Should I turn off my PC at the end of the day/night?

This is a debate that has been going on for quite some time. Mostly I would say it is a matter of personal preference as to whether or not you want to shut it down.

Most computers will shutdown on their own and go into Sleep or a Hibernate mode to conserve power if you don't use them for a while. This can be set to any time you wish, usually around 30 minutes or so is the default. You can also set it to never go to sleep or hibernate. I use this option as sometimes I may be away from the PC but I don't want it to shutdown as something I could be doing may not like being interrupted by Sleep mode.

When there is no activity for a determined amount of time the PC will simply go to sleep/hibernate. When you wiggle the mouse or press a key on the keyboard the PC will wake up and bring you back to where you last left off. This is convenient as it saves the time of having your PC boot up and go through it's motions. This can be up to 5 minutes on some machines. Newer machines start up pretty quick but as you add more and more stuff to your PC, the start up time can take longer and longer. It also saves on electricity by not having the PC run all the time. Monitors do this quite frequently to save energy, but it is different from your PC going to sleep or hibernate. Your monitor is just shutting off, while the PC actually will go through a process and save your data and open windows. This requires a minimal amount of electricity

There are sometimes issues when PC's go to sleep and don't want to wake up. You then have to usually hold in the power button to shut the machine off completely and then restart it. If this doesn't work then you should unplug the power to the PC and wait a few minutes. Try to plug it back in and use the Power button to see if that fixes the problem.

There are some positives to shutting down your PC every night. It gives your PC a chance to reset and reconfigure things. Similar to sleeping, when you wake up you are feeling refreshed and re-energized. A fresh reboot also ensures that any Windows Updates that require a restart will be applied or any other additional configurations (hardware related) can be correctly configured. When the computer restarts it goes through it's motions of checking everything and making sure things are working properly. It checks all devices, hardware, and then goes into Windows, loads up your start up programs and finally your icons.

For me personally, I shut down my PC at the end of the day/night. It is simply a personal preference. I was taught that PC's like to be rebooted and I stick by it. From time to time I have let my PC go into Sleep mode with no problems and have no issues with people who want to do it. Again it s just a matter of personal preference. In my opinion it is healthier for the PC to be shutdown at the end of the day or night, but if you miss a night, it is certainly nothing to worry about. If the computer needs a restart due to updates etc., it will usually continually prompt you until the machine is restarted.

If you are one of those people who does not shutdown their PC at the end of the day/night, you should at least Restart it once a week (a clean Reboot) just to refresh everything and apply any updates that require a restart. If you have recently cleaned any infections off of your PC, then you can rest assured that your machine will be prompted for a reboot by your Security Software to successfully flush out any remnants of the infection that could still be there. Shutting down your PC is a choice that each person has to make but if you do it or don't do it, your PC will most likely be fine. Technology has advanced enough that this topic is really no longer an issue.


Thanks for reading and have a great rest of the week.

Steve
www.zoelxpc.com