Should I Shut Down My PC At Night?

Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:18PM EST

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Reader Jason writes: Is it better to leave a computer on all the time or shut it off when you done? If I leave it on, what settings (like hibernate) should I use?

Years ago the conventional wisdom was that leaving your computer on all the time would allow it to last longer before a crash. The culprit: Your hard drive. Frequent starts and stops would cause your hard drive mechanism to wear out much faster than if the drive never spun down. An old saying (possibly apocryphal) was that stopping and restarting a hard drive was the same as eight hours of regular running time.

I talked to the good folks at Seagate to find out if things had changed. According to the company, starting and stopping is not a huge problem with drives any more, and they can be safely shut off and on in order to save power. According to Seagate, you can expect a drive to last for three to five years of running time before dying, though obviously many drives last longer.

What's the big factor that causes drives to die early? Heat, says Seagate. Ensuring your computer stays cool through the proper use of fans is far and away the best thing you can do to keep your drive healthy. I'd imagine that shutting it down when not in use will only help. Naturally, shutting down your computer will also conserve electricity, so unless there's a compelling reason to leave it on (as with a server), you should probably shut down at night.

So, how should you shut down properly? It's completely up to you, really. If you do a full "Shut Down" (or "Turn Off Computer") your computer will be completely off, using no power at all. "Hibernate" and "Standby" are lower-power states that allow you to resume quickly into the Windows desktop. Standby simply powers down hardware components like the hard drive, monitor, and peripherals, but continues to provide power to RAM, so everything you were doing stays active. Hibernate is closer to a shut down: It saves an exact image of your Windows desktop, then powers the PC down. When you awaken from hibernation, everything is back where you last had it. Personally I'm not a big fan of hibernate, because if I'm going to shut Windows down completely I like to reload everything fresh into RAM, which helps system stability. I tend to use both standby (for shorter times away from my PC) and shut down (for more than a few hours of downtime) instead.

Comments on Should I Shut Down My PC At Night?

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  • 46 Posted by dfarrich on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:42PM EDT Report Abuse

    If you're gonna turn it off at the end of the day then turn it off. If you use it a lot during the day and open a lot of windows, then it gets all gummed up with left overs due to Microsoft's lack of efficient code writing - their workmanship stinks - all those PhD's. I have an old Dell Desktop D-300 that has been on 24x7 for almost nine years now - yeah running NT-4 SP4 (did someone say dinosaur?). If you want to preserve anything electronic remember that heat is the biggest villan and steady power the hero. Buy a good UPS unit and plug everything into it and keep your fans and air vents clear. Cheap insurance. Dave

  • 47 Posted by dfarrich on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:42PM EDT Report Abuse

    There's not juch of a surge factor on laptops. They're battery powered - no power "in-rush" current when starting from cold. The reason is beyond the scope of this forum but a line powered supply has to "charge" or come up to power before it begins operating. The switching supplies used today minimize this in-rush but it's there never the less. Of course you "kick start" the hard drive motor out of it's slumber upon power up on either battery or AC and during it's track seek routine, seperated from the drive surface by only a microscopic cushion of air beneath it caused by the rapidly spinning disk, may one day stumble and crash. Like one person stated earlier, things wear out. ALWAYS backup your data regularly (unless you prefer crying instead). Dave

  • 48 Posted by dmc_will on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:45PM EDT Report Abuse

    I just found out from yahoo tech concerning getting windows xp to close faster would be just go into hibernate. now after looking at these post, i do not know if i should just shut down or hibernate. Also does it makes a difference if i have wireless and am connected to the internet about 90% of the time?

  • 49 Posted by seatech1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:11PM EDT Report Abuse

    It's really a toss-up. The initial power surge, when you start up your computer, does add a strain on certain components in your pc. On the other hand, all electronics have a limited lifespan. So you either shorten the life by allowing more power surges, or by allowing the components to remain powered up. If you have good, stable power and a newer OS, you can probably do minimal damage by leaving your unit on. I recommend that you turn off the monitor, since it's the biggest consumer of electricity, even if you leave your pc on at night. I own my own Computer Services business, and tell my clients to generally leave their computers on at night in order to run virus scans, etc, at low usage times. But, to occasionally turn them off at night (two or three times a week) to allow everything to cool down and start up fresh. A good habit is to turn off the pc every other night. I think this strikes a good balance and gives you the positive results of both methods.

  • 50 Posted by ggola on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:08PM EDT Report Abuse

    Heat, yes, but is it the magnitude of a constant temperature or the changes? I thought the biggest cause of reducing computer life (after HD use) was the change in temperature (mainly the processor and integrated curcuits) from 20 C to 50+ Celius. The contracting and expansion of very thin metal.

  • 51 Posted by mikemiller000 on Wed May 23, 2007 7:34AM EDT Report Abuse

    I still prefer to leave my computer on. Less hastle to wait for the start up each time. If you put your computer in standby mode, your computer uses very little electricity.

