2 minutes total.

ok ... my comp has issues.

Mine: 3 minutes of "starting windows", 4 minutes to desktop, 6 minutes to usable desktop.

My home comp is slowwwwwwwww. I know there's a ton of useless crap on it I could get rid of.

I have a bare bones computer I bought from my old job...no software not even an OS. I've thought about using it...what do the techies here think about OS? Buy one? Which one? Windows 7? I have XP on my old computer.

Then there would be all the trouble of figuring out my internet access (wireless.) I could probably figure it out eventually but not without a lot of work.

A better question...How often do my computers crash?

Five year old WinXP machine:
1'10" to desktop, another minute 'til it stops rumbling with things like looking for updates on the web. That's without the virus checker update, I start that manually every morning and it takes another 1 to 2 minutes.
Coming up from standby: 10 to 12 seconds

Shawnee: buying hardware from your job is not a good idea in my experience. It is way outdated. If you can afford it, get yourself a new one that comes with all you need (and not more).
While I'm happy with my WinXP, it's probably not something to install now; not sure if your oooold one is up to running Win7.

Shawnee, give Linux a try. I did and have been very satisfied with it.

I voted "other" because I usually dont restart it until it starts acting wiggy and I get frustrated.....but its probably weekly or fortnightly, thats the desktop.

Laptop after every use or it gets too hot.

Work desktop doesnt even shut down, we just log off.

Office computer : Only for updates (sometimes because a moron needed to plug a f.... vacuum cleaner)
Home computer : Once a week (when I get home)
Notebook : Nearly every day