Desktops forum: What's the best for a PC life: Sleep, hibernate, or shutdown?

I think you nailed it in your last sentence."If I weren't concerned about my electric bill". Unfortunately for Australian residents that is what we have to way up, cost of possible shortening of life of our $600 buck P.C. The average Computer running costs Aussie residents approx 1 dollar a day if left on 24 hours in electricity . The life of a computer is roughly 4 years to the average householder before upgrading, leaving it on 24/7 for 4 years costs approx $1460 dollars at present. Turning it off at night cuts the cost by approx a third $490 dollars over four years.As we about to get another electricity hike here in Australia of 21% due to our ridiculous carbon tax, I'll be advising my customers and friends to turn off when ever their computer is not in use . The money they save over a life of 4 years should be a minimum of $600 if only turned of at night 33% of the time. This to me in Australia makes the discussion one sided. Protect it and power condition it but turn it off when ever you can.

As a rule, I shutdown my desktop computer anytime I don't expect to need it again for six hours or longer, such as overnight. During the day, I use Sleep mode if I intend to use it again within a few hours. My primary concern is not service life of the components -- I'll probably upgrade most or all of them long before they fail -- but simply saving electricity. To save even more power, I use my laptop on days when I don't expect to need the more-capable hardware of my desktop setup.

(During power failures I shutdown the desktop machine and its peripherals, and plug my laptop's AC adapter/charger into the desktop's UPS -- with the home networking equipment also on UPS, I can stay online for quite awhile. And if there's a REAL emergency that requires "bugging out" to a safer location, the laptop's battery still has a full charge.)

Since hard drives power down whenever a computer goes into Shutdown, Sleep or Hibernate mode, I doubt the choice of "power-down" mode makes much difference to them. Anything other than leaving the computer running 24/7 is likely to extend all component life, as long as you aren't turning the power on and off several times a day.

With my laptop I generally perform a full shutdown whenever I finish using it; but that's mainly for the benefit of the battery.

Hibernation and sleep are overblown PC marketing gimmicks that really do not matter in the long term as far as PC life expectancy goes. Shutting down the PC at night is the best option as far as I am concerned. I have had many PC's over the years, and serviced and built them over the years, and never have used sleep or hibernation. They are more of a hinderance to a smooth and clean running PC then a help. If you really want to optimize the life expectancy of your PC, keep it clean, inside and out, keep it well ventilated, make sure it is plugged into a good surge protector, keep it virus, spyware free, and turn it off when you go to bed at night.
That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

I felt I had to make a point as everyone, some very technically qualified and some not but being simple home end users, have differing opinions.

Most component parts (ie: CPU processor, hard drives, memory etc) have technical specification sheets and length of expected usage in hours. The main thing to remember is that these very components, all the way down to the memory, last longer if you take extra steps to cool the inside of the tower. You can even buy memory stick coolers that have an aluminum shim clamp and two little fans that blow directly down onto the memory. You can buy hard drive coolers that screw right onto the hard drive and provide cooler temps and longer life expectations for a hard drive, and fit right into the hard drive bays.

Most hard drives are guaranteed for 3 to 5 years and the simple $9.95 added insurance on most sites is well worth the extra $10 bucks as I see it, for there are stories far and wide about "It died a month after the warranty expired". However, the warranty is quite different from what the technical specs give you for "hours of operation" to expect.

A SATA Seagate 750GB hard drive is rated for 600,000 hours of mean time operating hours:

/www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/sata/100270024n.pdf

(fourth page - bottom of page)

Mean time between failures
(power-on hours)
600,000 hours - 25,000 days - 68.45 years
Service life 5 years

Of course we know that hard drives don't operate that long and that is mainly due to shortened life expectancy due to outside environmental influence - ie: no air conditioning on hot summer days - or accidents (surges, manufacturing errors, humidity taking its toll, dropped laptops, etc). The greatest killer of hard drives though is heat.