  • 52 Posted by bowtie011 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:12PM EDT Report Abuse

    Remember, the hardest thing on ANY electronic device is powering it on. The internal Chips go from Cold to Hot. I think of my PC as my VCR. No one unplugs VCR's or DVD Players and there is still power going to them. Other than the reason for energy conservation, I recommend keeping your PC on.

  • 53 Posted by foy102002 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:02PM EDT Report Abuse

    my monitor goes white. it takes only a few times to too many to take care of the problem. before it does it again. can someone help my semi new computer?

  • 54 Posted by mdbeaner on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:14PM EDT Report Abuse

    leaving it on leaves your power supply on and as anyone who has a power supply burnt up knows it can fry everything in your computer TURN IT OFF

  • 56 Posted by kmann92@sbcglobal.net on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:52PM EDT Report Abuse

    I put my computer on Standby everytime I'm off the computer, including at night. I would love to shut it off at night (and I did for a while) but it takes too long to get back up to speed. Turning it on and getting everything speedy take between 5 and 10 minutes. I prefer to wiggle the mouse and have everything working!

  • 57 Posted by feeldatrush on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:59PM EDT Report Abuse

    Is it still really bad to just hold down the power button and let the computer shut right off instead of the whole shutdown or restart process?

  • 58 Posted by yasudaya1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:55PM EDT Report Abuse

    Good suggestion!! NOw I do,from tonight. japanese.from TOKYO.

  • 59 Posted by bark_ley2004 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:02PM EDT Report Abuse

    nice info!!! now i know what im going to do!!! thanks cristop!!! ur great!!!

  • 61 Posted by hullmarc@verizon.net on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:21PM EDT Report Abuse

    If your computer was off and you turned it on and you worry about a power spike/surge, If you had the computer for awile turn it off when not in use. . . . That spike/surge would have happend when you first brought the computer or few days later, it would have happend by now.

  • 62 Posted by markledr@pacbell.net on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:08PM EDT Report Abuse

    Instead of only asking a hard drive company, Seagate, perhaps you should have consulted those in the tech industry who actually deal with the entire pc. As a veteran pc consultant, I disagree, tho' I do agree with a shutdown and restart once a week to "refresh" everything (including cleaning up / refreshing the RAM). I advise my customers to leave their pc on if they will access it twice or more times daily. It takes longer to boot up (especially now with VISTA) than most folks want to deal with several times a day - or in the morning when they want to access their e-mail or complete a document before they take off to work. Again, before writing an article as such, consult ALL the specialists within the pc realm - not just a hard drive company.

  • 63 Posted by paulsarvis@sbcglobal.net on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:03PM EDT Report Abuse

    This info is obviously somewhat dated, but ten years ago, the systems group in the big aerospace company I worked with did a fairly detailed study of the subject, and said that it saved the company money (ie, electicity and premature repairs) if you shut off the computer if you weren't going to use it for eight hours, but it was better to leave it on if you'd be away from your desk for less than eight. Essentially, they were telling us to shut off the computer at night, but leave it on over lunch. Don't have enough experience with Vista, yet, but thru XP, the garbage collection in Windows has been so poor, that I've observed that my computer gets really flakey if I don't shut it down completelyfor a few minutes or more at least once a day. More frequently, if I've been working with multiple windows, opening and closing them frequently, and/or otherwise mult-processing. -Paul Sarvis Yuba City, CA

  • 64 Posted by jeff_kraschinski@rogers.com on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:32PM EDT Report Abuse

    I've run my XP machine for weeks at a time without restarting with no issues and mine is on pretty much continuously running various tasks. The MONITOR on the other hand, is a major sucker of electrical juice, especially those legacy CRTs. And that is something I do shut off at night no problem.

  • 65 Posted by c_conwell on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:33PM EDT Report Abuse

    Actually, this article is missing ALOT of information. In the past anything goes, but now-a-days, TURN IT OFF for the following reasons in order of importance: A. Dust: fans draw in air and dust from anywhere it can draw air from (like thru a floppy drive or dvd drive or usb port) And dust conducts electricity, um, enough said - no need to read the others. B. Cold starts identify problems (if you never turn it off, you could go a while with a problem from something you did weeks ago, better to find out immediately) C. Cleans out resident programs that hang out in your system memory because you ran/opened them once. D. Piece of mind when it comes to power issues like power outs or brown outs (surges are bad if on or off) and no worries about losing work) and such. Especially when you hear about them and not at home when they happen. E. Waste: let's save some power by turning it off (human nature is to turn off both the computer and the monitor) so, even in standby mode, it saves power. Just put up with the boot time to save energy and lower your bill even if it only saves enough money to buy one more lunch during the month. Note: Computers on a network should be left on ONLY if the network is used remote install patches/updates.

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