What harm exists in turning a PC on and off every day?

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Comfortable-Low-3067@reddit

there’s literally no reason to leave your pc on, if you’re not doing anything on it. for me personally, i turn my pc off whenever i step away from it. however, i’m p sure that turning it on, and off frequently, will drain the battery on the motherboard faster. someone correct me if i’m wrong.

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pdoherty972@reddit

The CMOS battery I think you mean? Yeah, I think you're right than when the system is off that battery is being drained to keep your BIOS settings intact.

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Comfortable-Low-3067@reddit

yes. the cmos battery

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Comfortable-Low-3067@reddit

yur hardware will probably last longer too

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CtrlAltDesolate@reddit

He's misinformed and you're more likely to run into issues with sleep mode than turning it on and off multiple times a day.

Maybe someone he hates is covering the electricity bill

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bobbyelliottuk@reddit

Why not use hibernate?

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EishLekker@reddit

Good for you lol?

I was simply describing what my setup looks like, and what it takes to get back to where I were before a restart. If I only needed a few select programs to do my work, then I wouldn't see a problem with a full shutdown or restart every day.

And on a side note - you know there are softwares that in a single click could open and resize all those for you, right?

I genuinely would love to hear your tips on such programs. I tried the built in "Restart apps" feature of Windows a few years ago, and it wasn't really fulfilling my requirements (but maybe it has improved since then).

When I'm working I have only what I need open and close it when I no longer need it,

I do that too. The problem is that most things I need for multiple days, or even weeks, in a row. And since I need to shutdown or restart the PC more often than that, I'm in the situation I'm in.

Music production is an absolute system hog.

I get that. But it sounds like you at least only need a few select applications running when you do your work. For me, as a system developer, instead of one gigantic application, I have like 15 as I mentioned earlier.

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ElectricTeddyBear@reddit

I made a quick python script that runs on startup that boots whatever programs I want. It's pretty straightforward and may be useful for you

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EishLekker@reddit

Well, I have a similar script running at startup, at least on my work laptop. But there are some problems with such a solution.

The programs to start is hard coded or configured in some way, instead of being flexible and automatic (the programs that was running at restart should get started, whichever they may be)
The inner state of the programs is reset unless the program itself restores it. In the case of a browser, all the windows and tabs. But I don't want those things restored if I manually close the program.
The order of the windows might get mixed up (I want the same order as before, even withing a single application)

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ElectricTeddyBear@reddit

I think one and three can definitely be solved, but it wouldn't be a trivial program, and I would have to look at the docs to see what is actually viable. My specific use case was a bunch of random research papers in random spots that I wanted reloaded, and I just used chrome to do it. I had to manually input what I wanted to keep, but that could be easily automated.

I think really it depends how much you care. There may be a way to monitor current programs, store process ids for things currently running that aren't from the system, and reboot them on opening. Same thing with chrome's innards probably (there has to be an easy way to monitor open tabs, etc). Other programs though, I'm unsure. For example, I think you said you had vscode running, and I have no idea whether there's a programmatic way to interact with vscode itself to check open projects and whatnot. It wouldn't surprise me, but I'm not sure.

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EishLekker@reddit

Well, ideally this would be handled by the OS itself. Like, it could do something like hibernate, where it basically saves a memory snapshot of everything running, but limiting that to all non-OS processes. So, all the regular applications would get their memory back exactly as it was (down to the last bit, at the exact same memory location), while the OS itself has been started fresh. Naturally I can see many challenges with implementing that, but if it could be done, it would solve the problem without the application developers needing to do anything.

The second best approach is something like the "Restart apps" feature already built into Windows, that I mentioned earlier in this discussion. It requires each application developer to add support for the feature in their application. Last time I tried it, it wasn't really good enough to convince me. But that was a few years ago, and I will try it again soon.

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CtrlAltDesolate@reddit

Exactly - this is why I hadn't discussed my specific uses till now before neither of us reflect your average user.

No. It logs out all users and suspends to the boot drive. Instead of booting up normally and starting drivers one by one, it just copies the hibernation file back into RAM and just resumes where it left off.

For the most part, this works. But any memory leak in the kernel or a driver will not be reset and it will get progressively slower. Windows updates once a month requiring a reboot is the bare minimum, but really 2-3 weeks without a proper reboot can really affect performance. This part is true whether you do the fake shutdown or just leave it on/asleep.

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this should also be mass communicated as a stickynote lol

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tbombs23@reddit

this needs to be mass stickynoted everywhere lol. i only recently found this out. and sometimes turning OFF fast boot can create problems too so just fyi.

Definitely something we all should get in a habit of doing is clicking the restart once in awhile to perform a fully "clean boot" i believe. Or doing a clean boot shutdown an alternate way.

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andresbcf@reddit

I used to use cmd to shutdown my laptop because it never actually turned off, and it was an old laptop so if I wanted it to be fast I had to do a full shutdown, turn on. I’ve written shutdown -s -t 10 more times than I can count lol

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ImageLow@reddit

Yes. Only way to get magic packets to work these days.

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JeffTek@reddit

I've had PCs straight up refuse to wake up. Fuck all that, modern PCs boot in seconds anyway just turn it off.

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EishLekker@reddit

The main reason many people use hibernate is to get all the programs back like they were. That’s definitely the reason for me. It’s always a hassle closing applications, then restoring them after a restart.

Theoretically I could get exactly what I want using the windows built in feature “Restart Apps”. But last time I tried it, it was buggy, many windows ended up in the wrong position/order, and several third party applications hadn’t implemented the feature.

EishLekker@reddit

Any source for this claim? The “at least one a day” claim, that is.

Are you really saying that there is a measurable difference between restarting once per day, and restarting once every two days?

I use hibernate, and only do a restart when the system starts getting slow (or if it’s needed for updates or some app install). I can’t really say I’ve noticed any difference until after maybe 4-5 days. And normally I go about one week between restarts on my work laptop and maybe even two weeks on my PC.

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psimwork@reddit

Considering sleep/stand-by only uses like 1-5W of power, there's not a huge advantage of using hibernate over sleep. Hibernate is really only useful for a laptop when the battery runs dry and windows writes the contents of RAM to a storage device, and then recovers it when the machine is powered back up (which is why it's disabled by default on desktops - though it can be enabled).

But if you're unwilling to use sleep, and you want to use hibernate, you might as well just do a full shutdown. The startup/boot time should be similar with an SSD.

