To me, it all comes down to how much you use your computer.
If you use your computer once or more a day, putting it to sleep between uses is a good option. If you use it less than every other day, you may want to shut it off. If you don’t use it but don’t want to get rid of it, box it up to protect it from dust & store it in a temperature-controlled dry place.
If you want to see how I came to that conclusion, or perhaps you want to understand a little deeper, please read on!
Should You Put Your Computer to Sleep or Shut it Down?
If you aren’t sure which is the best option for you, let’s sort out the concerns.
Power Consumption – When a computer is in sleep mode, it uses ever so slightly more power than when it is shut down. Don’t be fooled, though, even when it’s shut down; the machine consumes power. So you would have to shut it down and then unplug it to prevent it from using any power at all. Sleep mode is designed to get you using your computer as quickly as possible while consuming the least amount of power possible.
Updates – All computers need some time to perform their updates. Most people find it convenient to leave their computer in sleep mode, let it wake itself to perform the updates automatically at night, and then put itself back to sleep. If you shut down your computer, it can’t do that, and when you first start it up, it may try and update itself right away.
This might cause it to perform very poorly or require restarts while you’re trying to accomplish something. If you set it to a schedule where it performs its updates at night, but then you always turn it off at night, the computer can never complete the update process.
Security Concerns – By leaving your computer on overnight, if you don’t have the proper protections in place, you’re leaving it available to digitally prodded for vulnerabilities all night. The positive thing is you will be getting your updates, so that’s a plus. But there is an extra step you can take to protect your computer.
First, verify that your internet modem has a built-in router. If it doesn’t, pick up an inexpensive one at your local electronics shop. These routers also act as basic but effective firewalls protecting your network from the internet. You can read more about it in my article here.
Other measures include a good anti-virus program, strong passwords, and applying updates.
Performance – Sleep mode is designed to improve performance on your computer when in use by shutting off almost everything but allowing it to return to the state you left it in quickly. Shutting down a computer reduces performance since the machine has to go through the full boot sequence during power-up.
Personally, I leave my computers on all of the time, and they slip in and out of sleep mode as needed. That means I get the updates I need, and I get quick access to the computer. In addition, I protect the computers on my network using a series of routers, so I’m confident it’s secure.
Should You Shut Your Computer Off When Not Using it?
If I were the type of person that only used my computer once or twice a week for an hour or so, I would probably shut it off between uses. The monitor goes to sleep when you turn off the computer, but you could turn it off too. That would mean that I would have to give it a chance to check for and apply updates when I turned it back on.
However, if I used it infrequently, I could easily plan for that and turn it on an hour or two earlier than I needed it. That should be more than enough time to check for updates, apply them, and complete any necessary restart cycles.
How to Store your Computer
Storing a computer is such a big topic that I wrote an entire article on how to do so properly. The short version is, you need to go through the steps of preparing your computer for storage and packing it up appropriately for where you’re going to store it.
The same goes for any electronics that you’re going to store. You need to consider the environment it will be in, if you will move it from location to location, and how long you intend to store it. If possible, I always save the original packaging for my computers and other electronics. That allows me to protect them while in storage with confidence.
I also store them in the same kind of environment that I would typically use the devices in. This simplifies things a lot. If you cannot do this, you may want to read my storage article, where I get into a lot more detail.
How to Leave Your Computer on All the Time
The process I use for leaving my computer on all the time is:
- I choose a strong password for my computer. Not something that can be guessed easily by anyone on my social media accounts.
- I set my updates to be applied automatically at night. It doesn’t matter what time you pick as long as it’s convenient for your schedule.
- I set my computer to go to sleep after 20 or 30 minutes of inactivity. You can use a different timeframe, that just works for me.
- I verify that I have a router between my computer and the internet and if not, I set up my network with a router like I describe in my article here.
Does Shutting Down a Laptop Damage it?
No, shutting down a laptop doesn’t do damage to it. It’s more convenient to put it to sleep or put it into hibernation mode if equipped, but shutting it off doesn’t hurt anything. Some people believe that you are causing it to unnecessarily heat up and cool off by turning it on and off, which is called thermal cycling.
Thermal cycling, when extreme, can cause metals to fatigue and break, which is the root concern. That this might happen or that you’re somehow encouraging this to happen. Your laptop is designed to limit the impacts of thermal cycling such that it will have a full lifespan whether you like to turn it on and off, use the sleep mode, or hibernation.
Rest assured, this has been taken into account by the computer engineers who designed your laptop, and you have nothing to worry about.