How often do you shut down your laptop?

Just curious, how often do you shut down your laptop completely? Usually, I just close mine and put it to sleep, like at night, and during the day while I'm at work. Generally, I only really restart it when I'm doing system configuration or instlalling/uninstalling software. I do just shut it down for the night every 5-7 days or so, just to give it a chance to get a fresh reboot. When I'm at home, it's always plugged in, so I don't use the battery much.

 

Two or three times a week. To cleanup and install updates...

I don't mind shutting down, but I don't do it because of dozens of opened Firefox tabs, windows etc...

 

I hibernate it usually. And shut down every 2-3 days. Mostly due to updates.

 

so whats the best shut down ratio to maintain high performance? btw i shut down friday night and boot it up the next day, so once a week

 

Once a week is fine, every few days is fine, too.

You just have to do it every once in a while, give the OS a chance to reload, and clean up any processes that might have gone funky.

 

at home i shut down once a week for updates etc, but at school i shut down everyday simply because i dont need it on.

 

Mine is pretty much on 24/7 unless i install a program that requires a reboot.

 

I turn mine off every night when i go to sleep and turn it on during my first cup of coffee in the morning. It's on AC power 90% of the time, but i never take out my battery except for cleaning the machine. I don't know why i turn it off instead of using the sleep mode really, i guess it's an old habit from the time these machines didn't have sleep modes yet (boy i'm getting old... ) Oh, and a little to let the AC adapter cool off too i remember now. I noticed that even when the laptop is off the adapter still gets a little warm with all notebooks i've had so far, so i take the power plug out off the wall socket at night too. Still most of my AC adapters died after three years of use though(my notebooks are turned on for 14 hours a day, 6 days a week). Anyone knows if it's better to leave it plugged in perhaps, or is this normal lifetime for an AC adapter with this kind of use?

 

my poor presario r3000 gets shutdown only when it absolutely needs to be ie when it runs out of battery or when there is a process which bothers me but won't die and when i can't stand anymore microsoft's update dialog box which tells me to restart. otherwise it's all sleep & wake-up for me even when i am driving to another city for work.

 

Storm3016 I think I have the same computing habits as you lol. I turn my laptop off every night.

Once and a while I'll leave it on if it's downloading but 90% of the time its off at night - I figure why not conserve some energy if it's not being used.

 

I shut down every night as well. Like some have said, probably an old computing habit from when computers that were left 24/7 would die before you wanted it to.

Storm - something tells me your adapters get a mild shock/surge from whenever you plug and unlug it. Doing that everyday, coupled with physically stressing the cable, could explain why they don't last longer.

Just a thought.

Paolo

 

i malways shut down my computer.every time i am done, its shut down time!i really dont download much, and just hang around the internet when i go on(i am only 14).i never really use sleep or hibernate.i guess its a habit.

 

I use the hibernate feature a lot. My current laptop is old and takes a long time to reboot, so hibernating allows for a much faster startup, without wasting power keeping it on. I only shutdown when things are getting sluggish (rarely happens) or for updates/installing programs.

 

Hmm I have an older dell lappy that ran Debian (server crap) without turning off or rebooting for almost 2 years, until the HD died and it had no choice!


Since then I have a dedicated box for nix so now it runs on windows. With windows it reboots every 1-3 weeks. Which ain't bad for windows.

As long as you keep em clean (dust n ish) and cool all is generally well. I might add that the quality of software you run will also determine how long it can last before it needs a reboot (in nix and windows).

I plan to treat my new lappy similar.

MD

 

Its always much better to shutdown the system to let the system rest because if ever you put it in hybernation or sleep the system is still running and it still eats up energy and to save energy much better to turn it off and to prevent over heating of systems that would just cause the system to blow up.

 

Hmm.. I've always just shut down my computer every night, but seeing as many people here don't I may change my ways.

Since it's sort of relevant - what's the difference between sleep/hibernate, and which one is it when you close the lid of the laptop? (You can tell I always just shutdown)

 

Hibernate and Standby are two different sleep options that Windows XP offers. Hibernate saves an image of your desktop, including all open windows and files. Then it powers down your computer just as if you had turned it off. When you turn your computer on again, your windows and files are open just as you left them.

Standby is a more traditional sleep mode, as it reduces the power your computer uses to almost nothing. When you select Standby, the power to your screen, hard drive, and peripheral devices is cut. However, the power to the computer's memory (RAM) is maintained so your open files stay open.

 

so how long can a 9cell lithium ion battary stay on standby before dieing? I havent test it before, right now my laptop stays plugged in, but soon i need it to bring to school so i cant have it pluged it all the time.

 

i shut down when i go out, but keep it on when im not using it. i never use sleep or hibernate because when i turn it on the wifi doesn't seem to work

i want this guy to rest

 

I shutdown almost every time done using it,but lately I've been setting it to hibernate when I know I'll be back in a couple of hours or so.

 

during hibernation, the notebook power is off just the same as doing a powerdown. the difference is when you resume from hibernate, the os loads an image from the disk instead of restarting which takes a shorter amount of time and it gets you to a state just before hibernate.

standby does consume power but much less than when the system is on.

 

I put my 1420 asleep when I transport it anywhere but I typically only shut it down twice a week or so.