PCs left of 24/7

We tell our user's to always shut their machines down in the evening unless we are pushing out some patches in which case we ask them to leave them at the log on screen so SMS can push to them
 
in Local Government its a requirement that if you are the last person in the office you have to switch all Monitors/Computers/Printers/Scanners/Faxes etc, Off.

We have to keep our Main servers running because of logical reasons otherwise everything else is turned off, People also work till around 7pm so IPT devices have to be left on.
 
Felix said:
When do you carry out auto updates, av updates, defrags?

How do you shut them down and how do you bring them back on? Or do you leave that to the staff?
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We don't do any ;)

No seriously, we do AV Updates on switch on in the morning (staff do that)

If the Update is a big security issue, we delay the shutdown and do it in the evening off our update server.

Everything is deployed over network anyway, new apps, fixes etc. So our users are used to switching on the PC and going getting a brew, while it does what it needs.

If its a HUGE update, or something that will take a long time to update, we send a message out asking everyone to reboot their PCs before they leave.

We do look into Wake-On-Lan stuff, but then we VLAN-ed the network and it scuppered that idea.

As for defrags, we don't really do them, as we have a new image every year and they all get re-installed during summer.
 
on my placement year in technical dept. Here everything is left on 24/7. We have to monitor A LOT of intranet pages / script terminals, so having to reload all the pages would be a massive effort. A lot of the laptops left around are also on 24/7, but this is mainly becuase we need to test battery lengths etc :)
 
Pinkeyes said:
We don't do any ;)

No seriously, we do AV Updates on switch on in the morning (staff do that)

If the Update is a big security issue, we delay the shutdown and do it in the evening off our update server.

Everything is deployed over network anyway, new apps, fixes etc. So our users are used to switching on the PC and going getting a brew, while it does what it needs.

If its a HUGE update, or something that will take a long time to update, we send a message out asking everyone to reboot their PCs before they leave.

We do look into Wake-On-Lan stuff, but then we VLAN-ed the network and it scuppered that idea.

As for defrags, we don't really do them, as we have a new image every year and they all get re-installed during summer.
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How many people phone up reporting a fault when it turns out the PC is turned off? Don't they moan if they come into class and find all the machines turned off. Waiting around looses valueable teaching time.
 
Dogoid said:
i don't know, but it must be significant enough for companies to take provisions.
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Well for control terminals for valves etc, basically stuff that is very expensive to install and has a long life span. Computers only last a few years before they're upgraded.
 
Felix said:
How many people phone up reporting a fault when it turns out the PC is turned off? Don't they moan if they come into class and find all the machines turned off. Waiting around looses valuable teaching time.
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Well for a building full of educated people, you would surprised how many phone up saying "I can't get my email" which translates to "The PC isn't switched on"
But there isn't a noticeable difference from before we shut them down.

Most people accept PCs will probably be switched off in rooms when they get there.
Also almost all students never log off, they just smack the off button and walk out of the rooms, so I think lecturers are used to it.
We haven't had one complaint on that front though.
 
i turn mine off otherwise I get annoying requests to reboot during the day for virus updates etc.

So easier to boot up and go for coffee :D
 
Got a laptop at work, so have to shut/hibernate it...

All PC's are supposed to be left on, copiers and printers go into standby, servers are on 24/7/365 obviously.
 
gjrc said:
why are people worried about waiting for their computer to start in the morning. it will take all of 1 minute... read the paper / get a cup of tea in that time. its really not that difficult...
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I use the time to put my pants on :)
 
The two PCs I have under my desk stay on for remote access reasons (I was using one of them remotely most of the day yesterday), but I have a laptop too and that gets unplugged and locked away if I'm away from my desk for more than an hour. Always turn the monitor off and I have a habit of turning other people's monitors off nearby if I'm the last one to leave.
 
One batch file will shutdown the whole network, and wake on lan will start it up again automatically. There is no excuse to be wasting electricity.
 
We have shutdown scripts that run between 5pm and 9pm every night thats about 400 PCs to shutdown, say if they were left on that would cost 400 x 100W which is 40KW/h which is about £6.40 per hour to run if its 16p per unit, times that by the 12 hours when theres no staff in and thats £76.80 saved in electric per day :)
 
Von Luck said:
No, we force the automated shutdown of all (5000+) desktop PCs in our organisation at night via Nightwatchman.
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What happens if someone needs to have their PC left on?
I've run long running scripts overnight before and I wouldn't have been best pleased if I came in the next morning to find someone had switched my PC off!

When I had a desktop PC (just have a laptop these days) I would always leave it on in case I needed to remote desktop in at night/over the weekend at all.

Also at one place it used to take over 10 minutes to start your PC up from cold because of some weird stuff they used to do on startup.
 
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