Ever wonder? Just have some heavy usage going on with your computer (run a movie on your VLC, have several browsers open, be playing your favorite tunes in Media Player or whatever, and let it run for five minutes, and then carefully reach in there and actually put the tip of your index finger on the "non-exposed" side of the hard drive (the side which isn't the circuit face), where it is completely covered by metal (usually the label side). That will answer the question partially as we move on to answer the actual related question of shutting the computer off or on for more improved longevity.

I personally have had a 320 GB Seagate now for one of my several computers I have used for over 10 years and that's 87,660 hours of operating time and I have as a norm left my computers on all the time for just as many years.

As I said, heat is a far worse enemy to your home PC desktop than shutting it off or turning it on from a cold boot, or a laptop, OMG! If you don't seriously consider using a laptop cooler on the bottom underneath of your PLC then you shouldn't even mess with exerting the brain power to read and understand this article.

Most store bought brand name computers have serious inefficient cooling systems. Yet they only have to allow for a few years warranty and those companies make some big ca-chunk change for out of warranty repairs, even some companies charging for any technical help at all for after warranty problems.

Additionally, one cannot forget that even with modern technological changes, and advanced manufacturing techniques, "CAPACITORS" are still yet the hardest hit component of a motherboard affected by HEAT with video chips or bridges being second! Thus many higher end boards have capacitor heat syncs and copper tubing and cooling fins to vent off heat from them. Some boards in the past I have seen (EVGA for one) had small fans integrated right onto the motherboard for cooling the capacitors to some degree.

Remember that the included CPU heat suync and fan often do nothing other than pull heat away from the CPU and board, and end up blowing it right back onto the other components, so adequate cooling fans should be placed in any position available to case cut outs or pepperbox venting areas. You can often buy simple (even LED lit) cooling fans from 80mm to 120mm and larger depending on your case configuration. The important thing is in most "cases" (sorry for the pun) you need to blow as much air in as your suck air out as an exhaust (usually to the back of the case or even out the bottom in some "cases"). You may even find room in the very front of the computer where the hard drives are located, to imp0lement the simplest of mounting systems to attach a fan to cool the hard drive(s).

The on-board integrated chips (South Bridge, video graphics chip etc) can also be modified very simply by purchasing a cooling fan for their specific size and implementation.

Even more important to longevity is buying a good 3.500 to 6,000 Joule surge protector. I strongly recommend purchasing two on sale, then piggy back one to the other. Many think this is silly, for a power line surge or surge from a thunder storm is far stronger and faster than what two protectors would accomplish, but in my own mind's mentality on the subject, in a home situation reality, its not a waste of money.

Buy one, one month, and another later if you find it more to your budget, then give your computer the protection it deserves. You can buy more expensive and higher rated protectors, but in this configuration and for home users, two protectors give you the front (closest to the outlet) surge protector room for all your heavier peripherals (Monitors, sound systems, printers?) that are less susceptible to surge spikes, and the second gives all those other outlets provided for your darling precious computers and such, the most expensive of the system components.

Only as an example:

www.amazon.com/Belkin-BP112230-08-Pivot-Plug-Surge-Protectors/dp/B000JE9LD4/ref=sr_1_2?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1340007844&sr=1-2&keywords=computer+surge+protector

Better surge protectors work by "redirecting" the surge into a ground, and thus many good ones have an additional eye-washer-grounding wire attached to the plug-in that should be installed into the center screw hole of your outlet face-plate on the wall. Surges last from a mere millisecond to a mite nano-second. Thus using two as a piggy back setup allows the added protection as the surge hits, redirecting power and any surge getting through in that fraction of a second is redirected by the additional staged protector.

When it comes to longevity of your computer by running it all the time or shutting it down, its a toss up for you if you wish to know the truth. If you work an 8hr day, and live in a region where electricity is $.11 - $.14 per Kilowatt hour, then you are looking at a whole $1.96 for a full days electricity in most situations, enough to run your computer for a week most likely since your power supply on a standard Dell or HP or eMachine or Compaq is only from 350W to 500W. That's "IF" and we mean "IF" your computer is running wide open using every bit of energy it can suck, all day long.