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omnichad@reddit

The better hybrid sleep that's the default in Windows 10/11 has the benefit of being safe against power outages on a desktop. It suspends to RAM and copies the RAM to disk. If the power doesn't go out, it wakes up like regular sleep. If the power is cut then it resumes from hibernation.

You get the benefits of both.

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EishLekker@reddit

Last time I tried using sleep mode on my PC I had huge problems with it starting up in the middle of the night. I went thorough numerous guides on how to solve that problem, disabling wake-on-lan for the NIC, configuring Windows Update to not awake it for updates, etc etc. But I never found a fool proof solution (especially one that lasted even after major updates of windows).

Also… The main reason many people use hibernate is to get all the programs back like they were. That’s definitely the reason for me. It’s always a hassle closing applications, then restoring them after a restart.

Theoretically I could get exactly what I want using the windows built in feature “Restart Apps”. But last time I tried it, it was buggy, many windows ended up in the wrong position/order, and several third party applications hadn’t implemented the feature.

But that was a few years ago. Hmm. Maybe I should give it a shot again.

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PotatoSilence@reddit

Hijacking your question, I used to use hibernate but after a few of doing this (turning it on then Hibernate while I went to the store, do errands etc. PC wasn’t continuously for these days), the PC would lock up on wake so I had to hard shutdown (hold the power button). Now if between 30min or less I leave it and just have the monitors shut down after 15min of no use. If it’s going to be over and hour I shut down the PC.

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omnichad@reddit

I had this. It was a buggy Ethernet driver that was locking up when entering that stage of sleep. Disabling onboard Ethernet fixed it, so I put in a PCIe Ethernet card.

You actually have it backwards. If "Fast Boot" is enabled, Windows will cache RAM onto the SSD so that it can load the state quickly.

"Restart" actually dumps the RAM completely. Or disabling "Fast Boot/Startup" and "Hybrid/Fast Shutdown" will let "Shutdown" actually dump everything instead of caching.

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tbombs23@reddit

so having fast boot on can wear out your SSD quicker than not having it on?

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Gochu-gang@reddit

Technically yes, but given modern endurance of SSDs it's a nothing burger. I still have Samsung 850 Pros from 10 years ago that run 24/7 with no errors.

The biggest takeaway is that RAM gets cached which means any errors would also be loaded on "Fast Boot".

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I get it now, i thought he meant "write to disk" when he said dump the contents of the ram, but he actually meant that the contents are thrown away.

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ligokleftis@reddit

so what’s the best option for the hardware then?

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skyfishgoo@reddit

leave it to microsoft to completely upend the nomenclature around power states.

But did you really need those tabs?

Why not just save your project and reopen it tomorrow?

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EishLekker@reddit

Doesn’t a laptop in sleep mode still generate heat? So, maybe not very good if you keep your laptop in a bag.

Also, last time I tried using sleep mode on my PC I had huge problems with it starting up in the middle of the night. I went thorough numerous guides on how to solve that problem, disabling wake-on-lan for the NIC, configuring Windows Update to not awake it for updates, etc etc. But I never found a fool proof solution (especially one that lasted even after major updates of windows).

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Djinnerator@reddit

Sometimes user-configured notifications can do that.

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XanderWrites@reddit

The wake from sleep: probably the mouse. You just need a truck that rattles the ground enough to turn the sensor on and it will probably wake the entire PC.

EishLekker@reddit

So it never awakens the computer without you actually pushing the power button (or using the keyboard or whatever)?

It kept waking up in the middle of the night. I hated that, and never were able to get a satisfactory solution to that problem.

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Terminal-Psychosis@reddit

Might be windows waking up for an update.

Or a mouse that "wanders" slightly.

No. It’s wasn’t the mouse or keyboard that awoke the computer, because those were turned off.

Oh, just saw that other comment. Ok that's very strange. Usually bios will have a "wake on" section you could look into. You might have some USB device that's randomly doing strange things and waking the PC.

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EishLekker@reddit

Well, the problem was that there were lots of people with different theories in different discussions online, and lots of websites basically saying “This is how a solve this problem once and for all”. And sometimes the problem seemed to be solved, only to show its ugly head again after some update.

It got very frustrating after a while. I can’t understand why Windows can’t provide a single master setting that says “The power button is the only way to wake from sleep” or something to that effect, and that setting should never ever get reset after an update.

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Errantry-And-Irony@reddit

Win 10 and 11 letting sleep activate bugs out explorer in exactly the way. It's one of the only reasons I even changed to Win 11 and it still happens.

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EishLekker@reddit

That thing where the computer decides to wake it self up, even if it tried to configure it not to?

Another vote for buggy sleep mode.

I swear I've turned the shit off. I would rather it stay one hundred percent on if I forget to turn the PC off than it go into sleep mode. Nearly every time, I get errors or at least have to restart explorer.

Might as well just clean the deck and save a bit on energy.

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Saffa1986@reddit

Yup, problems here.

It’s fucking maddening. Usually when I let it autosleep, but sometimes when I put it to sleep. The power button blinks like it’s a sleep… but it’s not.

I hit the power button and the machine starts up from boot, my stomach drops, and I find all the fucking documents I’ve been working on are at risk. Most of the time it’s just the annoyance of sorting through saves and auto-saves, but one piece of specialised software I use doesn’t auto save, so I can lose hours of work. Does my head in. Particularly when I’ve stepped away for a coffee, my phone is out of connection so machine goes ‘oh, he’s stepped away, time to auto lock… no wait sleep… no wait, fuck his shit up’.

Gah!

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cheezecake2000@reddit

Jeeze I do not miss the days of turning on my pc and waiting ages. Or downloading a game to come back 3 days later to play. Or waiting 3 hours just to connect to a garrysmod server and download all the content for that server just to get a lua error.

I'm not even talking about pre 2000's computers either. Can't imagine. Now I can go from off to gaming in 2 minutes tops

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Tbf before you're gonna notice any issue with it you will already have new hardware.

A guy I know has the same PC since 2012 and both CPU and GPU had dry paste and got well over 50c idle and over 90c during any mid load task (even browsing with 4/5 tabs open), he turns it off every time he stops using it and after a repaste everything works fine now, so I think it's just a theoretical problem thqt won't ever actually happen.

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Tommy_____Vercetti@reddit

Isn't repasting the GPU a little bit sketchier than doing the same with the CPU?

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Dapper-Conference367@reddit

Kinda, but honestly it's pretty easy.

My first time took me more than 1h, now I can dismount it, clean the remaining paste, apply new paste and remount it in 20 mins.

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MyStationIsAbandoned@reddit

with building a PC, I've come to learn that stuff is hard until you actually just do it. like the hardest thing to do in the world is imagine yourself doing something you've never done.

