Who turns there computers off, and why?

octopi · **Posted:** Wed Sep 24, 2003 11:28 pm

Yup,

Just for people who don't know, I will explain how ATX motherboards work.

When a computer is turned off by shutting down, or using the front power switch the computer goes into sleep type mode. The motherboard still gets +5v of power from the powersupply, at about 700mA, up to 2.0A depending on the powersupply.

The motherboard uses this +5v to test to see if the power switch has been hit. The power switch on the front is a momentary switch. The motherboard supplys 5v to the switch and when someone presses the button the 5v becomes 0, and the motherboard detects this drop in voltage, and signals the power supply to provide power to the rest of the motherboard.

This is what allows features such as Wake on Ring, Wake on Lan, Wake on Click, and Wake on Key to work. The motherboard supplys voltage to the specified device for the sole purpose of deciding if its time to wake up from its sleep mode. Wake on Lan works by having the network card wait on a specific service for a connection, Wake on Ring works by having the modem wait for a dial connection, and once one is made the computer starts up, Wake on Click supplys voltage to the mouse, and monitors it for a double click(usually), and wake on key supplys voltage to the keyboard, and waits for a certain key combination, and in some cases, any key combination.

Once one of these things has occured the motherboard signals the power supply to feed power to the other parts of the motherboard, and regular bootup occurs.

When in this sleep mode you are just as likely to be a victim of a lightning/electrical surge as you are when your computer is on, and running. So turning the front power switch off does nothing but save a little power. (Plus as dan mentioned, the bootup stage for a hard drive is one of the most strenious for it. Which is a common reason that laptops which usually have the harddrive set to stop when not being used to save power, have there harddrives fail more often. A computer that is turned on and off more times is more likely to have hard drive trouble then one that is left on.)

Martin · **Posted:** Thu Sep 25, 2003 3:29 pm

Sounds good. I just flick the switch on my power bar.

Dan · **Posted:** Thu Sep 25, 2003 4:10 pm

octopi wrote:

...]
Honestly...who has accutally had a computer fried by lightning.....

*dan puts up his had*

i was at lake during big thuderstorm and ligthing hit some where near the place and a big power suger came in and hit my lap top. lucky it only blow up the battery. (i think it was chaging it at the time).

krishon · **Posted:** Thu Sep 25, 2003 5:40 pm

i turn mine off...purty much to save electricity

AsianSensation · **Posted:** Thu Sep 25, 2003 9:27 pm

I turn mine off, but it has an annoying syndrome.

whenever downloading off kazaa, if I turn off the the powerbar, everything in My Shared Folder is wiped out...Strange, even if they were finished downloading.

unfortunately, I found out the hard way, after I accidentally turned off my powerbar with all my files in that folder...

krishon · **Posted:** Fri Sep 26, 2003 5:01 pm

haha, well look at the bright side, u might have deleted some unwanted files Wink

PaddyLong · **Posted:** Fri Sep 26, 2003 5:21 pm

I turn mine off because it's too noisy to sleep with it on

Asok · **Posted:** Fri Sep 26, 2003 8:44 pm

I leave mine on because the power supply fan and CPU cooling fan act as white noise Wink

PaddyLong · **Posted:** Sat Sep 27, 2003 2:33 pm

heh ... if I only had a psu fan and stock cpu fan then sure it'd be good white noise... but I have 8 case fans and a noisy cpu fan

Blade · **Posted:** Sat Sep 27, 2003 3:20 pm

i have 6 case fans, cpu and psu fan.... 3 of the case fans have LED's and my cold cathode is sometimes on... and i leave it on lol.... i have 2 other comps in my room... so its never quiet... i find it easier to sleep... i'm so used to it that its creepy in my room with the computers off...

rizzix · **Posted:** Sun Sep 28, 2003 11:24 am

i have 4 different fans. 2 of which i can control the speed (thus the noise). but the other two are always on full throttle, which is 1000*louder than the two i can actually control. how frustrating!!!

i also have a Cube (a mac). A cube if you didn't know already, has not fans. It uses some odd ventilation technology and design to keep it cool.

Silent. Peace. Quiet.

Asok · **Posted:** Sun Sep 28, 2003 3:28 pm

rizzix wrote:

i also have a Cube (a mac). A cube if you didn't know already, has not fans. It uses some odd ventilation technology and design to keep it cool.

WOW! Heat sinks blow my mind with this new technology! Laughing

PaddyLong · **Posted:** Sun Sep 28, 2003 9:48 pm

peletiers > all for crazy cooling ;D

Amailer · **Posted:** Sun Sep 28, 2003 10:10 pm

How about just put an AC in there?
No noise ;D

Tony · **Posted:** Sun Sep 28, 2003 10:12 pm

why not just dump the whole thing in a bucket of liquid Nitorgen for that matter? Laughing

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