Turning off your pc during night via plug strip = dead psu?

[fleeks1337]

I have an  question: i have a plug strip for my electronic devices in my room and after i turned my pc off i turn off the plug strip completely while im sleeping now i have read that this (turning it off in the evening and turning it on in the morning everyday) can lead to higher electronic "bursts" to the power supply and can damage/kill it is that a rumour or true? should i just leave my electronic stuff standby during the night (so not turning off my plug strip?) thanks for help linus!

IF it can cause harm and IF it is better to just leave it on during the night please explain why so i can fully understand it (if that is not the case,feel free to also explain WHY this is a rumour)
thanks in advance again

[ARikozuM]

Rumor likely made by cheaper PSU's that don't have the best protections. 

 

If you want to feel safe, turn the strip on, let the PC sit off for a minute, and then turn the PC on.

 

@STRMfrmXMN or @Energycore may be able to enlighten us.

[Energycore]

3 minutes ago, fleeks1337 said:

I have an  question: i have a plug strip for my electronic devices in my room and after i turned my pc off i turn off the plug strip completely while im sleeping now i have read that this (turning it off in the evening and turning it on in the morning everyday) can lead to higher electronic "bursts" to the power supply and can damage/kill it is that a rumour or true? should i just leave my electronic stuff standby during the night (so not turning off my plug strip?) thanks for help linus!

IF it can cause harm and IF it is better to just leave it on during the night please explain why so i can fully understand it (if that is not the case,feel free to also explain WHY this is a rumour)
thanks in advance again

Welcome to the forums!

 

Well it's not entirely accurate. Power supplies actually hold some amount of electricity in them so that when your power goes out, the computer has enough time to realize that and shut down properly. This electricity is kept in a big battery called a capacitor and whenever you turn the PSU off it will possibly discharge (they don't always discharge).

 

So let's say it does discharge and you replug it in. Then a bunch of electricity quickly moves into that capacitor as it fills itself up very rapidly. We call this inrush current, and it can damage the PSU, yes, but only if your PSU sucks. This is why people say that unplugging and replugging your PSU can damage it. If you have a bad PSU (and you should know what model and make it is, because there are some real bad ones out there), then there's a chance that one bad thing about it is that it doesn't regulate that inrush current well enough and as such gets damaged from it.

 

If you want my opinion on what you should do, I think you should leave it on standby, it's got its pros and cons but there is little risk to leaving it like that. If you don't want to do it, either is fine. But more importantly check to see if your PSU is good because if it's nad it might damage components in your computer in other ways.

 

Cheers!

[waterjug]

i mean i usually keep my computer on sleep if i know i'm going to be using it within 24 hours... also maybe is the reason why i havn't turned my computer off in a week... it's totally ok to leave it on during the night, unless anyone has any other claim that it's bad for your computer or you're just concerned about the power bill.

[mariushm]

Unless the power supply is really badly designed, you won't harm it.  In fact, there's higher chances you'd damage the power strip, in particular the switch on the power strip.

 

Every time the power supply receives energy there's a rush of energy going inside it (think of it like having a vacuum inside some components that suddenly pulls a lot of energy for a very brief moment of time (maybe a 10th of a second).

All components inside the power supply are designed to handle these sudden rushes of energy, at least for a huge number of cycles (think 10000 or more power on events, so they'll last decades). 

However the switch on the power strip is not usually designed for these sudden rushes of energy. They're usually designed for currents in the range of 10-20A and your power supply can exceed 40-50A for brief moments of time.

The bad thing is that those peaks of energy happen almost at the same time the switch is closing, so when the switch is making contact, that huge amount of current can cause sparks inside the switch and those sparks can corrode / oxidize the metal contacts inside the switch or deposit tiny amounts of soot/carbon on the contacts of the switch and in time due to those deposits the switch may not work properly and you could even have flames or smoke coming from that switch.

