Every night, I put my computer to sleep. But should I be shutting it down every now and then? For example, maybe once a week or once a month?
Just curious to see this question answered from a Linux gamers’ perspective.
Rarely. My PC works fine when it’s left on and that’s good enough for me! It gets rebooted after updates but only ever switched off when I go away for a few days.
I am of the old school mindset that stress cycles kill components. So, much like the centennial light, I don’t turn off pc’s ever. As a result I’ve only ever had one hard component failure (not including HDDs) over 31 years. Less energy efficient? Absolutely! But I’ll trade that for component life even if it’s a placebo.
I grew up in the era of. PCs take forever to boot and sleep is good enough that when I turn it back on it’s still alive.
Laptop Sleep, desktop depends on when I use it last.
Always. When I’m not using my PC it’s turned off. I only turn it on when I’m using it, and then turn it off when I’m done. Yes, this includes things like going onto short shopping trips.
The only times I’ve let my PC on when I’m not directly using it is when it’s rendering something.
Never turn my PC off, regardless of OS. (Edit. under normal day to day operation. I only technically turn my PC off and unplug it on the rare occasions where I have to travel and be away from home for more than a couple days, and I turn off and unplug most my expensive electronics when I do so, partly as fire prevention partly to just protect them)
Introduces to much thermal and electrical stress for my taste, and most assuredly shortens life span of the system/components from my personal experience.
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If I’m leaving for more than 24 hours -> off
After any update where the distro equivalent of
needrestartsays something is using an old binary, I just reboot instead of restarting individual servicesI’m old. For me, a PC is like a TV or radio. When I’m done using it, I turn it off.
Which means saving my work and shutting it down. I don’t put it to sleep or standby. And I set my session manager to start a new session every time.
People who keep unsaved documents and hundreds of browser tabs open are weird. Use bookmarks!Turning your TV off and on frequently shortens its lifespan significantly, You know… Honestly, turning anything off and on frequently shortens its lifespans significantly, even lightbulbs.
The last TV I owned was a CRT in a wooden frame with several darts stuck in it, and it had lasted since the 90s.
Always gonna be someone that argues.
Hell, if I said Nuclear Bombs were dangerous, someone would come in and be all like " Yeah, well, you say that, but Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived two atomic bombs, so they cant be that dangerous!"
So, 2 old people here, and counting. I finish my day with ‘paru - Syu’ and followed by 'poweroff" almost every day. The only exception is if I move away from my PC and then decide I’m just not going back that day.
I run fedora atomic which needs to reboot for updates. I usually update and shutdown every night, so i get the updates running the next day when i start the computer.
I shut my computer down whenever I intend to stop using it for more than a couple of hours. So that means every night, and some other times as well. Starting the computer doesn’t take very long. So I don’t feel like it is a hassle or trouble. Being completely shut down saves a bit of power; and there are other minor benefits.
One benefit is that it prevents accidentally waking the computer in the middle of the night, filling the room with light and noise while I fumble in a tired state trying to shut it down. (Not saying that happens often, but it has happened - and it is not nice.)
I always shut down my PC. No need to keep it wasting electricity (even a little) when I’m away and I can wait a bit for it to boot again
I shutdown my computer whenever I’m done using it.
Every time I’m done with it. Same for work. Even for laptops.
The only gaming device I can put to sleep for a longer period of time without feeling weird about it is my Steam Deck, and even in such cases it either means I’ll be back in minutes (essentially putting a game on standby) or a few hours tops.
If you mean by “should”, because you fear losing performance, like Windows, then no. But I also see no point in keeping it on 24/7. When I’m done with my computer, I just turn it off. If I want to play a video game, the absolute maximum amount of time it takes for me is 120 seconds until I’m in a game from cold start. Constantly feeding my power-hungry monster just isn’t worth it.
While I’m not a gamer, I’m a Linux user from kernel version 0.97.
I shut my system down for hardware changes, when the electrician is working, and when I go on holidays. I reboot after kernel updates.
Same.
