Sleep vs Full Shut Down

[renohol]

I am in the habit of doing a full shut down, sometimes several times a day on my new Windows 7 Dell gaming rig. I have just heard that it is better for your HDD to just put the system to sleep. Is this hogwash? Do you fully shut down your PCs at night or everytime you get sick of the PC for a while or do you always just put it to sleep?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I dont do either, I just leave it running all the time. The thing is turning on your computer sends a little shock through the system thats usually negligable but could eventually wear down things ... And I also read the most common time for a HDD to fale is powering up.

Thing is sleep uses a lot more power and if the power goes out and youre not there you lose your system state (Its stored in the RAM). Theres also hibernation which stores the system state on the HDD although its slower. Not all computers have hibernation though

 

[renohol]

I dont do either, I just leave it running all the time. The thing is turning on your computer sends a little shock through the system thats usually negligable but could eventually wear down things ... And I also read the most common time for a HDD to fale is powering up.

Thing is sleep uses a lot more power and if the power goes out and youre not there you lose your system state (Its stored in the RAM). Theres also hibernation which stores the system state on the HDD although its slower. Not all computers have hibernation though

By system state are you refering to something called a "bios" I believe, not sure what a "bios" really is but if that dies is your PC screwed?

 

[Turner]

System state means what data is currently in memory. Hibernation saves this system state to the hard drive and powers the system down, much like a shutdown. Sleeping puts the machine into a low power state while keeping it 'active' (You can't use it, it's designed for extended times of lower power consumption, like overnight when you're sleeping) and brings it up quicker than a boot or a resume from hibernation.

And yes, if you're BIOS (Basic Input/Output System, the code that tells your computer how to start) dies, you're screwed.

 

[renohol]

System state means what data is currently in memory. Hibernation saves this system state to the hard drive and powers the system down, much like a shutdown. Sleeping puts the machine into a low power state while keeping it 'active' (You can't use it, it's designed for extended times of lower power consumption, like overnight when you're sleeping) and brings it up quicker than a boot or a resume from hibernation.

And yes, if you're BIOS (Basic Input/Output System, the code that tells your computer how to start) dies, you're screwed.

ty turner, so if u r away from your pc for an hour do u shut it down or put it to sleep?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Id rather put it to sleep.

 

[Souron]

Restarting frequently is a good idea at least on windows systems, because background tasks like svchost can build up, and tasks like explorer can suck up memory which it doesn't return back to the system when it doesn't need it any more. This can lead to slower operation.

For a short off time, sleep is probably most convenient. For extended periods of time, shutting down makes sense. Hibernate is convenient for laptops when you want to power down for an extended period but keep your windows open.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Restarting frequently is a good idea at least on windows systems, because background tasks like svchost can build up, and tasks like explorer can suck up memory which it doesn't return back to the system when it doesn't need it any more. This can lead to slower operation.

For a short off time, sleep is probably most convenient. For extended periods of time, shutting down makes sense. Hibernate is convenient for laptops when you want to power down for an extended period but keep your windows open.

Unless the power goes out or I have to dust the fans or something freezes up (Thats rare though) I usually only reboot once a month on Patch Tuesday.. My system runs pretty fine. The most recent problem I had was a blue screen when plugging in my new drive (Ive had that happen a few times I dont know what causes it) but when I rebooted it worked fine.

 

[Turner]

ty turner, so if u r away from your pc for an hour do u shut it down or put it to sleep?

I leave mine on.

Restarting frequently is a good idea at least on windows systems, because background tasks like svchost can build up, and tasks like explorer can suck up memory which it doesn't return back to the system when it doesn't need it any more. This can lead to slower operation.

For a short off time, sleep is probably most convenient. For extended periods of time, shutting down makes sense. Hibernate is convenient for laptops when you want to power down for an extended period but keep your windows open.

Define 'frequently'. I can go three weeks on my work compy before I need a reboot. This is on XP. I don't keep track of how long my personal machine are up.

 

[cardgame]

I've had my PC on for months before. No ill effects.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

The longest uptime I think Ive had was 3 months... Then we had a power outage. (In town, drunks are always running into poles or wild animals climb up telephone poles and electrocute themselves).

 

[Souron]

How frequently to restart is a matter of convenience, but the most visible effect of leaving the computer on for a while is the memory usage of background tasks, and by extension the over all memory usage which in MS Windows lingo is called the commit charge. A related metric, is the page faults per second, or page fault delta, which is how often your computer has to go the hard disk because of memory restrictions. These quantities go up rather slowly, but they generally do not decrease without a reboot for background tasks. Windows 7 has is better than previous windows iterations in this regard, but I'm not sure of the detail of it's effectiveness.

The other reason to reboot is because a lot of software is not well tested for long continuous use therefore applications can crash or have errors if you run the for a while. Rebooting frequently helps because it requires you to restart applications.

So never rebooting is a bad idea, and I have met people who don't (do?).

Personally I have a multi-boot system that I need to swich OS on often enough that I almost never reboot outside of that need.

 

[Skwink]

The only times I ever Shut Down is when I am taking my laptop somewhere. It's always asleep otherwise.

 

[innonimatu]

Restarting frequently is a good idea at least on windows systems, because background tasks like svchost can build up, and tasks like explorer can suck up memory which it doesn't return back to the system when it doesn't need it any more. This can lead to slower operation.

Not really. Absurd memory leaks in Windows have been a thing of the past for many years now. Well, in the system components, at least. There's no stopping atrocious programming in other applications.

 

[Zelig]

Not really. Absurd memory leaks in Windows have been a thing of the past for many years now. Well, in the system components, at least. There's no stopping atrocious programming in other applications.

I actually have more problems with Win7 than I do with Vista with long uptime periods.

Vista I only ever rebooted after patch Tuesday installs.

Win7 starts getting odd cpu prioritizing after about a week of uptime. (Usually the first thing I notice is that my music will start stuttering when I do cpu intensive tasks, but a quick log off/on fixes it.)