Does turning off your computer (instead of putting it on standby or hibernation) help it run better?

Question

Does it make a difference at all?

Answer 1

No. Actually setting it to standby helps you get up and running faster.

Answer 2

Disconnecting it from the wall protects it from power surges.

Not spinning the disk makes the disk last longer (however, spinning it up and down also wears it out).

However, as far as I know, a disconnected laptop that is regularly kept in hibernation mode instead of shutdown will have the same life expectancy. I guess bad things happen if you let it drain the batteries to the end, but assuming you turn it on before then, it should be about the same.

HOWEVER, if you leave your laptop in standby mode and something bad happens, what ever memory it had in disk buffers won't get written to disk. That is, you may leave your system in a corrupt state.

Or to put it another way: If a bad thing happens to the computer while it isn't in use, its worse if it was in standby mode than just powered off.

Answer 3

Not really. If by standby you mean everything shuts down and flashing light then its pretty much has the same effect on the hardware. I used to keep my pc on standby but stopped for 2 reasons. One, theres always a risk of it crashing out of standby and then you lose your work as when u shutdown all settings are saved. And 2 if the power goes out i know that i dont have to worry about my computer. But again power consumption and the physical effects are pretty much the same. I do prefer hibernation over standby though as its safer.

Answer 4

True it gets up faster becuase u do not have to go trought the boot process but going through that can be important becuase it may have loaded somthing wrong last time it will correct it going throught boot

Because when u turn it off and then start it up again it reboots the system and starts everything fresh and your ram is clear

when u put it in stand by stuff stays on the ram thus slowing down your computer

u should turn it and off about once a day if u do a lot of important stuff like work related stuff but if u just surf the web u will not need to reboot it every day

and for the fire hazard not rly it is a myth because it is just as likly to start on fire when u are using it if anything it is more likly to happen when u are using because more power is running to the computer but this is very unlikly because of the safety stuff with PS's

Answer 5

Turning off your computer won't make it run better but it will save a little energy.

The theory behind hibernation and standby mode is to make your system boot up quicker. The reason that it boots quicker is because it is never actually turning off. When your PC hibernates it keeps note of everything that is presently running on your PC and stores it in a file (Hiberfil.sys) which is located in the root of your "C" drive. It is a hidden file so unless your system is configured to show hidden files you won't be able to see it.
As your system continues to go into hibernation It turns off your monitor, hard drive, and other moving parts of your system. It then puts the motherboard into sleep mode. When you turn your system back on it reads the hiberfil.sys file and puts you right back to where you were when you put the system into hibernation mode. Your system is not actually booting up but rather simply picking up where you left off. It does save a little time and some wear and tear on your system's hardware but the power savings is minimal.

Hope this helps,
Captain Computer

Answer 6

Not at all. This is a machine and need rest too. Turning on makes ur CPU's battery life weaker. When u do so many heavy works in computer then the processor gets hotter. Then it is safe to give ur pc rest. Power consuming is a huge factor. If u r using windows xp then in stand by mode is a bit helper for power consumption. But if u use windows vista, use low power state to save power. But both those cases have problems. If ur hardware requirement does not match these instances, u will not be able to get back from black state. So be careful using standby or the next one...

Answer 7

I don't think it makes a difference at all.. except maybe when the power bill comes around. Personally, I would either just leave it running or use the standby/hibernation mode.

Answer 8

1st: No; hibernation or standby is faster than a full power up.

Also; turning your computer on and off actually shortens it's life:
the chips in your computer have really time wires connecting them. These expand and contract with heat as you switch your comp on and off. They eventually break and will cause your system to fail eventually.
For longest life never switch it on, the next best option is never switch it off

Answer 9

Yes. When you put a computer onto hibernate, you are not clearing the Ram, as the data gets transferred to the hard drive and restored back to ram when the computer wakes up.

Shut down your computer regularly and it will run more efficiently. It will clear the RAM which is one of the main bottlenecks on a computer.

Answer 10

depends on how much you use it.If you use it at least once a day its best to leave it on in standby. if you go days without using it then shut it off. The worst thing for anything electronic is heating up / cooling down, repetively. also if your on broadband, you wont't get autoupdates if you shut your PC off if theyre enabled.