Just curious what everyone does? Also the longevity factor. Is it good to shut down before bed??? Is it bad to leave it on in sleep mode??? BLAH

my first pc always left it on.. but now i always shut it off. i heard shutting it off might be more unhealthy but im not sure.

Always shut off your P.C! Let the electricity leave the capacitor and give yourself the sense of release after a long day of work/sleep.

Also helps with longevity and the risk of a random lighting bolt hitting your home and frying your computer

-Krawk

That makes sense. I’m gonna start doing that always now.

it should not make any sense, disregard the advice. do not always shut down your PC. it's not accurate to say the beneficial part of shutting down your PC is draining the capacitors, they actually have a cycle rating.. not that it would be a factor in this. just don't overvolt the capacitors and don't overheat them and it's fine. keep the dust off.

they then said "also helps with longevity", but that's basically the same thing as talking about being nice to the capacitors (it's not just for their mood), and finally "risk of a random lightning bolt" -- this is not true, you would want to unplug your PC to truly protect yourself from this (or good surge protection hardware)

the answer is with a modern PC it barely matters. in most cases for mainstream hardware shutting the machine down is technically better, but it's such a small difference that you don't need to concern yourself with it. some hardware sees more wear from frequent cycles more than constant use, but that likely does not apply here.

Got it. Thank you. I don’t know much about these things so I was just curious if I was hurting it if I left it on .