Is it bad to turn off my PSU at night?

[coaltown992]

Just to be clear, I'm shutting it down normally, and then switching off the PSU to turn off the LEDs that stay on even when it's off. 

[Spotty]

It's best to leave the PSU on.

 

There should be a setting in the motherboard BIOS to disable those RGB lights. What motherboard do you have? Check the manual of you can't find it.

[Murasaki]

Why would that be bad? 

[OrionFOTL]

19 minutes ago, coaltown992 said:

Is it bad to turn off my PSU at night?

16 minutes ago, Murasaki said:

Why would that be bad? 

Yes, it is. Shutting off power to the PSU every day (by flipping the switch on the PSU, or by flipping the switch on the extension cord, or by unplugging the cable from the socket) causes a massive power surge to the main capacitor(s) when you turn it on the next day, called inrush current. This heavily stresses the primary side components in the PSU, which quite often makes it break prematurely.

 

[mariushm]

@OrionFOTL I'm not so sure about that. Some modern power supplies disconnect the power factor correction circuit or the main capacitors when it's on stand-by and power the stand-by circuit completely separated from the "big" power supply, in order to increase stand-by efficiency. So, every time you start such a power supply, the PFC circuit would work and charge up those big capacitors (and you have the inrush current) and that's why you hear that click caused by a relay which disconnects (or shorts) the resistors that limit the inrush current in the power supply.

 

As for other downsides to leaving the psu completely off...

 

The motherboard will use the 5v stand-by from the power supply (5v stand-by works 24/7 powering chipset on motherboard, in order to enable features like Wake On LAN and other things) to keep the BIOS settings refreshed, instead of using the CR2032 battery to refresh the memory periodically.

Basically, you're going to have to replace that battery more often, maybe every 1 year or so if you completely turn off psu, instead of every 5+ years if you normally leave the power supply on. Yeah, those batteries are cheap, less than a dollar for a pack of 4, but it can be annoying

 

Another silly argument would be those on/off switches are not really designed for constant use... some of them are only rated for 3-5000 switches. Sure, if you turn on and off the psu every day, 5000 operations is still what.. .5-10 years, so by the time the switch may start to fail it's out the warranty anyway or you're already replacing it. 

 

Another silly argument (as in almost never the case) Depending where you live, leaving the 5v stand-by circuit enabled can help the power supply... basically, that small circuit can produce a very tiny amount of heat, but which could be enough to keep the psu somewhat warm inside, if you have the computer in cold rooms. If the psu gets very cold and you start pc and do heavy stuff the psu could get warm all of the sudden and you could have condensation inside and could get damage in your psu.

 

At the end of the day, it's just absurdly low benefits to always turning off the power supply by the switch.

The power supplies are very efficient, the 5v standby typically consumes less than 0.5w... even if you account for those leds, you're probably looking at 1w of power consumption.

If we go with 1w, that's 24w per day or 8760 watts in a year (365 days) ... you're paying probably 0.15-0.2$ for 1kWh ... so in a year, leaving the power supply always on would cost you around 1$.

Is it worth it? Doubt it.

[Xiee]

On 10/25/2019 at 6:08 AM, OrionFOTL said:

Yes, it is. Shutting off power to the PSU every day (by flipping the switch on the PSU, or by flipping the switch on the extension cord, or by unplugging the cable from the socket) causes a massive power surge to the main capacitor(s) when you turn it on the next day, called inrush current. This heavily stresses the primary side components in the PSU, which quite often makes it break prematurely.

 

Should this be alleviated when you have a UPS or AVR?

[seon123]

10 minutes ago, Xiee said:

Should this be alleviated when you have a UPS or AVR?

No. Why would it be?

[Guest]

On 10/25/2019 at 2:46 AM, coaltown992 said:

Just to be clear, I'm shutting it down normally, and then switching off the PSU to turn off the LEDs that stay on even when it's off. 

You should just go into the BIOS and set it so the motherboard's LED's turn off when the motherboard is in standby.

 

Flipping the PSU off every night is NOT the correct solution.

 

[Guest]

On 10/25/2019 at 3:43 AM, mariushm said:

@OrionFOTL I'm not so sure about that. Some modern power supplies disconnect the power factor correction circuit or the main capacitors when it's on stand-by and power the stand-by circuit completely separated from the "big" power supply, in order to increase stand-by efficiency. So, every time you start such a power supply, the PFC circuit would work and charge up those big capacitors (and you have the inrush current) and that's why you hear that click caused by a relay which disconnects (or shorts) the resistors that limit the inrush current in the power supply.

That's only on very few power supplies out there.  Typically high end.

 

[OrionFOTL]

5 hours ago, Xiee said:

Should this be alleviated when you have a UPS or AVR?

Like seon said, no