Yes, with one exception; especially if you mean doing a full shutdown, followed by a full restart some time later.
All reasonably current PCs have well-developed power-management systems that are designed to reduce unnecessary energy consumption during use, while the PC is idling, and during restart. Because energy consumption is directly correlated with wear-and-tear of a PC’s electronic and electric components, good energy management also helps keep system wear and tear to a minimum.
The next few paragraphs are background, if you want it; if not, skip down to the section, below labeled “What this all means.”
Here’s one example why automatic power management is superior to manual full-on/full-off cycling: The last four versions of Windows (all the way back to Vista!)
In standard sleep mode (sometimes called “suspend”), your PC goes into a low-power state. The system consumes just enough electricity to keep the
When awakened, the PC almost instantly picks up from where it was when last put to sleep.
Hibernation mode writes the entire contents of RAM and the exact state of your PC’s CPU into a hidden hibernation file (hiberfil.sys) on the hard drive. Power is then shut off completely. When a PC starts up from hibernation, Windows uses the contents of the hibernation file to put the system RAM and CPU back into its last active state. It’s much faster than restarting everything from scratch, saving energy and wear-and-tear.
When enabled, hybrid sleep combines sleep and hibernation functions in a three-step process. First, the system prepares as if it were going to hibernate; the RAM and CPU contents are fully written to the hard drive. However, in the second step, the PC then goes into low-power sleep mode instead of completely shutting down. This combines the near-instant access of standard sleep with the reliability of hibernation. If there’s an interruption of power or a total shutdown, you won’t lose an unsaved file or have to completely restart applications. Energy use, and wear and tear, are pretty much negligible.
The third step kicks in if the system remains in hybrid sleep for some set (and user-adjustable) length of time. Sleep mode terminates, and the PC enters full power-off hibernation mode, where energy use and wear and tear are zero.
I don’t want to go too far into the weeds here, but, starting with Win8, Windows also has offered a hybrid boot, where the OS automatically manages a kind of mini-hibernation for its own code to reduce startup times; this function can operate quite independently of general hibernation.
What this all means:
If set up properly — you can adjust the power management settings to be as aggressive or as relaxed as you wish — and left to its own devices, your PC will systematically slow and shut itself down over time, managing the process to achieve a balance between energy use and convenience during use, idle times, and during restart/startup; and with far greater sensitivity than the all-or-nothing full-on/full-off approach.
And because energy-use is directly correlated with wear-and-tear on a PC’s electric and electronic components, this kind of active power management also extends the life of your PC compared to all-or-nothing manual cycling.
Here’s the rule of thumb I suggest: For general use through the day, or any time you think you might be using the PC again in the near future, let the
The only time it makes sense to manually turn off the PC is when you know that you won’t be needing it again for a long while — say, until after your hibernation settings take effect and the PC will shut down anyway.
And even then, shutting down using hibernation or hybrid sleep will help speed (and thus reduce the wear-and-tear of) your restarts.
So: Set up your PC’s power management as aggressively as you wish, and be sure to enable hybrid sleep. You’ll save energy and reduce wear without sacrificing convenience. Sounds like a win to me!
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Manually turing the PC on anf off
