Comments on: Turning Off Your Desktop PC http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20081022/turning-off-your-desktop-pc/ from The Wall Street Journal Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:01:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Turning Off Your Desktop PC [Mossberg's Mailbox] | heave-ho.org http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20081022/turning-off-your-desktop-pc/comment-page-1/#comment-481 Turning Off Your Desktop PC [Mossberg's Mailbox] | heave-ho.org Sun, 18 Jan 2009 11:57:07 +0000 http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20081022/turning-off-your-desktop-pc/#comment-481 [...] Original post: Turning Off Your Desktop PC [Mossberg's Mailbox] [...] [...] Original post: Turning Off Your Desktop PC [Mossberg's Mailbox] [...]

]]> By: David Prozzo http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20081022/turning-off-your-desktop-pc/comment-page-1/#comment-429 David Prozzo Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:38:35 +0000 http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20081022/turning-off-your-desktop-pc/#comment-429 The power management options - sleep and hibernate - work quite well in Vista. Hibernate mode writes all of the contents to the hard disk and then turns the computer off. When you turn the power back on you are right where you left off, and the boot up is faster. The power options in XP aren't so good, and in particular I don't recommend the "turn off hard drive" option that can be selected after inactivity. The computer can be very dodgy when you try to resume use. I have 2GB RAM on a Vista computer with integrated graphics and it runs quite smoothly. (Though I don't play games.) Maybe 3GB would be better, but computer mfgs charge a great deal to upgrade the RAM - far more than it would cost to buy the RAM and install it yourself. If cost is REALLY a concern, AND you are tech savvy, you would save money by buying the computer with the minimum RAM and then purchasing 2 or 4 GB on Newegg.com and installing it yourself. A 2GB RAM module may cost as little as $30, depending on the type. The power management options – sleep and hibernate – work quite well in Vista. Hibernate mode writes all of the contents to the hard disk and then turns the computer off. When you turn the power back on you are right where you left off, and the boot up is faster.

The power options in XP aren’t so good, and in particular I don’t recommend the “turn off hard drive” option that can be selected after inactivity. The computer can be very dodgy when you try to resume use.

I have 2GB RAM on a Vista computer with integrated graphics and it runs quite smoothly. (Though I don’t play games.) Maybe 3GB would be better, but computer mfgs charge a great deal to upgrade the RAM – far more than it would cost to buy the RAM and install it yourself.

If cost is REALLY a concern, AND you are tech savvy, you would save money by buying the computer with the minimum RAM and then purchasing 2 or 4 GB on Newegg.com and installing it yourself. A 2GB RAM module may cost as little as $30, depending on the type.

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