Should You Turn Your Computer Off When You’re Not Using It?

The answer to this question entirely depends on how you use your computer.

There are three situation why you would have to leave your computer on:

• If you have some kind of back-up solution that runs late at night you will need to leave your machine on in order for this back-up to occur.
• If you’re using your machine as some kind of server, for example a file, web, print server.
• If you’re running something like “City-at-home” you will need to leave it on to gain as many result sets as possible.

If you do not fit into any of these categories then you have a choice whether to leave your machine on, one reason being economic. A normal desktop PC consumes about 300watts, assuming you use your PC for 4 hours everyday, then the other 20 hours of the day would be wasted energy.However it is possible to use the energy saving features on more modern machines but you would still be wasting at hundreds a year.
The argument for leaving it on all the time if that turning it on and off all the time stresses the computers components.