Can it damage your computer to switch off the power instead of shutting down via the start menu?

Question

My husband has a bad habit of just flicking the power off on the computer and not shutting down properly.

I just want to know what sort of damage that could be doing.

Can anyone tell me?

Answer 1

If you cut the power to the computer, it can't finish writing its cached data to the disk (to speed things up, when it's busy the computer holds some stuff that should be written on disk in memory temporarily on its way to the disk). So you may lose what you were just doing... Also some files may get damaged if it happens to have actually been writing when you cut the power. Plus in some circumstances the disks leave their heads in the wrong place and can cause real physical disk damage - good for scaring him, but modern disks will park their heads properly in less time than it takes the disk to slow down, so the heads fly properly and don't crash.

If you cut the power, the system knows next time it restarts that you've not let it shut down last time and it will scan the disk to look for files that might have been broken by what you did... and repair those it can. In win98 and before it would hold you up while it did this and not start Windows till it had finished. In win2000 onwards it does it in the background, so the computer runs slow for a while (maybe 15 mins, depends on the speed of everything and how big the disk is).

BUT

and it's a big but... if you have a modern computer the power switch isn't really a power switch. From win2000 onwards on these computers (I think it's ones with atx motherboards and power supplies... so pretty well every new desktop since about 2000) pushing the power switch is just a signal to the power supply to shut down... and the OS catches the signal and does an emergency write of its cached data, so it will generally not be writing. So all your husband is *probably* risking is losing what he is working on.

Oh, if your husband flicks the wall power out or uses a power switch outside the computer, he's risking both sorts of data damage and the computer will insist on scanning the disk at startup. If it's a cheap switch he's also risking physical damage to the computer's power supply.

Answer 2

It can cause a short to the hard drive which could give it a bad cluster in the zero sector. If your zero sector of a hard drive gets corrupted then it will not find the operating system and the hard drive is basically toasted. It can have the same effect as a power glitch/outage on the computer.

Try this go into the
Start
Control Panel
Power Options
Advanced Tab
When I press the power button on my computer
NOW PULL DOWN THE MENU BELOW IT AND CHANGE IT TO
STANDBY or HIBERNATION

The next time he accidently powers off via the button it will go into the Standby mode or Hibernation mode. Standby mode will not save any unsaved programs that are open (like if you had a word document open) and you could lose part of the file. Hibernation kind of works in the same way but it records all that your PC is doing onto the hard drive before powering into hibernation mode. Hope this helps

Answer 3

Don't listen to these other people. Take it from me, I've taken classes for this stuff and I can tell you right now, If you press the power button on the tower and Windows starts shutting down and you can actually "see" it shutting down, then you are not doing anything harmful to your computer. However, if you actually "switch" off the power on the power supply, I wouldn't recommend that. You're cutting off power to the computer so fast, you'll end up frying your motherboard, hard drive, power supply... etc. Best to just shut down via the Start menu.

Answer 4

Nothing will happen. However it is not a good practice. It is called as bad shutdown.It is not advisable, even though no harm would be caused to the O.S. It is feared that the hard disk, may be damaged or bad sectors may occur. It is always safe to use UPS, where we have erratic power supply.

Answer 5

It can create some clusters on your Harddisk, and after a many frequent shutoffs Your data will got undefined and your OS can not recognize it and it will also wash out the settings you have made each time the dates and times will get different with actual work done, all that will be the cause for it.

There is 100% loss and no profit, if shutting it through the button unless it will get properly damage that you can't kick or kept it in your home.
he he,
Plz I request you to tell him to properly shut down it beacause I am really hurts whenever a man is careless about computers, I loves them.

Answer 6

i had a computer that was really fast and i just flicked the switch to turn it of . but know my computer is slow if you just flick the switch you will loose unsaved data and this will cause your computer to go slow. now i got a new computer and i turn it off from the start menu and its fast.

Answer 7

If its windows xp den its ok as it stil does the same shut down process but if its an earlier version of windows it will damage if u do it all the time.

Answer 8

it will cause programs to loose data that may help it restart , for example your title page is usualy first to get confused,its not advisable continued flicking power of will cause it to mm malfunction.yikes

Answer 9

yeah, thats not good for the computer..... it doesnt allow it to save system settings or turn off right

Answer 10

I don't think this will cause any damage.If this is true, then after a couple of power outages, your computer is kaput.