I figure I use about $.75 a day on mine and to me its worth it. Put your computer on standby, hibernate, or sleep mode and you use even less power and preserve many of the internal component's integrity.
The main thing is, COOL THAT COMPUTER! Shop around and find the sites you like for case fans and add-on mods to help keep that baby cool!

Then think VOLTAGE and buy some good surge protectors!

If you are home a lot, protect those capacitors and avoid turning the computer on or off all the time, especially in colder climates or constantly air conditioned environments.

Remember that most chips and computer components operate between 30*C and 60* C. That's from 80+*F to a whopping 140+*F. A cold boot from normal environmentally controlled room temps is a drastic change when comparing health of computer components. Someone said that swelling of computer components and fracturing or line cracks in system buses is not an issue. Believe me when I say many a computer has failed from a swollen or overheated capacitor, or a video or bridge chip losing its structural integrity and weld due to inadequate cooling and overheating. Just Google "laptop repair" and see how many ads are out there from computer repair shops, for resetting copper chip heat transfer plates and re-soldering chips onto the boards.

So use common sense, use the software tools, programs and utilities included in most operating systems to put your computer into energy saving and parts wise sleep modes and enjoy a longer life, less expensive computer experience.

Well, I used to leave my computer on all the time, and it would go to sleep when
I wasn't using it for an extended period of time.

However, that computer eventually overheated. So now I have the sister computer
to that one, (same age and such) which was always shut down each day.

I now shut it down each day when I'm not using it for an extended time, such as
going to work for the day.

In any power system, just the fact of being "ON" (whether sleeping or not)
creates heat and shortens the life of the system. So, you should shut it off
if you are going to be leaving it alone for 8 hours or so, because it IS using the
machine and it IS being heated during that time. (Now, some may say that the heat
created while in sleep mode is small, but it is still heat, and why have it if you're not using
it? )

It is a trade off.

Shutting down saves energy and the environment.

Shutting down causes expansion and contraction of components due to heat - early death, but in about 5-7 years from now.

Sleep/hibernate are there just for convenience only. They serve no real need except to satisfy lazy people.
Exception - office personnel that go to lunch. Sleep/hibernate can be of value for productivity.

Sleep/hibernate for the typical homeowner wastes loads of energy and it wasteful as well as maintains our energy dependence.

If you have 16Gb of ram, sleep/hibernate can take a LONG time to start/suspend.

Remember, sleep and such still allow your CPU to use about 100 watts of electricity. Not to mention maintaining power for ram and idle power to the hard drives.

Most times, unless I am doing a long download or something lengthy, I just shut down.

Sleep/Hibernate is as bad as a screensaver running. Only lazy people use them. How hard is it to reach out and press the OFF button to save some energy??

Most PC's are obsolete in 5 years. Turning on/off daily may shorten the lifespan to 5 years or so, just in time for it to wear out and replace it with something up to date.

Think of it like this -
Would you let your car idle all night long just because you *MIGHT* need it or turn it off?

What good is a car engine that lasts 20 years but the rest of the car rusts/wears out in 5?

You want your computer to become obsolete and worn out at the same time. That is how you get your money's worth.

Best for homeowners and non-24/7 businesses is to shut down at night unless doing maintenance or something really necessary.

If you aren't there to use it then why leave it running and making your expensive utility bill stay high??

Save some energy for your kids/grandkids

Zolar_1, you should check the accuracy of your info. Sleep and Hibernate are quite different. Hibernate is a complete power off state, but boots much quicker because it doesn't have to go through the long boot-up process that a normal shutdown/startup endures, it just read the stored memory file and puts it back into memory. Occasionally, a computer will need the normal start-up, but the rest of the time it just saves time to hibernate. So you shouldn't really put hibernate in same class as sleep. Other than that, the rest of your opinion is accurate.

Hi

In the vast majority of cases, failure of any electrical item is when the item is switched on or switched off. The sudden surge of or removal of power is a predominant cause of component failure.

