Better to leave laptop on stand-by or turn off? I use my computer often in the afternoon after I come home from school- use it for 45 minutes, don%26#039;t use it for 30 then use it again. Would it be more energy efficient to turn my computer off and then turn it back on again when I want to use it again, or just put it into stand by? A negative effect to putting it into stand by is sometimes I forget its in stand by and leave it like that overnight.

Another question related to this:

I can just shut my laptop lid with all the programs running and everything, and the laptop will go into like a %26quot;mini-stand by %26quot; mode- the screen goes black but all the programs appear within like 3 seconds after I open it. Is this version of the stand by, with a quicker start up time, more or less energy efficient than normal stand by? Normally when I shut it, I can still hear the laptop running for about 45 minutes, then after which it seems to go into a real stand by mode.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this! I hope I%26#039;m not too confusing.....

Best Answer

If you are looking for the %26quot;greenest%26quot; solution, then you should turn it off everytime you finish with it. Even in hibernation or stand-by mode, it is using electricity. It uses more electricity just sitting there than it does to turn it on and off. It may take longer, but really it doesn%26#039;t take more than a minute or two to boot back up. We just happen to be in a %26quot;want it now%26quot; mindset.

Asker's Rating:

But would it always be the best solution??

Still, I think this is the best answer because it specifically says what the greenest thing is to do.

Everyone else: thank you! The times to stand-by or shut off were helpful to know when I wasn%26#039;t sure what to do. Hopefully I%26#039;ll be a little %26quot;greener%26quot; now!

Other Answers (21)

• I think anything longer than 10 mins, it should be turned off. Your laptop will last longer, and you can conserve energy too. Also if you forget about it, no harm done.
• Hi. From an energy conservation stand point, standby mode uses some power to keep the RAM alive. The computer will use some power to store the info on the hard drive for hibernation. I think the best overall solution is use %26#039;Power settings%26#039; to always enter standby after 10 minutes or so.
• It is more energy efficient to put your computer on standby. It%26#039;s kind of like a car people waste more gas turning off there car (for a short period of time) then turning it right back on. Like say you are at your house and all your going to do is run in and out, maybe someone is even in the car, instead of turning off the car leave it on to save your gas. The same with a computer. I would say for your mini-stand by mode it%26#039;s ok but it%26#039;s better to do the full stand by. This is my opinion and I do this with my laptop. But if you know for sure that you are not going on your computer then turn it off. Good Luck
• I am for turning off everything you are not using.
• Trivial difference in energy conservation.
  
  Buy one compact fluorescent lightbulb, and do many times more good.
• It will luse ur battery
• Its better to turn it off especially if it will be 30 min or more before you need it again. Maybe try %26amp; find ways to cut down on having to turn it on %26amp; off all the time.
• I recommend to turn it off so0o you can save the battery of your laptop
• A laptop uses energy as long as it is plugged in. When you close the lid the laptop goes into hybernation and that uses much less energy than leaving it open. Standby uses basically the same amount of energy as hybernation.
  
  The best answer is to turn off the computer and unplug it. That is the only way to truly stop the energy drain.
  
  Take care,
  Troy
• It would be better to just turn off your laptop
• I have a laptop too. What I do is if I know I am coming back to it in about 5, 10 minutes, I will put it on standby. But if I know that I will be about 20 minutes or more, I turn it off. Also, I sometimes put it on standby and leave it on all night too. My friend said that is bad because the computer will lose a lot of power and might run slower.