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GopnikOli@reddit

Just piggybacking but I feel like that with a lot of things lately, I convince myself I cannot do some things and then turns out it’s nowhere near as bad. It was just good to read because it’s relatable.

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Dapper-Conference367@reddit

Yep, first time be extra cautious and follow every step, second time you might need the guide/video to check something in case you forget, 3rd time the charm!

Ok_Light_6950@reddit

And thermal cycling definitely still happens when it goes into sleep or hibernate mode. Once you wake it up to play a game it gets massively hotter again. So it's definitely not staying at a constant temperature just because you leave it on.

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omnichad@reddit

Pretty sure the drive will get power cycled going in and out of sleep. I wouldn't worry too much about power cycles.

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NewestAccount2023@reddit

Hard drives in the 90s didn't like to be turned off and on.

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PuzzleheadedTutor807@reddit

There was a process that should be followed, called "parking" the drives. Windows did it when we selected "shut down" there, but flipping the switch caused (potentially) head damage on the platters.

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TicTac_No@reddit

Disks spin at many 1000s of revolutions /per minute/ and that is not only dangerous but when going from 0 - 1000 revolutions per minute can cause wobble. Parking the drive assures that upon travel the disk are not damaged because they cannot move and the head cannot touch the drive. The reverse is true as well. Upon startup, when starting from a known state, the head can be moved to a 'spin up' position that is significantly more removed from the platter space or moved to a more central hub space away from the edge of the now-spinning disks.

Imagine the distortion at the edges of a millimeter thin disk spinning at 7500 rpm. That's 125 revolutions per second.

Wobble wobble.

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zhaDeth@reddit

Wait are the disks always spinning ? I thought the noise it made was because the disk was spining one way and then changed or started and stopped spinning. I guess it's just the head moving that causes the sound ?

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theBird956@reddit

The disk always spin in the same direction, all the time (unless the drive goes into "sleep").

The slight "clicking" you hear is the head that moves back and forth very fast to read data. When you start your computer, you might be able to hear the disk spin up to speed.

Unless you have an SSD, there are no moving parts in a Solid State Drive.

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WiiShouldITellU@reddit

Unless you have an SSD

*HDD

Not trying to be mean. Thanks for the information, really.

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Droid8Apple@reddit

Not sure why you are trying to correct them.

HDD - hard disk drive (spinning, old tech).

SSD - solid state drive (nothing moves; solid).

SSHD - solid state hybrid drive (still has moving platter but also has an SSD attached for cache - best of both worlds in 2015ish).

NvME SSD - non-volatile memory express solid state drive (doesn't use sata which caps at 6Gbps, making this the faster option).

WiiShouldITellU@reddit

I'm sorry for the confusion and time I've cost you and everyone. I should really take more care about what I write and post when sleep deprived. Thank you for the further clarification that you provided. Have a great life ahead.

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WiiShouldITellU@reddit

I'm sorry for the comment I made. I realized that you were correct. I interpreted the last sentence as "Unless you have a HDD, there are no moving parts in a SSD" and thus made the foolish error of trying to correct something that isn't wrong. I am really sleep deprived and I think I should really sleep more. Thank you for your understanding. And again, thank you for the information. Have a great life ahead.

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theBird956@reddit

Hey, don't worry about that. I can definitely relate to misreading and wanting to correct someone. The fact that you realized you made a mistake and then apologized is a skill not enough people have and shows a lot that you care about teaching people and being respectful. I really appreciate that.

Falkenmond79@reddit

Yeah. Lead to some weird superstitions. Dos had a „park“ command and i knew some that religiously used it before turning off their PCs. Wasn’t even necessary in the later dos stages but still. Couldn’t hurt.

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The_Lowest_Bar@reddit

Man, throwback to the time that slapping the shit out of something actually had a non-zero chance of fixing it.

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iApolloDusk@reddit

Hell, at my last job many of our customers still swore by it lmao. Makes me wonder if I should be beating my case more.

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OwlWelder@reddit

electronics may have progressed to the point where beatings have dubious payoffs, but there will always be one thing that'll always enjoy a good asswhooping

5553331117@reddit

Thankfully HDD tech is not stuck back there

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Appropriate_Ant_4629@reddit

stuck back there

Nice pun.

I remember having to pound on Sun hard drives with the back of a screwdriver to get them unstuck when we powered them off to move from one data center to another.

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amcclintock83@reddit

I found an AIX server that had been running for 25 years. Powered it off for kernel patching and those drives wouldn't spin up.

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digitalsmear@reddit

park your heads!

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Lusankya@reddit

You needed to whack them to get them unparked, especially if they'd been sitting cold for more than a few hours.

If you shipped a drive without parking the heads first, you didn't need to whack it. You also needed a new drive, because that one was toast.

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utkohoc@reddit

Hard drives packaged from the manufacturer have specific instructions on the box about temp when unpacking and using them.

(Hard drive boxes containing 20 mechanical drives)

Still sell a lot suprisingly but mostly for security and data storage backups like NAS. Pretty unusual to see one get shipped with a home PC. Even then they are always accompanied by an SSD.

False

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NewestAccount2023@reddit

https://www.toshiba-storage.com/trends-technology/mttf-what-hard-drive-reliability-really-means/

Start/Stop Cycle (HDD) For drives that are not specified for 24/7 operation, the maximum number of start/stop cycles for the spindle motor will be defined. This normally lies between 10,000 and 50,000 start-stop cycles.

That's from 2019. You can use your imagination for how it was in 1995, and that not 100% of all drives are perfect for their whole MTTF. Starting and stopping is worse than leaving it running, albeit by a small amount.

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You need a source to prove that a computer, once turned on, rises in temperature from the CPU/GPU/powersupply/etc generating heat, until temps stabilize from that heat input vs ambient temps + the cooling system? Or are you asking for a source that says it causes wear and tear by constantly undergoing that process?

My PC went through multiple motherboards (I’ll never buy Gigabyte again; my MSI Gigabyte told me to go buy has been phenomenal), RMA’d my RAM twice (sk hynix g.skill), and had a bad CPU (3800X; I have the replacement unopened as I got a 5800X on sale as I needed a replacement that day).

