Over the years, I have seen many different recommendations when it comes to taking care of your computer. Some people say that it’s good to leave your computer on all day and use the power saving features when you have to. Others say that you should just shut down your computer when you’re not using it. Which is correct though?

I used to keep my computer on all day since I used to jump on it many times throughout the day. I even kept it on overnight. Now since I only play on the computer for a few consecutive hours each day, I have started shutting the computer down. The new rule is: If I’m not going to be using the computer for 2 hours, I shut the computer down. This is the best rule to follow, as long as you’re not restarting the computer every 2 hours, 8 times a day.

You may ask about power saving features such as hibernate and standby. Well, experts say they don’t really save all that much energy. Standby mode still sends power through your processor and all of your hardware. Processors only have a certain amount of hours in them before they start to degrade. Hibernation is a good option because it powers down your components, but it also spends a lot of time writing the data in RAM to your hard drive. It’s about the same about of wear and tear on the drive as you’d get from restarting though. Why not just shut all the way down and have a nice, fresh computer when you start working again?