Shut Down Or Keep Running?

BrightBlessings · 11 Mar 2011

Sorry if I posted this in wrong section

Was wanting to know the pros\cons of shutting down pc or leaving it running. I have spent a bit of time on the net reading about this and have become confused. Most of what I read seems to contradict the previous thing I have read about this subject. And as there are many bright people here I was hoping for some clarification about this. I shut mine down everyday not to save power but because I am not on mains power. And I am asking this from the perspective of an average user.
Odin

Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.

Golden · 11 Mar 2011

Unless I am running a backup/image/scan that will not finish before I go to sleep, I shut my PC down every evening.

Tepid · 11 Mar 2011

Well, there are pros and cons,, but not really a right or wrong answer.
Yes, contradictory I know.

Pro's =

1.) Fast access from sleep state

But, lets ask ourselves and find out, how long does it really take to start up?
If your system is old, it could take some time, in this case, Only shutdown if you are not going to be using it for more than 8 hours. Why? It will last longer, Heat and Power are an enemy to hardware. The longer and more used, the shorter the life expectancy.

But with SSD Drives, is 30sec or less a long time to wait to start using your system?

Sure, you can leave it on 24/7 and it could last 10 years, but it could also last 1, there is not one single person who can give anyone a definite answer to that question. Not one on this planet.

2.) If you want to access the system from elsewhere via remote access.

3.) When downloading large amounts of data.

Cons =

There are many. Some already stated and obvious.

2.) If the system is on and connected to the net, it is more prone to attack by hackers.

3.) uses power, not saying that for any other reason than it uses power you are paying for, as I do not believe in the green garbage.

I leave mine on more often than it is off.
But if I ever leave for extended times, I shut it down.

There is no real answer,, it really is a matter of preference and how you want to do it.

gregrocker · 12 Mar 2011

Win7 works really well with the default sleep timeouts. Then I'd add hibernate at around 45 minutes to 2-3 hours. What this does is allow you to walk away for as long as you want - an hour or overnight - and come back with your work still spread out on desktop.

If you come back after a while you only have to hit Enter to quickly wake it up and get back to work. If you decide not to come back , change your plans or come back quite a bit later it saves your work to the HD and shuts down the computer for you, but the Resume is actually much faster than starting up.

If you choose to do it this modern way taking advantage of how smoothly it now all normally works in Win7 just be sure to restart your computer occasionally to give it a good reset, or Shut it down if you notice a yellow exclamation mark on the Start menu Shutdown icon because this means you have updates to install at boot which take enough time they are saved for Shutdown.