I do wonder if the CPU was bad from the factory. The horrid AMD drivers for a 5700XT were masking the problem. When I swapped to nVidia and started getting occasional blue screens, with some help from EVGA, I ultimately reproduced the crash and pulled an unlisted CPU error code off the motherboard. AMD didn’t even argue once I sent them the code. I don’t know what it meant, as it wasn’t in the book, only that numerically it fell into the CPU table, and the appropriate debug lights were on, and AMD was like “we agree your CPU is bad, please send it in.” My 5800X has been wonderful. I only wish the 3800X had made it to the release of the 5800X3D as I was planning to upgrade to it originally.

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Zarathustra-1889@reddit

Originally had an MSI motherboard that I replaced with a Gigabyte one for my ITX build. For the most part, it's been stable. The trouble is that there doesn't really seem to be a "good guy" MOBO brand lol. Perhaps I'll give ASRock a try the next go around.

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rory888@reddit

Asrock is pretty good now a days. Its scrappy.

They need better UI designers but the hardware itself is great and at a competitive price.

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Zarathustra-1889@reddit

Huh, I'll have to keep that in mind for my next build. I'm looking to go AMD next time around because I am absolutely not dealing with anymore of this bollocks from Intel so I'll shop ASRock when that time comes. Hopefully the UI improves by then because the last thing I want to do is to be fumbling around in the BIOS for a half an hour lol.

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rory888@reddit

Half hour? maybe total including time to flash update. Expected time is like 3-5 minutes while feeling like half an hour because its new and you actually have to learn something.

Check out hardware unboxed AM5 mobo roundup. Like half the recommendations at every price tier was an ASrock because they were just that competitive with both performance/features and price.

Its really scrappy. Originally a budget offshoot of Asus, had issues years ago, but fixed that shit and is competitive and good.

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omnichad@reddit

And then there's ASRock Rack if you want to build your own server with a consumer CPU and ECC memory support.

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Zarathustra-1889@reddit

It was a joke, mate lol. We would have big problems if it took that long to navigate BIOS.

Honestly happy to hear that it sounds like they've surpassed ASUS at this point. I'm looking forward to trying out their hardware in the future.

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rory888@reddit

I’ve spent that long staring at BIOS before… but I admit I may have consumed or been distracted by something at the time.

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Zarathustra-1889@reddit

I’m usually only in there that long if I’m fucking around with something specific or looking for something specific that has been buried in submenus. Usually, I just check CPU settings, turn on XMP, and activate Resizable Bar.

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rory888@reddit

yeah in a normal scenario you wouldn’t take that long unless you’re troubleshooting and rebooting multiple times for extreme hobby nonsense

In short, a laptop with similar features brand new would be a pretty penny today. Mine, even with all of the mods, cost me < $200.

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Geog_Master@reddit

A few reasons. First, I bought a Surface Pro a decade ago that I used for a while so I wasn't using this one as my primary. When that started to wear out, I got a desktop, and another desktop after that. My only need for a laptop is a portable internet machine that I can use for meetings and streaming. As a graduate student, I couldn't justify an expensive one ontop of my desktop upgrades.

The Laptop upgrades I did were about 200 dollars and now I have a machine with 8GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. It has Ethernet ports, a DVD burner, and such that aren't available on some modern laptops. Its airflow is pretty good, and it sits on a cooling pad that keeps it running okay. For the 200 dollars in parts, which mainly was the harddrive, the laptop works better then a 200 dollar one I could get at the time, and probably now.

I have this one running Windows 11, and two other laptops running Linux Mint. As my professional work is all done on my desktop, I haven't felt the need to splurge on a new laptop.

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Synaps4@reddit

Not usually no. Especially if you can get it done under warranty. Often you can get replacement parts under warranty to install yourself even if they won't do labor or shipping. Source: have replaced 2 motherboards, a screen, 2 chassis, ram, GPU cooling, CPU cooling...

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tedxtracy@reddit

Mine as well. It was a Dell Inspiron 14R (popularly known as N 4010) with 3rd Gen i3 from 2010. I've replaced the screen, keyboard, charger, battery, RAM, HDD, random connectors, removed DVD Drive, all by myself. When it refused to die even after a decade, I gave it away to a relative in need. I guess it's still working fine.

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GerardoITA@reddit

Theseus' Laptop

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BenisDDD69@reddit

"It's a phrase that's been passed down through generations of laptopers; "Look after your laptop.""

"And your laptop will look after you?"

Inprobamur@reddit

Either keep it in a box until there is confirmation of best mitigation measures or return it if you want to be completely safe.

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slapshots1515@reddit

Intel confirmed today it potentially affects any 13th/14th gen CPU with over a 65W power draw. So quite a lot of the main gaming ones.

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Rare_Evening@reddit

Yes its 13th-14th. Was worried when hearing the news at first but im 12th gen so we good.

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clownshow59@reddit

Here is a good video from Gamers Nexus on the issue. 13600k should not be as concerned as i7/i9 owners but unfortunately still affected. Just stay on top of BIOS updates for the next few months tk be safe!

land8844@reddit

laughs in ryzen

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Jenn_FTW@reddit

Shit, I just got a new computer that has an i9 13900kf, should I be worried? Is there anything I can do to mitigate the risk?

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slapshots1515@reddit

No one has confirmed guaranteed ways yet. Logically undervolting the CPU and avoiding heavy load should help, but I saw videos showing an undervolted CPU requesting too much power on startup, so it is not guaranteed.

Here’s what we do know:

-If your CPU is having or does start to have stability problems, it’s physically damaged. RMA with Intel.

-Intel says they’re releasing a microcode fix in mid-August to their board partners, who will then add it into a BIOS update, presumably within a couple weeks after Intel releases the patch. Stay on the lookout for that update and apply it as soon as you can.

-Intel claims once you apply the update, if your CPU isn’t damaged at that point you are safe. Of course we can’t guarantee that for sure, but at that point it should be safe to use.

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Jenn_FTW@reddit

Thank you so much for the detailed response! I’ll try to figure out how to undervolt it to minimize damage before the BIOS update. I suppose you have to access the BIOS to be able to undervolt right?

I haven’t figured out how to even access the BIOS yet because it boots so fast that by the time my monitor comes out of power save mode, it’s already on the login screen, so I can’t even see what key I’m supposed to hold to access it 😅 I’m not great with computers obviously.

Assuming I am able to get into the BIOS, do you know by how much should I undervolt it in order to make it safe enough for gaming?

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cosmicosmo4@reddit

But what if the power button wears out???

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In the early 2000s I would turn my parents PC on and off multiple times a day as it had to be off when we didn't use it.

The only issue was a hdd wearing out , but it wasn't that big of an issue / never happened in years of on and off.

With modern SSD and computers there's nothing to go wrong turning it on and off whenever you want as long as it's not doing an update.

