Eternal question. Is it worth completely shutting down your PC?

Question

Power Supply

Good afternoon.
An interesting question has ripened, which tortured the old people, but is not completely clear to the newcomers. Is it worth it to completely de-energize the PC after work (for the night)? I read about standby power, read about the fact that "rest" is useful for the computer. But he couldn't understand. And if you still need it, then how best to do it: using the toggle switch on the power supply or turning off the surge protector. I emphasized the surge protector also because the monitor is included in it and therefore I wonder if this will harm it.
Thank you for attention.

Answer 1

I read about the fact that "rest" is useful for the computer.

Any electronic equipment is designed to work 24/7/365 under 100% load, unless otherwise specified.

Answer 2

Depending on the quality of the electricity in your outlet.
In a thunderstorm, in houses with poor protection or simply an improperly organized power supply network, strong interference will go through the network.
There are places in Russia where it is not recommended to turn on a refrigerator or a computer without a normal power stabilizer, and they still burn, because the last time the power grids were repairing lines was probably back in the Soviet Union.
Those. if a short-term increase in voltage flies to you, and you have a cheap power supply, then someone will burn with a high chance. According to pure probability theory, the less time your computer is on the network, the less likely it is that something will happen to it.
If everything is fine with the power supply, you do not need to turn off the computer from the outlet.
ps also for the paranoid, by hacking your router, an attacker can send a wake-up-onlan signal and turn on the computer, having hacked it earlier (this setting must be enabled in bios), do his dirty work and turn it off .... by turning off the computer from the network, you will not give the attacker a single chance.
PS, my desktop computers work for years without even turning off

Answer 3

The question here is how normal the power is in the outlet. If it is often turned off, and unstable (maybe more than 250 and less than 180), then you should turn it off. If it does not jump, and there are no accidents, then let it be turned on.
In the duty room, the computer consumes a little, and in addition, the clock battery (CMOS) on the motherboard is not consumed. If the computer is not turned off, it can last 10 years. Turn off at night - in a couple of years you will need to buy a new one. A trifle, and when he dies at the wrong time, it’s unpleasant. Some computers are buggy when its voltage drops to 2.7 ... 2.5V, or does not start at all.
If a thunderstorm is likely, you need to turn it off, but not with a toggle switch, but pull the plug out of the outlet. In this case, the monitor with the computer should remain powered on in one extension cord, with a common third wire, and the extension cord should already be pulled out of the outlet. Also turn off the local area and everything that goes to the sound system. Sometimes it can fly over the keyboard or mouse wire, or something else via USB, but you have to be paranoid to unhook it all.
As for the monitor, for the most part they consume little when they are on duty, BUT the capacitors on the power board are still energized, and they will fail faster if they are always on. It's the same with a PC PSU. True, there is not much difference, they will still deteriorate without tension, some earlier, some later. It will simply be either 2 years, or 5, or for quality 8-10 years.
In the end, everyone decides for himself. There is also the issue of fire safety - if the equipment is not in use, it must be de-energized. And at home, in addition, someone has cats who like to play with wires and gnaw at night ... And a lot of other factors. Yes, even if you pull the outlet back and forth every day, after six months it will already loosen up, and this threatens with serious problems, up to a fire. As for the issue of saving electricity - much more savings can be achieved by simply adjusting the brightness of the monitor. Initially, it costs 50% as a standard, and this is very bright, especially on new monitors (if it has not worked for 7-8 years), it is worth lowering it to 30 and it will be more comfortable for the eyes, and the consumption is less. And if the OS is not installed in Windows, which then downloads updates in the background, then the antivirus constantly does something, then something else loads the percent; and Linux/FreeBSD - and still it is possible to save on electricity. Especially if you set up energy saving.
The computer has already been told about "rest" - it can plow around the clock, they are designed for this. I kept a game server at home on a regular home computer for 7 years. All day long. And he didn't pay much for the light. One air conditioner in the summer eats up more in a week than a computer in a year.

Answer 4

There is no difference where to pull the toggle switch, with a monitor, of course, the option is interesting, but there is also a button on the monitor. In general, equipment most often fails not during operation, but at the moment of switching on / off.

Answer 5

The only reason to de-energize a computer is when the computer is somewhere in a dense place where power surges are possible, such as in a country house or in a rural area, with worn-out networks and broken wires. In this case, you should unplug it, instead of with the monitor and router.
In short, if you do not have a neighbor who has recently burned down something due to a network failure, you have nothing to fear.
The surge protector, known in everyday life as a "pilot", in the vast majority of cases is useless, it's just a tee with a button.

Answer 6

No, it's not worth it.
I turn off the toggle switch on the power supply when I wipe the case with a damp cloth, vacuum next to the PC, or wash the floor nearby.