Have ALWAYS shut down before going to bed every night.  It stays on all day for both my wife and me. Whether we agree or not, I do believe that starting it up helps load all the proper drivers the way they are supposed to be loaded.  To attest to this belief, I notice that even simple RESTARTS during the day helps solve any issues I might be having because of the numerous travels I have made through all kinds of websites throughout the day.

I often just do a PROPHYLACTIC restart before flying P3d every day because by the time I'm ready to fly, I've already visited numerous sites as has my wife.  I just like to start clean before a long flight.  I've found (right or wrong) that my flights are more trouble free after a restart.  Thus, shutting down at night with all the complexities we have NOW in 2024 on the internet and other programs, makes a lot of sense to me.  For me...it works!

Stan

Always sleep, unless I know I won't use it, then it's off. 

I always turn off my PCs (both home desktop and work laptop) for a couple reasons:

-Saves power.  I remember at one point I had a game console and PC both in sleep mode and my power bill was noticeably higher.  It isn't crazy but it is noticeable. 

-Modern PCs boot in seconds.  It isn't like the old days where a reboot takes several minutes. 

-General Windows health.  Windows 10/11 has gotten a lot more stable than past versions, but Windows is still Windows.  A clean reboot is still your best bet for a stable system.  Who knows what random thing updated in the background that may or may not be working?  With so many devices needing bloated drivers that are constantly updating, better to keep those clean. 

I never use the sleep feature anymore.  I just disable it on all my Windows computers.  Now that SSDs are standard, everything boots so quickly now. 

3 hours ago, spilok said:

Have ALWAYS shut down before going to bed every night. 

 

But do you switch off, or if no wall switch, unplug from the mains, so PSU and thus PC, is totally powered down? 

I notice quite a few people are saying they shut down, but not clarifying if it's off at the wall. 

If not off at the wall, then there is still a modicum of power to the PSU capacitors and board. There's off, and then there's OFF! 

Edited June 4, 20242 yr by martin-w

I had a very expensive computer destroyed by a lightning strike that hit a tree across the the street from my house when I wasn’t home. It was turned off, but surge currents induced in my house wiring got in anyway. It damaged everything - PSU, GPU, motherboard etc.

Since thunderstorms can pop up almost any time in summer, when I am not using my computer, I not only turn it off, but disconnect all external connections: the power cord, mouse, monitor and Ethernet cable. If thunderstorms are approaching while I am using it, I shut it down and do the full disconnection.

3 hours ago, martin-w said:

 

But do you switch off, or if no wall switch, unplug from the mains, so PSU and thus PC, is totally powered down? 

I notice quite a few people are saying they shut down, but not clarifying if it's off at the wall. 

If not off at the wall, then there is still a modicum of power to the PSU capacitors and board. There's off, and then there's OFF! 

No.  Just turn it off. I just do the OFF, not the super OFF.

Timothy Leary had something to say about turning it on or off that might be relevant...

... then again, maybe not 🤔

I shutdown Windows and turn the PSU switch off whenever I'm not using the PC. On occasions when the PC or PCs (I have 5 in total, though only 2 currently in use) is/are on for extended periods (all day or overnight if downloading large files), it's scary to look at my Smart Meter's readout (aka Home Energy Monitor) and seeing how much electricity a modern powerful PSU uses (after all, I expect most of us are using 800W plus PSUs for flight simming). I switch the monitors off with their power switches, but rarely at the mains, so as they are push buttons rather than click switches, it's possible they are in pseudo standby rather than 100% off. Main mouse and keyboard use Logitech Flow, so switch between PCs, using Bluetooth, so I switch them off too to preserve their batteries.

Frankly, it infuriates me to walk past vast office buildings at night to see banks of computers all switched on with screensavers running (and the lights on) when everyone went home hours before.😡