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TheWeetcher@reddit

That used to be true with older hard drive tech. Booting requires a lot of reading to be done from the HDD so it would wear them out faster if you booted really often.

Awkward-Ad327@reddit

This is actually very valid, I found this problem last with the 2008 dell Inspirons 530 or whatever it’s called, recent pcs and especially custom builds don’t have this problem

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Few_Example9391@reddit

Sleep is the best. It allows your PC to near instantly get going again. Shut down is equivalent to you being sedated or hybernation, so expect your PC to be groggy at restarting any start-up programs. Physically turning off is like putting a patent into general anesthesia so you can do open body surgery on them. I only turn off if I plan to dive inside my PC case to upgrade it.

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AMetalWolfHowls@reddit

Lead-free solder causes dendritic growth on power cycles. It’s why you get seemingly random hardware failures over time. Small stuff just shorts out and degrades until too many minuscule parts fry themselves and the component quits.

Power cycles are also hard on capacitors. Are they designed for it? Sure, but electrolytics wear out around ten years and leak DC, which will also fry circuits. If your rig runs hot, capacitors die exponentially faster. It’s why data centers have such crazy AC systems. For every ten degrees warmer, the component lifespan decreases by half. Caps rated for 100C might live 10 years at 50C, but 5 at 60 and 2.5 at 50.

So… the answer is that it’s complicated, and you need to balance dendritic growth against managing heat. If you can keep temps way down, leave it on. If you do something crazy that taxes the cooling system, turn it off.

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pdoherty972@reddit

Caps rated for 100C might live 10 years at 50C, but 5 at 60 and 2.5 at 50.

Meanwhile the opposite is true for me

Leave my pc running 247

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pdoherty972@reddit

By running it constantly you're doing less wear and tear I think (which is why I do the same) since you're letting the heat level reach equilibrium and from there changing only mildly. Also no shock to the system (pun intended) from turning on the power to a cold system all of the time.

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Fortune_Cat@reddit

It did dry out the thermal paste of my gpu. I was throttling for half a year until I realised I just needed to repaste it and doubled my frames again

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MyStationIsAbandoned@reddit

same. everyone who just leaves theirs on 24/7 always ends up with a super slow PC.

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DeadGravityyy@reddit

everyone who just leaves theirs on 24/7 always ends up with a super slow PC.

Tell that to server owners who maintain servers that are running 24/7. Computers (and servers) are made to be run constantly, they won't randomly get slower over time because they're just running.

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Someone woke on the wrong side of the bed.

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iApolloDusk@reddit

Just saying something that's not a given in your comment. Not looking for an argument, guy.

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OpenRaincloud94@reddit

I have a primary laptop. I usually put it to sleep and only reboot 1-2 times a month. Most of the time I put it to sleep when it is not going to be in use. I just wouldn't leave it on if I am not going to use it within an hour. There can be memory issues if you don't do restarts which is why I have 32gb with low end dedicated graphics.

Heat is the main enemy of laptops. Which is why I do a full disassemble and cleaning every other year including reposting the thermal paste and new high quality thermal pads. I use Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme for laptop CPUs and GPUs. And Gelid Ultimate thermal pads. I also use canned compressed air on all the fans, vents and heatsink every other month to maintain airflow.

I will only use gen4 nvme ssds in 17" or larger laptops with a thin aftermarket heatsink (w/thermal pad), and gen 3 nvme with anything smaller than a 17". I'll still use a thin heatsink if there is space for it. SN850X is my choice for gen4, 970 EVO plus for gen3.

The 3 biggest mistakes I see people making with and computer they rely on is

1 not having a good heat management plan and taking heat as a serious issue 2 not having a good cleaning plan, this also ties into #1 a bit 3 not paying attention to their system like they would their vehicles. They take their vehicles in for scheduled maintenance but not their computers

Bonus 4 not having a good data backup plan and then freaking out when they lose pictures, videos or worse work documents

All machines eventually break down. But with a good plan you can meet all of your needs for years to come. Save money, save yourself stress, save files you want in the future by actually having a well thought out plan for when your system fails or SSD fails. Ignoring the reality and expecting a computer and all its components to last forever is like hoping for the immaculate conception.

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OldeSaltyBeard@reddit

I mean, electronics flex as they heat and cool. There is the argument to be made that leaving your computer on all the time keeps everything warm and stable. The counter argument to this is that playing almost any game nowadays will turn up the temperature of your your CPU, your GPU, your memory, as well as different areas of your motherboard. Joe, if your goal was to prolong the life of your equipment by keeping it at a constant temperature, you wouldn't be able to play games or really do anything that used an excessive amount of any part of your computer. Joe, with consumer electronics it's probably not that big of a deal.

On a similar note, based on that understanding, a light bulb should never burn out. If you never turn it off. Now that's actually something that is real and you can see in your own home. You can learn about the world 's longest running light bulb and you may find that quite interesting. I've had a light bulb running in my house non-stop, minus power outages, for the last 12 years and it's still the same bulb. Running a light bulb doesn't burn out. The light bulb. Turning it on and off is actually what breaks it. But no turning your computer off doesn't cause any real issues other than maybe missing a Windows update or something. And frankly that's probably not such a bad thing lately.

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Nuttybuddy2611@reddit

Fun thing most people don't know about windows. Restarting and shutting off a windows computer are two different things. Restarting your computer also shuts down and restarts windows kernal. Shutting down does not, it just takes power away from everything including motherboard. Windows never refreshes fully if you just shut down your computer.

Personally I restart my computer 2-3 times a week. Or if I'm lazy I don't restart it until it starts causing me issues. I use my computer everyday and I have a game or two running 24/7.

To answer your question as others have mentioned. The reason your step dad said not to turn your computer on and off everyday was mostly because of the HDDs. Technology has come a long way and you can leave your computer running for a long time before any mechanical issues come, especially with a SSD since it has no mechanical parts.

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Yeetus_McSendit@reddit

We're in the future now. It's fine.

It's actually company policy at my job that we all must shutdown our work laptops at night because our network is under constant attack from hackers and leaving a machine running overnight unattended I guess is a risk. We got hit with a ransomware attack during COVID and they showed us how many attempted connections are made when it's day time in Europe and Asia.

So other than that, it's just good to shut down and restart the computer regularly to clear the system memory or w.e. for a smooth operation. Leaving background processes running indefinitely can cause stability issues too.

