When to turn off PC?

[Nooblite]

How often do you turn off your PC?

 

I used to leave my laptop on all the time so I can keep my chrome tabs open.

 

Now I upgraded to a desktop PC, should I leave it on?

[LogicalDrm]

24/7/365. PC hardware has "lifetime" to which some aspects are referred to. That means assumes active use for some 10 hours a day. But while PC idles, it doesn't really matter whether it's on or off since idling doesn't use anything other than power. 

 

In short, you can keep it on or hibernate how long you like. Or shut it down. Modern PC boots within seconds so reasons for keeping it on or hibernation aren't as massive as they used to be. 

 

I've had laptop die after keeping it on for too long, but laptop cooling has improved since then. Browsers have option to save session and resume it when restarted. It's saved to drive, and I will recommend having that option enabled if tabs are important for you. You can always resume session from browser history if needed (as I mainly do on my work laptop). 

[jaslion]

11 minutes ago, Nooblite said:

used to leave my laptop on all the time so I can keep my chrome tabs open.

 

You can just put it to sleep or well use restore previous session in chrome then you can shut it off ans will just reopen all tabs from last time. Bad for the fans too as they spin 24/7 which is not i tended on a laptop so theyll wear out way faster.

 

12 minutes ago, Nooblite said:

Now I upgraded to a desktop PC, should I leave it on?

For your power bill no. Also fan wear (less a big deal), slowing from not rebooting,... Many reasons not to.

 

Just use restore previous session in chrome and call it good. Let your tech rest.

[Poinkachu]

At least put it to sleep.

 

 

[manikyath]

back when i did IT support i gave clients the suggestion to turn off or reboot their pc at least once per week to avoid oddities like memory leaks.

 

but if your goal is to keep your chrome tabs.. chrome actually has an option to open your previous tabs on startup.

[ThousandBlade]

Ages ago people used to think that turning on and off computers too often will shorten the life span of the computer, so there's a optimal ratio of power off and hours run, but I think it's because of poor quality power supply and mother boards back then, and also mechanical hard drives might have something to do with it aswell.

I don't think we have to deal with problems like this anymore with modern electronics and ssd, so just do what ever you feel like is most convenient.

 

Personally I keep my main PC on 24/7 to avoid windows update messing stuff up. 

[manikyath]

6 hours ago, ThousandBlade said:

but I think it's because of poor quality power supply and mother boards back then

the reasoning behind "turning it on and off breaks it faster" was largely based on things that arent relevant anymore.

immediate examples:

- fatigue from thermal expansion: in theory, as your computer heats up and cools down, things shift and flex. if in the 90s you left your computer on, it would largely stick to the same temperature. this is ofcourse no longer a valid consideration because computers now have variable clock speed and power targets, so they heat up and cool down all the time.

- fatigue from starting up and shutting down directly: in theory spooling up and down creates more wear on hard drives and fans than constant spinning does. but i feel that while valid, even when they actually spun at a constant speed (as opposed to modern fan speed control and drive sleeping) this glosses over the wear of being in use.

[LogicalDrm]

On 7/20/2025 at 10:17 AM, jaslion said:

You can just put it to sleep or well use restore previous session in chrome then you can shut it off ans will just reopen all tabs from last time. Bad for the fans too as they spin 24/7 which is not i tended on a laptop so theyll wear out way faster.

Fans wearing out "faster" is such weird way to say this. Fans have rated running hours. some 30 000 h for the name brand ones. That number is for when fan is running at full speed. So not when PC is idling. Assuming fans have 30k hours running life time, thats about 3+ years. So even if PC is pegged to 100% utilization, fans are fine. Similar applies to mechanical hard drives which have operating hours counted. They also aren't operating all the time, only time when accessed. Meaning that drive can be fine for much longer than many other parts of PC. Especially now when mechanical hard drives are mainly used for mass storage.

 

PCs are fine left on for long periods since they very rarely are running at full performance mode that whole time. 

[Mark Kaine]

On 7/20/2025 at 10:16 AM, manikyath said:

but if your goal is to keep your chrome tabs.. chrome actually has an option to open your previous tabs on startup.

Where? I always have to open previous tabs manually...super tedious -.-

[KidKid]

On 7/20/2025 at 3:03 AM, Nooblite said:

How often do you turn off your PC?

 

I used to leave my laptop on all the time so I can keep my chrome tabs open.

 

Now I upgraded to a desktop PC, should I leave it on?

I never turn mine off. Used to sleep it though.

[Avocado Diaboli]

I'm surprised by the many people who just keep it running for no reason or seem to have issues with updates that somehow mess stuff up. I turn my PC off when I'm done using it, which is every single day. Never had an issue with parts wearing out, never had an issue with updates messing something up and PCs start so fast these days that there's no benefit to use hibernation or sleep mode. And all browsers these days support session restoration, even with multiple windows open. Seems more like user error that causes these headaches.

 

38 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Where? I always have to open previous tabs manually...super tedious -.-

You literally made a thread about this that resolved your issue. 

 

[manikyath]

43 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Where? I always have to open previous tabs manually...super tedious -.-

settings => on startup => pick up where you left off.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

You literally made a thread about this that resolved your issue. 

Yeah but it doesn't restore automatically, that's the setting I'm missing.

[ThousandBlade]

11 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

I'm surprised by the many people who just keep it running for no reason or seem to have issues with updates that somehow mess stuff up. 

Updates often breaks stuff, especially when people modify some parts of the OS to get rid to telemetry or bloat. 

Some of windows setting will get reset and bloatware reinstalled after an update.

 

I run Tailscale so I have my own VPN when I'm elsewhere, the computer needs to stay on for that.

Last year I made the mistake of restarting the computer a week before I left for a trip in China, I thought it was long enough to notice every little thing that windows update fked with, so I can unfk it before I leave. But it wasn't. So two weeks into the trip, I suddenly lost access to my VPN, NAS, and being able to remote into my computer. Had to call a friend that had a spare key to my house to come and check what's going on. 

Turns out that update gave back the setting that allowed windows to install update and restart the computer on it's own. It installed another update 2 weeks later with a new version of the malware that gets you to move to win11 (previous version of it was removed and disabled by me). And since that thing runs before you get into the desktop and even prevents the desktop loading in the background, I got fucked.

 

It's things like this that makes me not wanna restart my computer often and apply updates. Because every other patch will change some different thing that I have to track down. It's different every time, and breaks different functions. I wanna use my computer, and not have to hunt down these little things all the time. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

4 hours ago, ThousandBlade said:

Updates often breaks stuff, especially when people modify some parts of the OS to get rid to telemetry or bloat.

Some of windows setting will get reset and bloatware reinstalled after an update.

Never happens to me, but yeah I also don't care about modifying OS level stuff. And I don't see any bloat anywhere or bother with telemetry stuff, because that's just a paranoid delusion. All my settings always stay exactly the same after updates. 

 

4 hours ago, ThousandBlade said:

I run Tailscale so I have my own VPN when I'm elsewhere, the computer needs to stay on for that.

Run Tailscale on your NAS directly, problem solved. I do it too, that way I don't have to keep my PC running. 

 

See, this is what I mean by user error. People mess around with stuff better left alone, install software that messes with stuff better left alone or configure things suboptimally or outright incorrectly and then blame updates for ruining things.