Re:Why? (Score 3, Informative)

Ever thought of turning the damm thing off? Geeze, I don't want to troll, but why don't people just turn the thing off?

The point is that when people do turn the damn thing off, it still draws power and the only way to avoid that is physical disconnection from the electrical supply.

Worryingly, this not only applies to consoles, but PCs and monitors too.

I measured the power some PCs were drawing in their "off" state - not hibernation, or suspend-to-RAM, or what-have-you, but "off". A recent Athlon 64 drew 19W; a 2001 dual Athlon drew a whopping 30W! The two monitors I tested in their "off" state (certainly not standby or sleep) drew around 7W.

In fact, the power supplies themselves are partly to blame. I reached round the back of the machines, flicked the PSU power switches to off so that (presumably) nothing was being used by the motherboards, and they still drew 9-12W!

This isn't about leaving things on standby or low-energy states. It's about "off" not meaning "off" anymore.