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DelirousDoc@reddit

Off topic but I have an "Old Stuff" folder on my work computer. It is mostly for one-time projects I did, forget to properly organize at the time and didn't want to bother going through it to properly organize it. However we are required to keep records on certain things for a set amount of time so in case those projects fell into that category I hang on to the file in the "Old Stuff" folder.

(Usually I try to organize a folder and location before I start because I know if I wait I will not get it done right.)

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Hyperslinky9@reddit

I find that computers run like trash when you don’t shut them off.

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pisachas1@reddit

None. I’ve turned my computer off every time I’ve finished using it for like 20 years. You will replace the computer from getting old before it does any real damage. The only computer part that has ever died on me was my graphics card burnt out once years ago in the middle of playing a game.

Amazing to see the historical telephone game happen here. As someone already deep into tech in the 90's there was no parking drives, that's at least a decade late. I would honestly attest for the durability of drives in the 90's and say the weakest spot for drives were the mid-late 2000's.

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SwordsOfWar@reddit

You'll be fine. Just do what you want.

There is some truth to this though. Basically doing something intensive that would cause the components to heat up, then immediately turning it off could potentially cause premature failure. It comes from the expansion and contraction of components when they heat up and cool back down too quickly. After doing something that pushes the PC hard, leading it to heat up, allow it to idle for a while and slowly cool down before cutting it off completely. This use to be a HUGE issue with gaming consoles that would eventually cause them to fail. Probably not an issue on a decent desktop PC, but it could still be an issue for laptops, which have worse cooling solutions.

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thatguydrew20@reddit

I never shut mine off one newer hhd and 3 ssds, zero issues. Just keep the cpu cooler and gpu clean and maybe every few years clean and reapply the thermal paste.

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ProperCat1772@reddit

Stupid question, but do people actually NOT turn off their PC when done using? Like when sleeping or so. I know sleep/hibernate would be faster when you need it back on, but I mean power bill...

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Sc00pidyw00p@reddit

i just keep mine turned on for the whole day even if im away from it, i only turn it off if im not home for longer than like 30 minutes or so, otherwise if im at home, ill keep it on

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RevTurk@reddit

I nearly always tun my PC off at night. I would only leave it on if it was doing something.

I would see leaving it on all the time as giving it the opportunity to have a lot of little errors running in the background slowing things down.

stormhyena@reddit

Always turned my PC of when I know I'm not going to use it for a few hours or put it in stanby, never had a single problem, I've still got 2 HDDs for over 10 years in it, not a single problem.

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BackwoodButch@reddit

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turkoid@reddit

Prepare yourself for a long answer:

No, it will be fine. As others have said, by the time it does become a problem, you're already looking for a new computer. If you're not using an SSD for your boot drive, then boot times will obviously be a negative.

Conversely, leaving it on 24/7 is totally fine, even disabling sleep/hibernation. Obviously, this will affect your electric bill, but you can mitigate it by making sure to have a quality power supply. Going from Bronze to Titanium can make a good amount of difference for efficiency. However, gold is the sweet spot for affordability/savings.

Turning it off or leaving it on all day depends on your preference and use. I keep mine on all day because I work from home 2–3 days a week and like to have the ability to remote into it. Leaving it on all the time will not slow your computer down, either, unless a program running has a severe memory leak.

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Nougleft@reddit

I turn it off everytime I dont use it but I press shift while turning it off

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Onsomeshid@reddit

That wasn’t really an issue in the early 2000’s either. I guess you could eventually ruin a hdd but that would still probably take a LONG time.

Lets google instead of trusting 20 year old opinions from random ppl

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pdoherty972@reddit

Turning on the PC causes a jolt of electricity across all of the components, which is usually when things break (think of light bulbs - when do they break? Right when you're turning them on)
Turning the PC off and on a regular basis undermines the equilibrium that is reached, where the PC components (motherboard, RAM, video card, power supply, hard drives) all reach their normal operating temperature (where the temps they produce are met by the ambient temp and cooling apparatus installed in the case).
The temperature equilibrium mentioned above is likely to make the system last longer because constantly letting the system fall back to room ambient temperature, then heating it back up to operating temp could make soldered areas brittle and shorten their lives.

Again, I dont know how true this is, but your post just brought back a memory about this.

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Top-Conversation2882@reddit

Hard drives when turned on "parked" basically the shiny disca inside got scratched slightly when parked and unparked.

Older disks had low park-unpark cycles before they die.

Newer disks have much more cycles available so not really an issue.

And moreover basically all new systems use SSDs which have no moving parts. So no issues regarding turning on and off.

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cclambert95@reddit

I would argue there’s more damage in leaving it on 24/7 and also running up your electricity bill slightly.

Is it better to not shut our cars off and leave them running? For reference my current build has been added too but the original hard drive, motherboard, ram, cpu, are all 8 years old and have been overclocked on the parts that can be.

On/off probably 2-7 times a day when I leave the room for an extended period of time it goes off; boot up time is almost non existent anyways.

Finally upgrading this weekend and doing a completely new build but it truly doesn’t matter that sounds like some old timer wise tails to me personally.

illuzian@reddit

There is emotional distress while waiting for the Ryzen series to train DDR5. Maybe potential wear spinning any high speed fans up and down but probably negligible.

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GeneralSpectatorTots@reddit

I've had my laptop for for about 12 years now and it still runs good. I swapped out the HDD for an SSD a while back and mainly put my laptop into hybrid sleep when I'm home.

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captains_astronaut@reddit

Mine's been going strong for about 10yrs (i5-2500k) with daily on/off cycling. Original psu, mb, ram... Hdds have never died, though I have upgraded along the way.

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ADAMOXOLT@reddit

What should be wrong with doing it? I've been doing it for the past 8 years and nothing happened, why should it?

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Archy54@reddit

Warming and cooling cycles in the electronics can be an issue but most likely not for like decades. You should be fine. You can sleep mode too. I usually leave it in due to laziness but sleep mode works too. You can turn it off though, get a kill a watt meter to see how much power it uses sleep mode. I wouldn't fret about it once or twice a day. I reckon it would be more just annoying booting 10* a day.

It was fine turning it off even back then as long as you were turning it off the correct way and not just using the power button

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Thunderbolt294@reddit

I always keep my computer off when not in use, I've had zero issues and I never have to worry about some app or updater running a muck unsupervised.

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TeddyBear312@reddit

Back in the day, powering off worked a little differently. Sometimes the hard drive would still be doing something, and powering off cut the power directly, potentially corrupting or damaging the hard drive or other components that still had processes running. When I was a kid and we got our first home PC, it had an HDD light that would flicker when writing or reading data, and I was told only to shut it off when the light stopped flickering. I'm not sure how accurate that was, but we never had a problem.

