Energy saving tip – How much money can you save by turning off your computer overnight?

Comments (13 responses)

1. bob says:

   August 9, 2017 at 2:05 pm

   Great cost breakdown thanks!
   Companies can actually schedule pc’s to boot up at say 5 am on LAN and do all the updates, scans, etc. So pc’s are ready when people arrive, all this talk of lost productivity is laughable especially when you look at how much time people spend on non work related activities on their pc’s ( amazon, facebook, youtube etc ). You want to save productivity, limit access to those websites to specific time windows in the day.
2. Gabriel says:

   August 6, 2013 at 4:21 am

   20min to boot up? I think that’s where the problem is so not really an excuse to not shutting down. Reduce those boot times, my workstation (which also has a long list of security and antivirus software) boots up in less than a minute. You could also consider turning on the computer before employees arrive automatically.
3. Tim says:

   June 15, 2013 at 3:19 pm

   The problem no one here is recognizing is the affects of wasted energy as a whole. Look at this as your company giving back to the environment. While the wasted electricity doesn’t out weight the benefits (lost man hours) you will be saving the planet. This is eseentially what Aldo Leopold was asking of people back in 1948; saving the planet isn’t always the most cost effective method, but in the end if we don’t do our part we then our children won’t have a part. Every wasted Kwh is that much more pollution, toxic waste, habitat destroying damm or whatever else we use to create that energy.
4. YesMan says:

   September 11, 2012 at 3:52 am

   Every single suggested morning task requires a computer to perform effectively:
   –“Review notes from previous day”
   –“make plans for current day”
   –“return phone calls, or initiate phone calls”
   –“have a morning meeting to increase communication”
   No serious workplace is going to make “highly paid employees” wait 20 minutes to start getting work done, which is why IT maintenance activities are always autoscheduled to run overnight or on the weekends.
   With that said, with rare exceptions, most workstations should be left on 24/7, except when being transported (as in the case of dockable laptops). When leaving for the day, just lock the keyboard, then pick up right from where you left off the next morning. Sure, you could hibernate (which also takes some time), but then you lose the ability to run automated scans and backup processes, as well as the ability to log in remotely to address emergencies or just to check your email or work schedule.
5. Greg says:

   August 17, 2012 at 12:12 am

   Coosbane, if you’ve got highly paid employees sitting there staring at a screen for 20 minutes while it boots, and they can’t find something else to do during that time when they first get in, I think maybe you’re paying them too much.
   Review notes from previous day, make plans for current day, return phone calls, or initiate phone calls, have a morning meeting to increase communication while everybody’s systems are booting up if you have to.
   With the savings, you could probably upgrade people to SSD’s to drop down the boot time considerably as well. Not many people I know do full virus scans nightly, pick a night to have it scheduled, and get everybody on the same schedule and run them on that day.
6. Coosbane says:

   August 16, 2012 at 10:00 am

   My company has installed so much anti-virus, anti-spam, encription, anti-hacker, etc. that it takes at least 15 to 20 minutes for a startup from power off. Since our employees are paid more than the rate per kilowatt hour, it is extremly ineffecient to have highly paid employees stare at their screen for 20 minutes waiting to begin each morning. Overnight downloads and virus scans remove that burden from daytime processing, too. A weekend shutdown makes because there are benefits of a periodic cold boot anyway.
7. RealityCheck says:

   April 13, 2012 at 1:36 pm

   Richard Burgess hits the issue right on the nose.

   Sure, 100 employees might be able to save close to $10,000 by turning off their computers all the time, but remember that their productive effort will be worth at least $10,000,000 (100 x $100,000 as a rule of thumb) to their organization as a whole, and if their productivity goes down by even 1% (for all the reasons Richard outlines), you’ve already lost $100,000 off the top.

   These kinds of pseudo-cost saving initiatives are popular with managers because it seems to involve the rank and file in “doing something” to help the company, but it’s as short-sighted as yanking the coffee.
8. Richard Burgess says:

   September 28, 2011 at 3:12 pm

   One thing to keep in mind is that antivirus scans and windows updates are best run overnight as if they are run during the day they can slow down productivity on the desktop and reduce productivity across the board (would be interesting to see a study on this as well if you are thinking of doing another). If these scans are not done however you are leaving your network open to virii, hackers and problems. I would advise comparing the cost of that down time which could potentially be hundreds of dollars a MONTH vs leaving it on overnight during the week (i would recommend turning the machines off over the weekend however and then perhaps having one person come in early on Mondays to turn the machines on and let the scans run before normal business hours. Or setup an automated process for this.).
9. K. Nye says:

   August 26, 2011 at 10:31 am

   Our school district uses a server based program to force PCs to shutdown either at a set time or after a configurable amount of inactivity. It’s very flexible, versatile and reasonably priced. Check out AutoShutdown Manager. Tech support is responsive and helpful too, though I really only needed a few questions answered while setting it up on one of my domain controllers.
10. Model Planes says:

    May 31, 2011 at 12:52 am

    I enjoy what you guys tend to be up too. This kind of clever work and reporting! Keep up the fantastic works guys .
11. Dallas Internet Marketing Help says:

    May 30, 2011 at 1:33 am

    Thank you for quantifying the amount of savings per computer. I had no idea that a Dell Optiplex would cost an additional $100/year if left on all the time.

    Great job on the calculation breakdowns!
12. 3D Printers says:

    March 13, 2011 at 6:46 am

    Hi,, i am trying to implement this power saving technique for my call center. lets see how it works…
13. Umesh says:

    July 6, 2010 at 12:08 pm

    Actually I am trying to implement power saving techniques for my office which has 50 computers. Is there any central tool to implement using AD policy?