I’m often asked this question: “Should I leave my computer on all the time or should I turn it off when I’m done using it?” While I’m also asked variants of this question, the purpose is the same: customers want to know about turning off their computers. My answer always starts with a negative.

What you should do is NOT habitually turn off your computer more than once a day. (An exception to this now and then won’t hurt.) The most stressful time – both electronically and mechanically – for a computer is boot-up (aka start-up). I always use this analogy: you don’t need to know anything about cars to understand that if you turned your car off at every red light and then restarted it when the light turned green, that would be bad for your car. The same is true for computers. If you constantly turn it on and off in a day, you’re adding stress to the machine and almost assuredly shortening its lifespan.

Now that I’ve explained what to NOT do, let me finish my answer to the original question. Unless you have a valid reason for leaving your computer on all the time, you should either put the computer to sleep or turn it off. Here at KCC, my computer is on 24/7 (except for when I turn it off for 5 minutes, once a week to regain RAM) because I receive more email at night than most people do in a day or maybe even a week. I have a solid reason for leaving it on. However, by doing so, I am consuming the expected life of various hardware parts in my computer. As an example, my computer tower uses a fan to cool the processor. The manufacturer of that device says that it should last about 30,000 hours. If I left my computer on at night for eight hours for no reason, I’d be consuming approximately 1/3 of the fan’s lifespan needlessly. The same is true of other components in a computer.

Based on what I just shared, if you have no urgent need to let your computer run all the time, you should either turn if off every night or you should put it to sleep. There’s a caveat, though. If you put your computer to sleep daily, you need to actually turn it off once a week for at least 10 minutes. Why? To quote from my post, “Defrag Your RAM,” Your device’s memory (RAM), over a period of time, becomes fragmented. In simple terms, this means there are areas of RAM that cannot be used by any program. The longer you go without turning off your computer, the more fragmented the RAM becomes and the slower your computer will operate. Restarting your computer does NOT clear the RAM. The computer has to be turned off — not restarted.

I once got a call from a customer who had purchased a laptop from me. She said that her computer was so slow, if she clicked on the Start Menu, it took 1-2 minutes for it to appear. When I asked her, “When was the last time you turned your computer off?” she replied, “I close the lid every night.” After I explained that closing the lid only put her laptop to sleep, she realized that in six months, she had never turned her computer off. I had her shut it off for 10 minutes. About thirty minutes later, she called me back and shared that her computer was running like a brand new machine!

If you decide to put your computer to sleep every day, how will you remember to turn it off? You won’t. Even in my case, I have a piece of software which runs on my desktop and shows me how long my computer has been running. When my computer’s “Uptime” gets to be around 7 or 8 days, I turn it off. (Want to know how to check the Uptime on your computer? See my post “Up Time.”) In your case, I would recommend choosing a particular night of the week, say Sunday, and always turn your computer off that night. Then, turn it back on the next morning. That way, you can let it sleep six nights of the week and be off on the 7^th.

Finally, quoting again from my previous post, here are some points you should know:

• There is software which is supposed to defrag (free up) RAM but, in all honesty, I haven’t found one program that works as well as simply turning off your device.
• What we’re saying here about the RAM in your computer effects both Windows machines and Macs.
• It isn’t just computers that are affected by fragmented RAM. It’s also true of tablets, smartphones and any device containing RAM. These devices should also be turned off for at least 5 minutes from time to time.
• If your computer is running Windows 10, using Shut Down in the Power menu may not actually be turning your computer off. To understand what we mean by this, read my post, “You’re In A Deep, Deep Sleep.”