Many readers here will have witnessed this when observing the failure of a light globe. Light globes fail most of the time when they are switched on and occasionally on switching off.

This light globe has been on for most of its life http://www.centennialbulb.org/

The best option to extend the life of an electrical device including pcs is to leave the item on. Of course this is not always practical.

The slightly improved option (for the pc) is to have the HD spin down to help maintain a good MTBF on the drive. The components within the drive (other than the motor) will still be powered (low power usually) and this helps prevent the failure of the on/off power cycle.

regards

Peter

I work with 6 or more minimized Word 2007 documents, on my desktop Vista pc, I maximize one or more frequently to revise a file.
when I shut down, all the Word documents are closed by pc. When I reboot, I have to retrieve these documents from a list presented to me automatically. This takes time I don't want to spend. Is there a fast way to keep the minimized documents open? I would hibernate overnight if it works well for using Word..

We have several data centers with equipment that has been running since 1994. Really! With very few power cycles.
Our biggest concerns were power cycling for system infrastructure maintenance. When the power goes off, it's the most stressful to components. We have storage and hardware techs standing by when power will be interrupted.

I had a very conservative friend who went through a few PC's because he turned them on and off every time he used it. He thought he was saving money on his electric bill. Well, it cost him in a new PC every few years. Mother boards, disks, and ram were the failure points from power cycling.

So with a good small UPS, surge protector, and using sleep mode, your could have equipment that last 10+ years.

Dear AG,
I appreciate your concern - the life of PC and it is right perspective.
Shut down is the right answer especially when you are not under any compulsion
to use it for several hours - I mean minimum of 8 to 12 hours. Shutdown the PC means you are not over-heating it when it is in ideal condition and thereby less tearing & wearing (depreciation). Whatever the circumstances may be a PC is in functioning mode when it is in Sleep Mode or hibernate position - for instant wakeup whenever you need it. So for all practical purposes in both these two conditions PC is under constant use resultant; PC's life is shortening. In my view; better shut it down when not in use even for 0ne or two hours.
Mohan S Negi

Typically, I always put my PC into 'Hibernate' mode to save power, for when I'm away from my desk for a long time, as well as for overnight. Occasionally I will shut the PC completely down, usually when there's an update that requires a restart. Other than that, I'm connected to a UPS via a surge strip - double protected? Actually, it's never been a concern, but maybe I've just been lucky regarding surges, or those strips actually work.

I do see that my USB ports are still active in hibernate mode, and that must draw some power, but nowhere near the current drawn during full-on running. I choose hibernate because it takes far less time for the PC to reboot than when I shut it down completely. From hibernate, my PC is up and running in about 15 seconds, as opposed to 90 seconds after a complete shutdown.

I've never really used 'Sleep' mode, except for at work, when I"m away from my desk, and I want to 'lock' my PC (it's set up to require a password to restore from 'Sleep' mode).

Are you the energy police? It takes less energy to run your PC in sleep mode than our President uses on one of his idiotic trips he takes on AIRFORCE ONE!!!! So sleep is the way to go dude. You need the updates. The newer PC's have energy star notifications on them as well.
ZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Never noticed a difference. Wife coming from work environment always leaves hers on. I turn off.
How many have had computers breakdown can really point to shutdown, off/on, sleep, hibernate etc. as cause.
Heat is the biggest killer of computers, especially laptops.
Most businesses of any size have computer(s) on 24/7 for other reasons than longevity of equipment.
The enormous amount of all kinds of electrical equipment in standby mode is a waste of recourses and is an environmental detriment.

Except when I do cleaning, upgrades and it has to be turned off.
Before retiring I did networking as well as hardware installs and repair at a major bank corp.
This included all servers, work stations and printers. Nothing was ever turned off, that was their SOP. The only thing I saw crap out was a couple printers, never a server or work station. That was over a 7 year period. Nothing special about the equipment as most of it came from CDW and Dell.
This has worked for me on my home setup so I will keep doing that until someone can prove to me that I am doing it wrong.
The only thing I turn off is the monitor every night.