Do I have to turn off computer over night ?

We have a few computers throughout the house and they are always on. I cant be bothered with booting them up all the time and waiting for it. They go to sleep, shake the mouse and they are up again..pretty simple. I have been doing this for the last 15 years. Same thing with my work computer..

The only time I reboot is when some update requires it. Well I guess thats about once a week.

To me, I would shut down every day. But I also believe that a complete shutdown once in a while with two boots is all that is required. One boot to install updates and place into position the next boot up kernel adjustments. Second to flush it and its patches out to fix the residue problems or leftovers! lol Then go back to ignoring it for a week.

MHO

shutting down the laptop has few advantages like it won't draw much power when off. strange little problems occurs but often solved by reboot..

barth wrote:
I never turn mine off. But then again I'm spoiled. I run Linux.:)

And why in the heck would that matter.. Yet another nonsensical post to add to the many, here at Woodall's Open Road forum, Technology Corner. :S

I never turn mine off. But then again I'm spoiled. I run Linux.:)

doesn't make a lot of difference one way or the other . If you are not running a server or VPN or other advanced stuff , the question is " why not shut it down".
Or at least once a week to let memory clear , get updates and a fresh reboot.

My windows machine uses almost nothing in hibernate, but uses a lot in sleep.

I get no improvement in speed with a reboot.

I have power management, lid closing, and update settings configured how I want them, not at defaults. In particular, I do not allow automatic updates because I sometimes need to limit my downloading, and I don't allow automatic sleep mode because it is a power waster.

AllegroD wrote:

You bring up a point here that needs elaboration. It might be that I am in newer computers, Almost all MS OS based computers sold these days start with the "Advanced Power Settings", set for the hard drive(s) to stopping after about 3 minutes on battery or 15 minutes plugged in, of non acvtivity. I am sorry if yours or others are not. This is something you should set, if they are not. My apologies for those on older OS that this may not have been the settings on.

My PCs and macs have SSDs (solid state hard drives) so there is nothing to "stop." SSDs don't spin.

However, on Windows the default is 20 minutes of no activity. Many people won't see that since Windows is often doing "something" (indexing, etc.) when the PC is on so it is often a moot point. The HDs will stop during when the PC itself is suspended, either forced or via a period of inactivity.

Where it is apparent is on external drives or on physically separate secondary (non boot) drives. These are not always accessed just because the pc is on. I do let them sleep, since they are spinners, except for my mac mini that acts as a media server (runs 24/7). The spin-up delay is unacceptable for that kind of usage.



Michael

DH is a computer guy. We leave ours on. Restart every few days to clear things out.

I either close the lid to force hibernate or just let it sit. Machine will go to hibernate by itself.

a reboot every week or so helps clear memory since the OS (8.1) is not very good at releasing memory properly.