Windows 10: Turn Computer Off Or Leave It On

I've always turned my computer off when not using it (like anything else: lights, TV, radio, stereo, etc.). Why should the computer be on when I'm asleep, at work, not home for whatever reason, etc.? But now I'm reconsidering that. When I turn the computer on it makes a sound which I guess is perfectly normal, but I hate hearing it. It reminds me that the disk drive is a mechanical device (don't want to hear anything about SSD, thanks) and could fail one day.

When I'm not using the computer, everything is closed, so I'm not concerned with saving or losing anything.

I know there are options like Sleep, Hibernate, do nothing. And there are considerations like constant power putting unnecessary wear-and-tear on the electrical circuitry, greater threat of hacking if the computer is on all the time, and the on/off button light burning out if it's on all the time. If there's anything I've missed here, let me know. Concerning hacking, I assume the computer can be hacked any time the computer is on, even if the browser is closed, correct?

With Hibernate, apparently the computer is shut down, and I turn it back on by pushing the on/off button. Is this correct? If so, doesn't seem like there's much benefit to Hibernate as opposed to turning off.

I'm not saying I would never turn the computer off, just not as often. I do system cleaning and software updates once a week, then restart it and create a system image. Somewhere along the way, every now and then, I would turn it off, just out of general principle if nothing else. Maybe I should change the system image restart to turn off/turn on. That would give me a guaranteed off/on at least once a week. Then again, based on the FWIW below, maybe I should pick another time/occasion to do the shutdown.

Any thoughts/advice? Thanks.

[FWIW, I found this on sfError404Exception: This request has been forwarded to a 404 error page by the action "urlswitch/index".

Hawkeye
27th Jan 2018
2:45am

Microsoft changed the Shutdown process in Windows 10.
In previous Windows Versions, both "Shutdown" and "Restart" did a complete system shutdown and clear-out of volatile data etc.

BUT in Windows 10 If you use "Shutdown" it actually does the equivalent of Hibernate.
That is, it records its current system state (including any errors) in a hidden system file called "hiberfil.sys" before powering off.
Next time you turn it on again, it reads "hiberfil.sys" and opens at the same system state (including all those errors) as it was in before the shutdown. This allows it to boot-up faster but system errors don't get cleared and tend to build up over time, slowing it down and possibly resulting in lock-ups.

To clear these system errors, you have to use "Restart"
Restart momentarily completely shuts the system down, unloading drivers, clearing memory caches, etc. Then it starts up again in a fresh state without referencing the "hyberfil.sys" file, thus clearing out the build-up of errors.
This is also why you must use "Restart" NOT "Shutdown" after installing some Updates in Windows 10, to unload the old drivers and load up the new ones.

So, if you have Windows 10, Shutdown and Hibernate are virtually the same, so just use Shutdown at the end of each day.
But also, take the time use Restart every couple of days (and especially after updates if you don't have it set to automatically restart)[.]]

EDIT: Not sure what happened to the URL above. I'll try it again here (Should you leave your computer on or switch it off at night?).

:)

 

Computer Randomly Turns on From Sleep

I only saw this thread now, otherwise I would have suggested this sooner.
I had that same problem you are having, my computer was waking-up from S3 and the culprit was my X7 mouse.
powercfg -lastwake also listed the HID keyboard device which was an extension of the mouse.
Besides going in device manager and setting everything to not being able to wake-up the computer from S3, I also did this to the power profiles:



Worked for me.

 

Computer turns itself on

Hi Dustin,

To address this concern, we suggest that you follow these steps on how to turn off the fast startup:

• Right-click the Start menu, then select Control Panel.
• Change the view from Category to Large icons.
• Select Power Options.
• Click Choose what the power buttons do.
• Under Shutdown settings, uncheck the Turn on fast startup box.
• Click Save changes.

Let us know how it goes.

Regards.

 

I don't have any bluetooth devices but windows turned it on!!


Then if they are still on, try some of these steps listed below, Not all of these steps may not apply, but, step #2 and #4 should help. I have all 4 steps on myself.

1 Go to Device manager and DISABLE Bluetooth, Do Not remove!
2 Turn USB suspend off
3 Set Hard Drive or SSD to Never
4 Turn Link State Power Management off
Settings 2 thur 4 can be found in your Power Management Settings.
Then click on "Change settings that are currently unavailable"
Then Reboot your Computer. This does work, may come back if you shut OFF your computer,then turn it back on, if it does, just a reboot will turn it off again.