How often should you shut down your pc?

[Vincent123]

Is it healthy to not shut down your computer for a few days and just put it to sleep or should you shut it down every day?

[Apepa]

1 minute ago, Vincent123 said:

Is it healthy to not shut down your computer for a few days and just put it to sleep or should you shut it down every day?

It makes no difference. It might help doing a full restart if apps start feeling a bit sluggish though.

[Himommies]

never

[Not_Sean]

4 minutes ago, Vincent123 said:

Is it healthy to not shut down your computer for a few days and just put it to sleep or should you shut it down every day?

ideally Everyday, It allows updates to install, If you have a powerful PC yes it will slow down but prob not enough to even be noticed, but jump on most laptops and OEM Pc's and you'll notice pretty quick if the PC hasn't been restarted in a few days, ask any Support Tech. It makes a huge difference. 

 

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

There's no real benefit to shutting down more often than letting it go to sleep. Even if your computer needs system updates, you just have to restart the computer.

[factorialandha]

The answer to this question isnt really clear cut, it depends on the Operating System and use case.

 

Linux machine used for server workloads (or even most desktop workloads), restarting is less required. 

 

Windows Server can be left on for much longer than Windows Desktop as the workloads are different and they are generally built to stay on for much longer periods of time.

 

Windows Desktop, again this is subjective, ive gone times where the only time ive rebooted has been when windows updates actually needed to do something, and after a reboot i have had no noticeable improvements at all. It depends on the software installed (Bloatware can suck up resources the longer its running) but for the most part. Aslong as you keep your machine clear of crap. You can go for weeks without needing to reboot, there is no real "requirement" to reboot on a schedule.

[19_blackie_73]

my pcs are always shut down when not in use, I don't see a problem and never had any. My PC is sometimes off for a week and never complained, I personally don't understand the people who always have their pcs running even if not in use.

[factorialandha]

8 minutes ago, 19_blackie_73 said:

my pcs are always shut down when not in use, I don't see a problem and never had any. My PC is sometimes off for a week and never complained, I personally don't understand the people who always have their pcs running even if not in use.

this just depends on use case again, for example my machine was on 99.9% of the time, as it was a media server / file server for myself aswell as my gaming rig.

 

[ProjectBox153]

My machines are never shut down, and only the laptops go to sleep. I go months between reboots.

[19_blackie_73]

1 minute ago, factorialandha said:

this just depends on use case again, for example my machine was on 99.9% of the time, as it was a media server / file server for myself aswell as my gaming rig.

if that's the case, ok, but i've heard it from many other people too and @Jamiec1130 just proved it again

[factorialandha]

 

Just now, 19_blackie_73 said:

if that's the case, ok, but i've heard it from many other people too and @Jamiec1130 just proved it again

i agree, its a waste of money / electricity / hardware lifespan unless you have a requirement to leave it switched on.

 

[Lurick]

I shut down my work laptop every day when I'm done. It's my way of making a clean break from work so I don't find myself back on the work laptop going late into the night.

 

My personal PC is in my room, next to my bed, I shut it down every night and turn it on only when I get home from work or when I wake up on the weekends. Additionally, I've got Primochill Vue and they recommend at least a few hours of rest every day

[porina]

I reboot if there is a reason for it. Reasons may include:

1, software updates

2, hardware changes

3, something isn't right and I've ran out of ideas to fix it

 

For me, software updates usually means Windows Updates each month. Since Win10 came out though, I've started doing it LESS as they're getting more annoying in various ways, so I've disabled it at network level. Since the Meltdown patch, I'm leaving that as long as I can while they sort the software bugs out as they're worse than the original flaw they're trying to fix. The occasional driver update may require a reboot. nvidia drivers usually don't, but AMD ones do for example.

 

Hardware updates are much more rare. That reminds me, I was going to experiment with moving my Optane off CPU onto chipset to see if that helps with fps... still haven't done that.

 

And "something not right" is a generic catch all. Only today I had to do that, as I noticed I was getting stutters in game. Monitoring showed higher ping than normal, but a network reset didn't help. I then noticed the stutters happened outside of gaming also, and coincided with a high latency access to my main SSD. Even closing all user level programs didn't fix it, and I couldn't narrow down a suspect beyond that. Reboot, it was gone. This is a one off hopefully. I've never had this scenario before. Uptime was round 9 days at that point.

[Apepa]

43 minutes ago, 19_blackie_73 said:

my pcs are always shut down when not in use, I don't see a problem and never had any. My PC is sometimes off for a week and never complained, I personally don't understand the people who always have their pcs running even if not in use.

 

I don't usually bother shutting it down most of the time. It goes goes to S3 on its own after a few minutes and I forget about it. I probably reboot it more often when I'm actually using it, updating drivers, tweaking Overclocks etc.