shutting down vs. sleep mode

[tonyvella]

I have an HP EliteBook 8440p with Win 7 Pro.

Every evening before I go to bed I shut down my computer and reboot it in the morning. My neighbour insists that shutting down and booting does more damage and causes more problems to a pc than putting it in sleep mode when not in use even right through the night. In other words, more or less, never shutting the machine down from the initial boot when you buy it and bring it home.

So I ask the experts on this forum: What is better to do, shut the machine down at night and reboot in the morning; or put it in sleep mode overnight?

Any advice appreciated in advance.
Thanks and regards.

 

[Boozad]

My neighbour insists that shutting down and booting does more damage and causes more problems to a pc than putting it in sleep mode when not in use even right through the night.

Ask him exactly what damage and problems it causes, he's talking through his arse.

 

[tonyvella]

He thinks that the on and off, on and off shortens the life of the hard drive.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi
lol I doubt it I've done it on every machine I've owned and they are just as good if not better than when I bought them
Of course now I'm on ssd's for the most part but it's a nonissue shutting down every night or many times a day

My hdd's were not failing after 6+ years of doing the same thing
I much prefer shut down to hibernate or hybrid sleep of which the hybrid stuff is disabled
There are far more cases of issues with hibernate than with complete shut down I assure you

 

[AddRAM]

The choice is yours, sleep is never really shutting it off, and no way does shutting it down hurt it.

What if you were not to use it for 2 or 3 days, would you rather have it sleeping, using electricity, or would you rather have it completely shut down ?

 

[LMiller7]

Many millions of people turn their computer on each morning and turn it off at night and have done so for years with no problems whatsoever. They were designed for this. There are no technical issues with doing this.

It would probably be best to follow this practice unless you have a specific reason for doing otherwise.

 

[Alejandro85]

He thinks that the on and off, on and off shortens the life of the hard drive.

That's mostly a myth rather than true, coming from a time where hard drives were much more unreliable than today. Nowadays the vast majority of times powering down and turning it on again is totally innocuous, including mechanical hard disks and coolers.

There is a little truth in that phrase. Repeating turning off and on most mechanical machines (not just computers) incurs some minimal wearing on it and when that's done repeatedly it might cause some diminution in the lifespan of the device, but that's under extreme conditions.

Shutting the computer down and turning it on 5 minutes after is certainly abuse and doing that many times might wear the device. Powering down on night and use it again the next day is totally normal and expectable operation that is taken into account when the manufacturer estimates the average lifespan of drives.

The decision to leave it on or power off should come from other factors, like if the computer is left doing some overnight work, if you want a fast turn on afterwards or something like that. Hardware damage is not practically a factor in this.

 

[Layback Bear]

I don't use Sleep or Hibernation and don't understand why one would.
Todays computer start so fast their really isn't any need.

I haven't use this computer for 4 hours. I shut it down completely and started it again a few minutes ago. No power what so ever to the computer or anything hooked to it. I have been doing it this way for many years without it causing problems on any of my computers.

A computer without power can't get hurt. If starting a computer a few times a day hurts the hard drive then you don't have a shut down problem, you have a hard drive problem. Which I never have had.

Their are also good things that happen when a computer is shut down and started.
Cleans out the ram and many unneeded temp files and reloads drivers.
Kind of a fresh start for Windows 7 and it likes it.

Some people like Sleep and Hibernation because of the few seconds it saves. I can only think of a few times in my life that a few seconds one way or the other meant anything and it wasn't using a computer.

I also don't let my car idle to save the few seconds it saves to start the car.

 

[tonyvella]

So I have been doing it right from the get-go. That's a surprise. Thank you all for peace of mind.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Only a few utilities like defragment hard drive are scheduled for I believe 2-3am
So if you manually defragment your hard drive once a month you don't have to worry about that maintenance schedule.

Another thing about shutting down at night is when windows updates need to restart... you'll know it
The people that never shut down usually have updates waiting to fully install and don't ever notice the shield on the start menu list.

Post what type/ brand hard drive you have.

 

[tonyvella]

@ThrashZone: Post what type/ brand hard drive you have.
-----------------------
I'm afraid I don't know how to get that information. Not the brightest bulb on the tree, you know!

 

[wasnotwas]

I always thought it was a good idea to regularly reboot your machine.

Forum members in the UK will probably have seen the TV comedy 'The IT Crowd' set in tech support at a large corporation. The helpdesk dude fixes every problem with 'have you tried turning it off and on again'.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Well you can look at the paperwork from the purchase depending on how old it is without opening the case,
You can also search the brand model # on the manufactures website usually also with the snid that is listed in the same place as the windows activation key = don't post the key but the snid is listed on the same tag
Use that #.
Not sure if Speccy will show that easy to check though and a whole lot more about your machine too
https://www.piriform.com/speccy

 

[AddRAM]

Take this approach, if you`re like most and like to use your pc all day but walk away from it, let it fall asleep after 20 or 30 minutes, that way should you go out, you know it will be fine. But yet you can walk right up to it and just move the mouse, but when you know you`re not gonna be around or if you go to sleep, shut it off.

I have my monitor set to go off after 15 and the pc to sleep after 30.

My power button flashes and I actually have to push it to bring it back from sleeping, I love this case

 

[Mellon Head]

I shut down every night and turn off the power bar to the PC, too. If I'm going to be away from the PC for a while, I put it to sleep.

My monitor is set to go off after 15 minutes, but the PC is not set to go to sleep. I have to set it to sleep manually.