Should I turn my computer off at night?

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

There's also "hibernate mode". This saves the state of the computer (as does "standby"), but it saves it to the hard drive, and actually does power off. Powering on then restores the state from the hard drive, rather than doing a "full" boot.

Of course, the answer to "which way to go" is "it depends". I happen to leave my desktop on most nights, but I do power down to hibernate other nights. (No particular pattern as to which one.)

My laptop, however, I almost always hibernate overnight. (Or longer sometimes.)

However, I have numerous programs running, and windows just where I like them, so I like the fact that they're where I left them with hibernate.

You never mentioned anything about how not rebooting the machine properly at least once every few days, software related problems start occurring such as 'junk' building up and the OS being more likely to corrupt itself.

As for a further question, can I computer become infected by being connected to the internet during standby?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Nope, with your machine in standby your network connection is inactive.

Leo
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFGBJXsCMEe9B/8oqERAm/5AJ9dqWuUoCiUQCgXJhUzoO5HAu18VQCfQvw5
GbliA/yDwhPcIqHhNFJakpY=
=ENGT
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

My computer is always On since 3 years at least, except about 15 days per years my holiday.
thanks.

I've been leaving my machines on 24/7 for years. This is due largely to my own impatience and a degree of laziness rather than for any technical reason: I hate to wait for it to boot up! That said, I've never experienced a problem related to or as a result of leaving them on. So, as Leo the wise has indicated, it is largely a matter of personal preference. I would recommend keeping the machine clean (clear cache, etc.) and an occasional reboot. My machines seem happier when I do this than not.

If I leave my computer on for long periods of time, it seems to "load up" on me. Everything slows down, things sometimes quit working. I have a Dell E521 with Vista on it (bought new this past summer). In fact I use yahoo messenger and it freezes up on me all the time. It gets better when I shut the machine off and restart it. But I always shut mine off at night, as I've already had 3 fans burn out on my old computers.

why is it bad to turn off the computer and why do you have to reset the date each day

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

It's not neccessarily bad to turn off the computer. (Read
the article you just commented on.)

You shouldn't have to reset the clock every day. You
probably have a dead CMOS battery. That can be replaced.

Leo

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFH1LYYCMEe9B/8oqERAkfgAJwMp30Lh/KQe5Qzli6R2LcKyYxdXwCeIU7A
LBlmawZnG77ge5VIHnWAyHs=
=zZQh
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

i am definitely more educated on this matter now that i have read your answer to this question. Thanks for the info Leo

My Gateway computer is 7 years old, it has windows XP , lately it has started to put itself in standby when I am using it and I can't bring it out. I have to turn off all power and wait a long time before it will come up again then, it closes itself down again.

To post a comment on "Should I turn my computer off at night?", please return to that article's main page.