Do you shut down your PC or laptop, or leave it on?

[Harmonie]

I'm afraid I have to admit I leave it on... It's not good, I know. However, my PC has always had this weird issue from back around when I got it where it doesn't always boot up properly and it is really slow booting up and then it also doesn't run properly after it has booted up. So whenever it does that, I have to keep on restarting it until it boots up at the proper normal speed. Which can take forever, and get this if I try to shut it off for the Windows updates and it boots back up slow, I won't be back on my PC for many hours because that takes forever.

[SnorkMaiden]

I always shut down my laptop when I'm done, unless I'm going to use it again shortly (i.e. within the next hour or so).

[tikibirds]

I used to shut it off at night but my computer is now 5 years old and takes forever to restart so I leave it on and restart it every few days.
When I go back to the US for Xmas, I am buying a new one.

[dragonfly]

I leave it on. My mom turns off and unplugs ALL of her electronics when she isn't using them...computer mouse, TV, you name it, and it drives me batty. She's afraid there will be an electrical surge during a storm and the house will catch on fire. Or something

[StarSwirl05]

I always shut it down. I've found that if leave it on too long, it crashes.

[LovelyLittlePony]

I shut down my PC whenever I'm done using it, it's a heavy duty gaming PC and I don't want to put any unneeded stress on it when not in use! But my laptop I leave on as I use it so often throughout the day.

[mlp4me]

I always shut down our laptop after I'm done using it. Though it gets very little use due to not having any internet...

[Sukey]

I rarely use my laptop, so when I do, it gets shut down right after.

[Artemesia's Garden]

I shut my laptop down because I worry about the impact on the environment and also the potential fire hazard.

Post Merge: November 05, 2019, 03:03:11 AM

I leave it on. My mom turns off and unplugs ALL of her electronics when she isn't using them...computer mouse, TV, you name it, and it drives me batty. She's afraid there will be an electrical surge during a storm and the house will catch on fire. Or something

I don't unpplug everything though, except phone chargers

[achab1984]

I leave my lap top on. But I will shut off my desk top when not using it. I have to update my deck top though. So don't know what is the best way to go? I just love having a desk top!

Do anyone know what is the best thing to do for our computers? Off when not using or sleep mode?

[AvianWing]

I leave my lap top on. But I will shut off my desk top when not using it. I have to update my deck top though. So don't know what is the best way to go? I just love having a desk top!

Do anyone know what is the best thing to do for our computers? Off when not using or sleep mode?

I use sleep mode on both my laptop and desktop purely for convenience, and because it of course saves power when it is not in use.

Putting a PC in sleep mode will shut down pretty much all of the components except for the RAM and some USB ports, so it still uses very little power in this state. If configured to do so, the PC can also automatically wake itself up to install Windows updates, which could come in handy, except that it tends to do it in the middle of the night and wake you up if you're in the same room as it, and it can be difficult to disable this "feature" (this can also restart it causing you to lose anything that was up when you put it in sleep mode).

...That being said, I wouldn't frequently shut down a PC if it doesn't have an SSD (Solid State Drive) in it... otherwise that causes a lot of unneeded downtime (if it takes a minute or two to turn back on fully; with an SSD it takes no more than a few seconds). Just not worth it, imo.

Other than the aforementioned convenience/speed, I'm not sure if I can say that one (power off vs sleep) is better than the other. I'd say that it depends on how often you use the desktop.

[reddsetgogirl]

My ex never ever turned his laptop off because he didn’t want it to update and would lecture me that I was never to turn it off completely.  He would then come to my house and marvel at how fast my gaming PC was, how quiet, envied that I could play games with the picture quality on the highest setting, etc (he could only play on the lowest level where things were just pixelated blobs).

Dude, maybe if you let it update it would solve the vast majority of its problems!  It hadn’t had an update in years so it was barely functional at times.

[Taffeta]

Both.

In that I shut it down, but it fails to comply 50% of the time and I find out the next time I go to turn it on when it refuses to boot without the cable.

[Broken Irishwoman]

I always shut my laptop down, and unplug it. I'm too afraid of fire to leave it on.

[kiwimlp]

I always turn mine off.  I'm paranoid of it overheating or something and causing a fire. Probably I am worried unnecessarily, but it doesn't hurt to be safe