In worst case scenario that switch could even stop working at all.

 

It's better to just leave the computer plugged in without turning the power off completely from the power strip, let the computer be energized and use some tiny amount of energy all the time (it's only a few pennies a month on your power bill).

 

Maybe disconnect the computer completely only when you have thunder storms or storms with lots of lightning and you think there could be a chance that some lightning could hit the electricity lines but even then, unless you physically remove the power cord from the mains socket, the tiny switch won't do much to keep your computer safe from lightning strikes.

 

 

[fleeks1337]

ill turn the pc off over night anyways but im not sure if i should leave the plug strip on or not,are there more pros or cons to leaving it on?
 

[mariushm]

Leave it on over night. It's better for a computer to receive some power even when it's off.

 

The motherboard has a battery on it which makes sure the time and bios settings are stored properly. If the computer is completely disconnected from mains, the bios chip is kept powered from the battery and the battery will slowly discharge. The battery lasts probably a bit less than 1 year if you'd have the PC completely removed from mains power. 

When the computer is connected to mains power, even if it's turned off, the bios is powered from the power supply.

 

There's a tiny section of the power supply that produces 5v stand-by all the time (like a tiny cellphone/usb charger) and the chipset on the motherboard uses that power to keep the bios settings fresh (and use this energy instead of using the battery, extending its life this way) and also uses that energy to keep the network card or some usb ports on the motherboard active (in case you enable "wake-on-lan" that allows you to turn on pc remotely or "wake-on-keypress" or other features in bios)

 

So basically if you constantly turn off the pc from the power strip, you may have to replace the battery maybe every 6-12 months - the battery isn't expensive, it's less than 1$ but still it's a pain in the ass to keep replacing it.

 

The downside - if you can call it that - to keeping the computer plugged in 24/7 is that the stand-by circuit in the power supply will be always on and will produce a tiny amount of heat and naturally some components that form that circuit may extremely slowly degrade over time from the heat.

Basically, on a quality power supply that standby circuit is designed to work properly and always on for more than 10-15 years so it makes no sense to worry about it, as in a few years you're probably going to buy a new power supply anyway.

On lower quality power supplies (or non brand name), this circuit may be designed to work properly up to 5-8 years  but turning off the pc completely every night would only extend the life of that circuit maybe by one year or so  ... it's still not worth to constantly remove the mains power from the computer.

 

 

 

 

 

[networkdown]

I turn my PC off also when I am not using it. I leave the Power strip turned on. I have been doing it this way for over a decade.  Pros you can turn on your PC with out having to climb under the desk. LOL Cons: If lighting strikes your house you PC might get fried, Maybe. I am not a electrical engineer . Pro for unplugging power strip at night. Saving a small amount on your power bill.

[mariushm]

1 minute ago, networkdown said:

I turn my PC off also when I am not using it. I leave the Power strip turned on. I have been doing it this way for over a decade.  Pros you can turn on your PC with out having to climb under the desk. LOL Cons: If lighting strikes your house you PC might get fried, Maybe. I am not a electrical engineer . Pro for unplugging power strip at night. Saving a small amount on your power bill.

If lightning strikes, the lightning will jump over a few millimeters of air between the contacts of a switch in your power strip.

 

For protection against  lightning strikes you'd need gas discharge tubes, MOVs, other protections ... basically at least a power strip with power conditioning but preferably an UPS of the "line interactive" or ideally "online" (more expensive) variety

[fleeks1337]

so a lightning strike COULD fry my pc even when the strip is turned off yes? well then i see no reason to not leave the strip on the few cents it costs do not bother me in any way

[networkdown]

Right right, you could always get a APC UPS. 60$ US.  https://www.amazon.com/APC-Back-UPS-Battery-Protector-BE550G/dp/B0019804U8

I am more familiar with the 1500W and the 2000W APC Units but the one above is a good home product.   If you are really paranoid OP Grab a UPS.