Nowadays, powering off doesn't happen instantaneously. Processes are closed down, and when the PC has finished everything, it powers off. This usually only takes one or two seconds, which is why on Windows at least you see the spinning wheel, and it says something like "closing programs" or "powering off" — I can't remember what it says exactly, but it's a process now instead of a hard power cut.

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D3PyroGS@reddit

It's now safe to turn off your computer.

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phoenixcinder@reddit

Hell I don't ever turn it off and I don't even go into sleep mode. Just shut the monitor off. Will stay that way for weeks/months. If I leave the house for a few days I will shut down and unplug

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WittleJerk@reddit

It’s an old wives tale from the 90’s. It never damaged your computer. Just like ESD never actually killed 99.9999% of circuitry.

As others have said, the boot up process involves a lot of reading, which means for a spinner, that read head thrashes around a lot. It does add wear and tear to an HDD.

If your computer uses an HDD, then yeah, listen to your dad.

If you're booting off of an SSD (regardless of what kind), then reading does basically zero damage. Writing can impact longevity, but reading won't. Further, with modern SSDs, you'll barely notice the difference between the time to boot and the time to wake from a sleep state. This is in part because "off" on modern Windows is basically an elaborate sleep state.

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chrizpii93@reddit

Your dad was full of shit. Probably parroting some shit he heard from some other idiot who was also full of shit. As we get older we realise our parents weren't these all knowing beings we thought they were and in fact, many of our parents were straight up just a little bit stupid.

Turn it off if you want to save on your electricity bill.

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jeffreysynced@reddit

I turn mine off every night. I’ve had a few too many incidents of waking into my home office to a BSOD to leave it on anymore.

When it comes to monitors though, I definitely subscribe to the ‘don’t turn it off and on a lot’ rule. I have had many monitors fizzle out, but since leaving them on, not a single issue for many years.

None. Was to avoid having HDD spin up and down and for faster usability as computers tended to take a while to boot up.

Now I shut off computer if I'm going to be away for more than 2 hours

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alek_hiddel@reddit

I work in IT specifically managing core infrastructure for a FAANG. The boot process is the hardest strain on your hardware. I have switches/servers/routers that have ran non-stop for 3 years with no issues. Let a power failure happen, and hard drives will die, and fans will fail.

Basically in use, a fan/disk spins and like medium rpm’s. At boot, that shit is running full blast. Like reboot a Cisco device, and prepared to not hear for a minute.

That said, a modern desktop running an SSD avoids a lot of those problems, so in today’s terms it’s really not a huge deal for consumer gear. Still nothing wrong with just letting it sleep either though.

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Liesthroughisteeth@reddit

Have been upgrading PCs since the later 90s and building since around 2004. Never leave my PCs on unless I have a reason.

Also, my Nest thermostat allows higher temps while I’m at work, so I did often turn off my towers while at work in California. I haven’t been doing that lately but my last tower started with a 1060 and only recently crapped out (with a 3060), so, it’s anecdotal, but I do think there are benefits from turning off if you’re gonna be away for a while.

I’ve tried to track if there’s any difference in saving on energy bills but sleep modes (I think most computers are S1 by default) are pretty efficient now. I haven’t noticed a difference in my personal testing which is once again, anecdotal.

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nxcrosis@reddit

I live in a country that has frequent brownouts especially during rainy season so I actually turn my PC off after I work/game. It's so bad that a random lightning strike not even remotely close would kill the power. I have it connected to a UPS and only actually unplug the UPS itself when I'm leaving the house since the power might go out when I'm not home and drain the UPS battery.

Why are you turning it off? Put it to sleep, or set it to sleep by itself after 30 minutes and never have to worry about the power button again, or surges, or electrons hitting from 0.

It's the opposite of what some people here say, HDDs in the past should be turned off as they are mechanical and will wear out if on at all times. Everything else, from motherboard power, ram, cpu, nvme is better off in low power mode, even the monitor is better off in sleep mode than off.

Keep it on 24/7, sleeping when you're not around (very low power), and restart the system once every couple weeks if you feel like too much ram is being used (if you have 32gb ram, under regular use, you'll see about 12gb used at start, but about 20gb after 2 weeks, this is fine but if you want, you can restart then).

Not much harm, but it does wear out over time. You should be about to get about 10 years of use with occasionally cleaning the dust out and replacing the thermal compound every so often.

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baithammer@reddit

Early hard drives didn't have the means to safely stop the platters used to store data and OS at this point in time weren't designed around hard drives.

You needed to run software to park the heads of the hard drive on to a blank space on the platters, otherwise the heads would hit the data portions of the platters and cause serious issues.

To make matters worse, a fair number of hard drives had their own psu and power switch.

Latter on once the head parking became a non-issue, it was potential filesystem corruption that you needed to worry about, as the OS and hardware didn't have clean shutdown states or coherency checks - turning off the power while the computer was running could potentially lead to filesystem corruption.

In my case as a an extremely poor dumpster diving PC builder back in the day (and now if I wouldn't get arrested for it... Lol but anyway) -

It's because every single PSU I've used has been janky or faulty .. even some off Newegg (perhaps a curse has followed me from the old times?)

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CuckedSwordsman@reddit

Your dad's advice is outdated by about 20+ years. These days, the first component to wear out from excessive power cycling tends to be the power button itself.

I work at a repair shop, and I cannot stress enough how prone to issues sleep/hibernate features are for laptops and PCs. Every time a windows update bricks a computer, the culprit is almost always sleep mode. Fully powering down your PC will ensure your OS operates much more smoothly over the long run.

Note that I typically use my home computer in question in the mornings, then I go to work all day, then I come home and use it again and keep it on all night. Is there any problem or benefit or difference of any kind if I turn it on and off twice per day? Will doing this on a daily basis cause any harm to my PC parts?

I turn off wifi, then blue tooth, then it off and unplug it. Every time. Been doing that for years/decades with all of my computers ~ no issues.

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bcvaldez@reddit

I built a 7950x PC on an ASUS x670-e TUF mb to use at work. I shut it down on a Friday and tried to turn it on the next monday...it never turned on. I had to RMA the mb but of course I was screwed over by ASUS for Customer Induced Damage (even though I sent it in practically new condition (I've only been using it for 6 weeks)

DO NOT BUY ASUS products.

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Cultural_League_3539@reddit

overused condensators, old resistors, overheating cpu, voltage peak, short circuit due to dust, moisture

No harm, people building those things to last for centurys, checking all the things that are used cant be wrong

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Ancient-Sweet9863@reddit

For the most part I only turn the psu off if a storm is coming in or I’m going to be gone for longer then 24hrs.

