When to Turn off your Computer
The short answer is – don’t. Unless you need to. Here’s why:
Your computer does a lot of self-maintenance when it is not in use, especially overnight. Automatic updates and deep scans for antivirus programs are things that happen during this timeframe. For systems with spinning hard drives, you will also have disk optimization occur here, that dramatically improves your performance.
Another maintenance related reason is that your administrator likely needs to push patches or review machine health on your system when it isn’t in use. Whether this is an external company, such as Pluto Micro Business, an internal staff member or just someone good with computers, they can’t help you if your system isn’t on. And a great deal of support can be done without having to physically be present at the computer.
What’s the big deal about maintenance?
Imagine, if you will, a brand-new vehicle. It’s no joke that the vehicle will quickly find itself in disrepair without oil changes when necessary. And you would never want to use a vehicle that has passed its recommended usage for something like a timing belt or brakes. While computers aren’t as physically important to our welfare, they have needs as well. Updates are akin to oil changes, and deep scans are kind of like having a mechanic do a thorough check over of your vehicle. The rest of the maintenance, which can be more complex, needs to be done during a time when you aren’t using your computer. Just like your vehicle – you can’t use it when its being repaired. Some of these things are very quick, others more time intensive.
Can my computer go to sleep or hibernate?
This one’s a bit trickier – sleep mode can interrupt the ability for some software to perform functions, like antivirus deep scans or a remote connection to your computer. Hibernate is essentially the same thing as turning off your computer, it just leaves the computer in the state that it was in instead of restarting all the processes from scratch. Hibernate, sometimes called suspend, simply keeps the computer from draining its battery or using extra power when it’s not necessary. It’s extremely useful for laptops; not as useful for desktops. Its primary purpose is to preserve power, with a secondary purpose to make sure that your laptop doesn’t overheat when it is closed. We recommend that our clients disable hibernating and sleep mode on their desktops to allow optimal support. We have special recommendations to our clients utilizing laptops that sometimes change according to their circumstance.
The most important thing for your laptop, however, is to make sure that it is not staying on when it goes into a laptop bag (which makes the system overheat), and isn’t being exposed to dynamically changing elements, such as being left in a freezing vehicle. Batteries can freeze when they are depleted, which can cause other damage to your machine.
So, when should I leave my laptop on? Does it need to be open?
Our recommendation is that you leave your laptop on, plugged in and with a reliable internet connection, at least twice a month. A more preferred schedule would be to have it left overnight at least one night a week. You should configure your maintenance to occur during this time, or manually start the maintenance yourself. Make sure you give it some time, especially if you haven’t updated recently. We have seen some recent updates take as much as three hours to complete on a system that was dramatically out of date. An important note: you should always back up your system as a precaution if you are initiating updates to a new build of Windows or Mac OS.
If you are comfortable, you can set your settings to be temporarily different to allow you to close the machine while it is running, and not have it go into hibernation or sleep.
Alright then, so when should I turn off my computer?
All computers should be turned off prior to any significant weather event that could cause surges or power loss. Computers like to be shut off on their own terms, and things work better when they are closed properly, rather than trying to recover from an unplanned shutdown. Unplanned power loss affects a great many things and will hurt your system’s performance. It can also impact the longevity of your machine, and, in some rare cases, can cause complete failure of storage drives.
So, if there is a weather warning about a hurricane, or even a thunderstorm or heavy snow blizzard, it is a good idea to gracefully shut down your computer, then unplug its surge protector from the wall to protect that too.
Your laptop is programmed to suspend itself when its battery gets too low. You should plug it in when it gets to this point to prevent the suspension from having to be saved and reloaded, as this will also impact performance over time.
This is all very tedious, are there companies that have affordable assistance?
Unfortunately, most companies target the big guys, leaving you to deal with call in services such as Geek Squad that may or may not work for you. Pluto Micro Business is a company built specifically to help those who fall in between the needs of these markets; those who need more than occasional assistance from a service like Geek Squad, but don’t need the extremely expensive service offered by Managed IT companies that can run into thousands of dollars per month. Pluto lets you pick how much you want to pay per month for your support, as shown here. $5 a month/person gives you basic antivirus, and this scales all the way up to $100/month/person for those who need to have all the bells and whistles of more complete IT services. The caveat here is that you can’t have more than 10 staff regardless of what price point you choose. This helps us keep our focus on this deeply neglected market segment and not lose track of our vision – to simply help. That’s why we don’t measure by income per month, but by total number of supported systems and clients. And more importantly, how happy those clients are with the level of service they are receiving. If you fall into the micro business category we invite you to contact us to see how we can provide excellent, cost-effective service.