Marge wants to know if she should leave her computer running or shut it down
Hi, TC and EB! First of all, thanks again for all your support, tips, letters….. ! Anytime I have a doubt, I refer back to your newsletters for an answer, knowing I can trust your recommendations!
I have a question that everybody seems to have different opinions on…. is it better to turn off the computer at night, or is it OK to leave it on. I leave it on because I schedule my antivirus and antispyware scans, as well as HandyBackup to run during the night, so they don’t slow down my computer while I’m working on it. I’d really like to know your opinion. Thanks a lot! Marge
Our answer
Thanks very much for your nice comments and your faith in us.
Think of this – Web servers, which are computers, run 24/7/365 year after year. They are never shut down – backups are made on-the-fly using something called RAID. There are differing opinions on whether it is harder on your hard drive(s) if you leave your computer running or shut it down. It’s a pretty general consensus that there is less wear and tear on your hard drives if you leave your computer running. Rebooting and shutting down are harder on hard drives than running constantly. When a computer boots, the hard drives have to spin up to speed. Those who shutdown every night and start up the next day are causing their hard drives to spin up every day, and we feel, as many others do that this causes extra wear and tear on hard drives.
There are some who claim leaving your computer running and connected to the Web (if you have broadband connection, unless you disconnect from it at night, it will be connected) 24 hours a day exposes you to more dangers. Our opinion? Poppycock. If you have installed good AV and antispyware software, there’s no more danger at 2AM than there is at 2PM. This type of reasoning smacks of the boogeyman stories we heard when we were kids. There indeed are bogeymen on the Web – and there are a lot of them – but they are always out there looming – at noon as well as at midnight. If your computer is protected at noon then it’s protected at midnight too.
There are two sides to every story and many will disagree with us, I’m sure. But here’s something you should know – we both have broadband connections – and we have had for many years. Unless we have to reboot for something – like running a system restore, or after installing software, etc. we leave our computers running 24/7/365. And we’ve been doing it for years. We have computers that are 6 years old that have been running for 6 years except for occasional reboots. And we’ve always gotten about 4 1/2 to 5 years from our hard drives before we’ve had to replace them. And keep in mind we’re using our computer for 8 to 12 hours every day. We’re getting maximum life out of our computers and hard drives – and we leave our computers running. So we practice what we preach – isn’t that refreshing in this age of hypocrisy?
Leave it running, Joanne. That’s our advice.
So does that mean to put it to sleep or hibernate? I think you probably mean leave it on, period. So that is what I will start using.
Thank you for all your help all these years. Couldn’t have done without you.
Joanne
i made the fatal mistake of turning mine off & the rotten thing changed ports on me – not 1 thing worked where it should have – forget the green 2 green etc the green works on pink now – leave it on or suffer happy holidays
Well I definitely don’t want to suffer happy holidays. Guess I’d better leave it on.
Just wondering if this applies to laptops as well.I only shut mine down at night.Thank you for your newsletter.
hard dirive are out in new computers .(good for 50,000 ours to run on bearings)
net books all have chips
no more moving parts and colling to do
keep looking for more up to date info .
Retr Eng from Phillips
I read your article about shutting down your computer at night and would like to know what a computer does when you put it in ‘sleep’ mode which is what I do at night. Is it still better to leave the computer ‘totally’ on?
Ok, now I AM confused! Needless to say, I’m certainly not the brightest bulb on the tree tonight but I’m glad I can rely on both of you! Should we put our computers into hibernate OR just leave them running with the monitor off?? I’d sure like to know ONCE & for all!! Thanks again.
I think you guy’s just mean to log off at night instead of shuting down.
No we meant not to power off. We meant use “Sleep” or “Hibernate”. Logging off doesn’t really do much more than log you out of your account.
I have been one that would shut down when I was done, not that I read your good info I leave it on all the time and find all is ok and no boot or re boot, This is good advice and I will stich with it , I dont know that much but most of your info is a big help we should just take the time and read it then make up your own mind , after reading this my mind is made up, LEAVE IT ON.
Now I am confused. Should we put our computer to “Sleep” or “Hibernate” or just leave it as we do during the day?
If you leave your computer running and dim the screen after 10-15 minutes, your computer will be idle and use very little electricity. Windows 10’s Sleep mode is a hybrid of sleep and hibernate; many Windows 10 users have problems with Sleep mode.