Other than that I just use shutdown.

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matthitsthetrails@reddit

i have an old seasonic 500w psu running fine that has been through at least 30 years of consistent on/off usage by my parents. i think the only component that went on the machine was the graphics card.

There's also usually no issue leaving a machine on for long stretches of time. This example doesn't necessarily apply because they aren't "consumer" components, but there is a server at my work that has had an uptime of almost 700 days without needing to be restarted. At this point we aren't even sure what'll happen when we reboot it! :)

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gimm3nicotin3@reddit

My PC case has no window (as in, the acrylic got scratched so I just removed it and have been using it open-air).

It sits up on a shelf that it fills footprint-wise where the top is about 4 inches from the basement ceiling; so it's up away from dust and cats.

When I turn it off, more dust collects in it than if I keep it on with all the fans running. It's a very small amount of dust, but with it on it's basically no dust settling in there at all.

Otherwise I'd probably be turning it off at night.

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itchygentleman@reddit

Even if you were building with a mechanical drive today, then it's okay to turn it off these days. HDD's are significantly more robust and reliable than they used to be.

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itijara@reddit

As a developer, the harm to hardware from power cycles pales in comparison to the random memory leaks in crappy software. Reboot your computer to protect yourself from people like me.

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neogrinch@reddit

I leave my desktops and laptops on 24/7 unless I go on vacay for a week or more. That way various updates and all that can run when I'm sleeping at night. One of my desktops is now run as a headless server, and never even goes to sleep (I hvae a lot of programs running on it that need to stay up). Its been on nearly continuously since 2017. I could probably save a few bucks a year by turning my normal desktop computer off at night or something, but it's more convenient to leave it on so its ready to rock and roll next time I use it. with that being said, I do also reboot all devices at least 2-4 times a month, including phones and tablets. This ensures things like memory leaks and such get cleared out when they occur.

I have heard that power cycling the PSU often can shorten its lifespan. I'm not sure how true that is, though.
I work in IT field, and I know that there are some servers in the data center that have been running continuously for many, many years, and that some of these don't turn back on after they've been turned off.

I have had computers for 25+ years now, though, so as OP mentioned it was pretty commonly held that pcs should just be left on back in the day. I guess I just got used to doing that, old habits die hard. And back then, windows took FOREVER to boot up as well, another good reason to just leave it on all the time in the old days.

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Altruistic_Koala_122@reddit

Get a battery back-up, so you can safely turn it off when the power goes out.

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Point is that it’s kind of silly to only power down that way, but it’s perfectly fine for the average consumer

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KillMeNowFTW@reddit

I'm sure we're not talking about PC power supplies here.

The bulk cap is to remain at bus voltage in order for the PSU to properly regulate, of course. And hold up time is how long that cap can hold that voltage before draining completely. That's why if you have a lot of brown outs, a PSU with a good hold up time is essential. Thought it was pretty funny that Intel actually REDUCED that required hold up time for ATX 3.1 under the assumption that "everyone has at least a line interactive UPS, so this is fine."

The discharge was implemented as a safety. Nothing more. Has nothing to do with the T timings or anything. There were a lot of changes going from 60950-1 to 92368-1 and not just the implementation of the bleed IC. And I have seen my fair share of blown NTC thermistors caused by constant power cycles. Yes, there are some inrush current limiter components used in industrial and server that can withstand 10s of thousands of power cycles without batting an eye. But sadly, for the consumer level product, they're not implementing these parts. "Too expensive".

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FreakiestFrank@reddit

I’ve heard the same thing. The heating and cooling causes parts to expand and contract causing parts to fail. Possibly true but what I do is if I’m gaming, I’ll turn on my PC and let it warm up, especially the GPU, before I throw a full load at it while I’m getting ready to game. I also shutdown every time I use it. I slowly warm it up and let it cool down before I shut down.

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MrCatSquid@reddit

I’ve had the same computer for 8 years and I probably boot it up and shut it down 2-3 times a day. Have done that for years. It’s well beyond my expected lifetime for it, so it’s allowed and expected to die anytime now, but it just won’t.

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zyper-51@reddit

It probably won't harm a modern day computer but it will have an impact on your electricity bill compared to setting it to sleep. Shutting down the computer turns everything off which effectively makes your computer pull no electricity but turning it on takes a lot of energy because it needs to pull your OS from storage to RAM and run all the software you have setup to run on start. Counterintuitively letting your computer pull a small amount of electricity by putting it in sleep mode allows it to maintain RAM and thus allowing you to get to work faster and saving money on electricity.

Super-Link-6624@reddit

Oh yeah I don’t have any issues but I don’t use any adobe or anything

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Gold-Chemistry-5747@reddit

Yep the hard drive could skip and lose data/ corrupt if you hard powered off by the switch. Always had to shut down

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smackythefrog@reddit

I put it on standby throughout the day. Sometimes two or three days of standby/sleep/whatever it's called now.

But typically when the weekend is over, I'll shut down for the new week. If I remember, I will shut down once or twice overnight during the week.

I'm not sure I've experienced issues either way. But with my MacBooks that I use on the go, they pretty much get put in standby/sleep for weeks at a time.

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caufield88uk@reddit

Heating up and cooling down multiple times CAN damage components within ALL computer parts. Unlikely to happen but it puts stress on the metal components of the PC parts

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kearkan@reddit

It doesn't matter in the slightest.

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Bolwinkel@reddit

As others have said, any computer built in the last 15 years shouldn't have any problem with being turned on and off multiple times a day. It's still fine to leave the PC on 24/7, but it will start to slow down the longer it's been on for, which is why it's recommended to let the PC fully shut down at least every 2-3 days. I personally will turn my PC on in the morning once I get up, leave it on all day, and when I'm done for the day I just turn it off. No reason to leave it on all night, and it also prevents me from needing to worry about windows updating at bad times.

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Clintre@reddit

No, there is really no problem doing that on modern computers. With how fast it has become to boot up, it is not even all that different from starting from sleep/hibernate.

No harm, just don’t yank the cord while on.

There might be a problem of inrush current, but in your use case, it might not matter.

Anything else you gotta worry about thing related to this?

Nope.

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eduardb21@reddit

If you take care of your PC, it will live way past the time when it's no longer able to run modern games at decent fps even with minimal graphics.

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tervit1989@reddit

Did he maybe mean turning it off and on at the socket and not powering it down ?