How to shut down computer

Well it depends, when I go out or will not use the computer for long periods of time I leave it on sleep mode. If I were going on a vacation like for a week, I'd shut it down. But since I am on the computer every day I just leave it on. =p

/my view

It is not a good idea to leave it on all the time Turning off the system is usually best to prolong

hard drive life.Most computers'hard disks are simply not designed for continous operation,besides windows operating systms excute various important house keeping tasks during shut down and startup another good reason for turning off a system

Ahh the age old question. Well one could take the other stance that the constant turning on and off the computer does more bad than good as it puts more stress on the componets with the spinup and heating and cooling.

I always say what ever makes you comfortable is what you should do.   :smileywink:

I too do not like standby or hibernation.

I do leave my machines on all the time except for if I take a longer than a weekend vacation.

Case and point... my Inspiron 8000 Laptop... has been with me since 2000

It has always been left on... before when I took it on trips, it stayed on in hibernate mode...

The only time it has been shut down has been for rebooting and to change the keyboard (was sticking) once and waiting for a Hard Drive (the original HDD crashed after 7 years) via mail.

It is now being used by my 9 year old son, who uses it to surf YouTube and play a few simple games on it plus maybe a little homework when he wants to ;)

Now all my PCs and Lappys are running 24/7 at maximum (100%) CPU capacity Folding@Home ;)

I'd say leave it on !!!

Peace

I remember back in the "old days", hehe, people used to always say to leave your PC turned on, hardware stress and all that, but to be quite honest with you, I have never left mine on constantly and have never had any problems from shutting it down.  I don't put mine in standby because I have a cat that gets into everything.  So I just turn mine off, saves a little power too.

Could not agree more. I usually turn mine on and off a least once a day. The only time i leave it on is over the weekend if I am home.

I never use standby or hibernate on a desktop. They were designed for laptops and cause more issues with desktops then worth it.

This is and has been the question for years. If you ask Microsoft they will recomend leaving it on all the time so that you can utilize Auto Update. At work we leave all the computers on all the time.

Here is an example. My girlfriend and I both have XPS 410's, mine is about 8 months older than hers. I believe in leaving it on all the time unless I am going out of town for a few days. She turns hers off every night, starts it in the morning, uses it for about 30 minutes and shuts it down before going to work. I have had no problems with my computer hardware wise and she has had a few HDD failures.  My mother does not shut her computer off but instead puts it in Hibernate when she is not using it and she has had no trouble.

I did set my drives to power off after sitting idle for 2 hours. The monitor shuts off after 20 minutes. I have even been known to leave my Inspiron 1720 powered on for days at a time.

Just because I believe that leaving it on is the best for me does not mean that is the best sollution for everyone. Read through what everyone has said here and make the desision that works best for you.

I hope this helps

I leave mine on 24/7 and only reboot when necessary.

I shut off my PC's everynight.

http://www.vistax64.com/vista-news/173287-30-biggest-technology-myths-exposed.html

Repeated on-off cycles reduce the useful life of the PC
While it is true that certain components of your PC have a fixed number of start-stop cycles, those numbers are high enough not to cause worry. Microchips (including the CPU and those on the motherboard), CRT monitors and hard disks especially, have a rated number of times they can be turned on and off.
Shutting the PC down when its use is not required for an hour or more will save power and even reduce component wear and tear. For example, for hard disks, this number is 50,000 or more. So, even if you switch the hard disk off and on 10 times a day, after three years you would be close to 10,000 cycles, five times fewer than the rated number.

________________________________________
XPS 630i Black
Q6600 @ 3.00 Ghz
4GB OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2-800
Nvidia GeForce 8800GT
640 GB Raid 0 HD's
X-Fi PCI Sound Card
ATI Theater 650 TV Tuner
19 in 1 Memory card reader w/Bluetooth
Vista Premium SP1
Samsung 24" 2493HM LCD
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XPS 420
Q6600 @ 2.40 Ghz
4 GB 800MHZ
Nvidia GeForce 8800GT
750 GB HD
19 in 1 Memory card reader w/Bluetooth
Vista Ultimate x64 SP1
Dell 22" 2208WFP Ultra Sharp

I leave my computers on 24/7/365 at home and at work.  They get rebooted as necessary for updates, upgrades etc...  I have Mac's and PC's, laptops and desktops; all have been running great.  I do not set a screensaver nor use hibernate, sleep, CPU or HDD managment (except the Mac's...they sleep and wake up well...).  I even disable the power managment for the network cards and USB devices.  I do have the monitor set to turn off after 2 hrs of inactivity.

Of course I have Folding@Home working on my XPS 400 at home all of the time.

My mom has a Dell Dimension computer the same age as my XPS 400.  She turns it on when she needs it, may leave it on until she goes to bed.  Otherwise, she shuts it down when she is done.  Her computer is running with no problems. I guess it's user choice...

Carl Belawske, CTS

Audio/Visual Technician

Finger Lakes Health

using a XPS 720 for videoediting