which is more energy efficient? to turn off computer when not in use? or to turn on and off the computer?

Put the computer in "Hibernate" state - this saves all the latest information to thje c:\ drive, essentially shuts off the system and starts where you left off when you restart the computer. I know it is supported by Win2k and XP. Enable it by right clicking on the desktop, select "properties". Under the "screensaver" tab, select "Power...". Under XP, you should see the "Hibernate" tab. Under 2K, it may be under "Advanced". Click "Enable Hibernate Support". Depending on your computer, you may be able to see it when you go to shut down - it will be there next to "shut down" and "standby", or with hotkeys (on my Dell laptop it's "Fn"+"F1").

You cound also use standby, but that leaves the computer running.

Always shut off the monitor.

If you do Hibernate, after a few times it may be wise to reboot the computer - MS does freak out after a while if you don't (programs slow down, etc.).

It used to be that people left their computers running because from all the heating/cooling of the circuits, the metal components would separate from the silicon components, and the computer would fail. Modern components have much higher tolerances. Turning the computer on and off daily should not harm the computer - certainly not before it before it becomes completely obsolete. I still have an old Dell P2 450 MHz from '99 that still runs great...although I havent used it daily since 6/05.

I know that last bit is neither here nor there, but I hope this

helps.

It saves energy if you turn the computer off. But it takes a computer a while to boot up, so there are ways of making the computer use less energy while it's not being used. It still uses more energy than being off, but not much more.

First is the monitor. Monitors are designed to go into a sort of 'standby mode' when given a signal from the computer. The monitor goes dark and saves about 250 watts. (Less with an LCD monitor of course). When you hit a key, the computer wakes the monitor up again.

You can do the same with hard disk drives. You can set the computer to turn them off, and this saves maybe 20-30 watts per drive.

The computer itself can go into 'sleep' mode, but I'm not sure how much power this saves. I'm guessing not much. Most of the energy goes to the disk drives and monitor.

How far to the 'more energy efficient' do you want to go. Is it worth the 1 hour per day to restart the PC ( 2-5 minutes per restart X the no. of restarts ) vs the $0.20 per day cost of having it into sleep mode??? You have to give up performance/ease of startup to save pennies. My personal recommendation, would be to set the power settings to shut down the monitor and HDD within 10 to 15 minutes of inactivity, and go to sleep within 30 minutes ( 15 or 20 if you are really trying to conserve ) and hibernate within 30 minutes after sleep. Hibernate will actually shut down the PC and make it a little quicker starting up. I don't really have the big picture of what you are trying to do ( your PC or all the PC's in the cafe ) If you select the sleep mode, and/or the HDD/display options, you will save alot of power with virtually no real loss in performance. It usually takes about 10 to 20 seconds for the PC, display and HDD's to awake from sleep. Then toward the end of the day, all the PC's will go into hibernate until they are awakened the next day. This saves power during the start-up, as a PC uses more power to start-up from a complete shutdown, vs a restart from hibernate.

Yes the monitor uses more power, and the computer uses less. Since your an a internet cafe, I would suggest that you hibernate your computer, and put it to sleep. So that you won't suck all of that power when your powering it on, and powering it off (eats a lot of juice).

It is more efficient if you just turn of the monitor. Because monitor is the most power consuming device. The cpu is going to consume very little power. so you can leave it on and turn off your monitor whenever it is not in use. In this way your computer will be always ready to use, by just turning on the monitor.

if you not use the computer for a long time, you better turn it off.. it will make your hardware lifetime longer.

but if you not use it only for 1 hour or 2 hour, you can use standby mode and turn off the monitor..

computer will use a lot of energy when it start up, because the computer need to check all of your hardware first (Available or not). before they continue to your OS.

cheers

Turn it on and off would be the best way.

unpluge it...that is more energy efficient and u will reduce your carbon foot print too.