August | 2014 | Portage Computer Users Group

I have a question about whether to power off this computer at night and shut it down or to leave it in a sleep mode by using fn and f5. This article says that the daily on-off stress isn’t good for your computer’s heart. Turning the computer power off fully and then turning it back on, should be relegated to a once a week basis.

They recommend to use standby or hibernate modes. Do you have any advice?

My response was:

Most “wear” on electronic devices is caused by the cooling down (causing components to shrink) and the heating of components (causing components to expand.) That is why TV and Radio stations went to 24/7 because it extended the life of the equipment to always be on.

Hibernate saves all the settings to the hard drive and shuts off. It is convenient to pick-up exactly where you left off, but doesn’t change the heating/cooling wear on the components.

Standby uses a low power mode to save the settings in RAM. And it uses a little power as the computer “sleeps” and maintains some of the heat. So the heating/cooling isn’t as severe.

Also, be sure to save any work in progress because hibernate and stand-by are not 100% reliable.

I have a computer that is only used for doing taxes. I keep it on for the days or weeks I am doing the taxes and shut it down the rest of the year. I have a laptop that I use every few hours all day for checking email and watching Hulu.com videos. It stays on 24/7. I have a computer that backs-up every other computer that is turned on. It runs 24/7. I have an “antique” computer, a Commodore 64 that was working the last time it was powered up 20 years ago and I need to unpack it to see if it still works.

So the answer is it depends on how the computer is being used. The cost of running a computer is approx. $25 a year for electric. I would favor leaving it in a mode that keeps it powered, but shuts down non essential components. The old CRT monitors used to be power hogs, but are not common anymore. The LCD monitors that are common on desktops and laptops consume some power but it is not significant for a single computer except laptops running on battery. And you can personalize the power options depending on your use from the Control Panel’s Power Options.

This may be a launching point for this Thursday’s meeting. PCUG meets at the Portage District Library every Thursday from 10 am until noon in a down stairs meeting room. I hope you can join us.