Every night, I put my computer to sleep. But should I be shutting it down every now and then? For example, maybe once a week or once a month?
Just curious to see this question answered from a Linux gamers’ perspective.
I always shut down my PC. No need to keep it wasting electricity (even a little) when I’m away and I can wait a bit for it to boot again
I shutdown my computer whenever I’m done using it.
I’m old. For me, a PC is like a TV or radio. When I’m done using it, I turn it off.
Which means saving my work and shutting it down. I don’t put it to sleep or standby. And I set my session manager to start a new session every time.
People who keep unsaved documents and hundreds of browser tabs open are weird. Use bookmarks!So, 2 old people here, and counting. I finish my day with ‘paru - Syu’ and followed by 'poweroff" almost every day. The only exception is if I move away from my PC and then decide I’m just not going back that day.
well, i keep tons of tabs open AND use a lot of bookmarks
Turning your TV off and on frequently shortens its lifespan significantly, You know… Honestly, turning anything off and on frequently shortens its lifespans significantly, even lightbulbs.
The last TV I owned was a CRT in a wooden frame with several darts stuck in it, and it had lasted since the 90s.
Always gonna be someone that argues.
Hell, if I said Nuclear Bombs were dangerous, someone would come in and be all like " Yeah, well, you say that, but Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived two atomic bombs, so they cant be that dangerous!"
I find sleep is still a bit quirky on Linux. Every once an a while it’ll get stuck in sleep mode and I can’t bring it back to life - forcing a hard reset via pulling the power.
So I just shut it down. I wouldn’t have an issue just always shutting down, but ddr5 memory training is annoying and I wish it didn’t behave so slow on startup.
I was experiencing a similar issue, and I may have fixed it by expanding my swapfile from 2GB to 16GB. I usually start having wake issues every 2-3 days, but I’m officially on my first full week without any issues since expanding my swapfile.
I found that with external monitor, sometimes the monitor sleep seems to not let OS wake up fully because of no display. I solved it with kdeconnect. If system doesn’t wake properly then running the “display on"command or " logout” command from phone revived it.
Whenever you do major updates you should reboot. Most patches can be live applied, but not all.
Usually your package manager will mention if there’s a need to reboot when it’s done. Once a week to once a month is fine for the most part. Kinda depends on the updates that are coming out and how often you do them.
Yep, this.
It varies from distro to distro, but its generally a good idea to do a full reboot after a major update.
I make it a part of my morning ritual:
Set up some tea and run a full update check, reboot, just cuz.
It makes more sense because I like tea, and I don’t have it running anything that needs to be up 24/7.
All the time. When I’m not using my PC it’s off. Why would I keep it on, it boots up in seconds.
For me the advantage of keeping it in sleep is having all the apps open and exactly where I left them. “Session save” type features never keep things quite right - some apps just don’t reopen, they’re often not on the right workspace etc, not to mention documents and so on have to be saved if you power off.
You can of course use hibernation to get the best of both worlds, at the cost of long start-up times, and so I do often do that, when I’m not expecting to turn back for a while.
Personally I prefer to always start off from scratch where I can. If I need to go away from the computer and things are in a fragile state or where the setup is finicky and I’ll be finishing it next session then I’ll just put it to sleep.
I see no point in keeping my power hungry monster awake 24/7. I’m in any game less than 3 minutes after a cold boot.
Mines been keeping me warm through the last months of snow storms.
Automated backups happen at night.
If you mean by “should”, because you fear losing performance, like Windows, then no. But I also see no point in keeping it on 24/7. When I’m done with my computer, I just turn it off. If I want to play a video game, the absolute maximum amount of time it takes for me is 120 seconds until I’m in a game from cold start. Constantly feeding my power-hungry monster just isn’t worth it.
My computer a 7900xtx and 7800x3d with a crap load of other stuff shoved in there. Idles around 100-150 watts of power with the screen off.
100 watts isn’t a lot, but that’s like leaving a light bulb or two on from when I was a kid!
Unless Im playing an idle game that needs it on just let it hibernate.
My server is the only thing that’s on 24/7. My and my partner’s PCs shut down while we’re not using them. It takes like 10 seconds, maybe, to boot up.
i shutdown my pc every time i stop using it. i didnt know there are ppl out there that dont
I always shut down my PC when not using it. Never had an issues with any of my games (Pop!_OS and a 3090 GPU).
Sounds crazy to me that people aren’t shutting down their computers when not using them. For me it’s like turning off the light off in a room you’re leaving. I can still hear the voice of my mum giving me a lecture about not wasting energy and I’m thankful for this.
It’s such a small gesture and it can already improve your carbon footprint a tiny bit.
The only exception is when I’m downloading a game or backing up my computer.
I shut down after every use on my Linux gaming PC. My Linux servers (I currently have 3) stay on for weeks on end without being rebooted, but I try to reboot at least once a month, but I forget most months.
I shut down because, in my opinion, I want my SSDs to last longer and them not being on when not in use is my way of ensuring that. I don’t game every day, but I do usually every other day, so for them to be on for 24 hours without me using them is potentially wasting time health-wise, in my opinion. Admittedly I haven’t done the research to see how reboots affect health of an SSD, because it may be counter productive in that light if a reboot causes just as much if not more stress than just leaving it on.
But SSD health is not the only reason. My other reason is that my PC is somewhat beefy and draws a lot of power and I’m charged a shit ton in electricity costs as it is and this thing can potentially cost me a few dollars each month of being on without being in use, especially during peak hours when my rates get outrageously expensive, at double the normal rate.
And then performance is the last remaining reason. But that might be Windows PTSD where I’m just used to Windows being a butt when it hasn’t been rebooted in some time. I just feel I get the best performance when I give my PC a break when I’m not using it.
My brother uses Windows and leaves his PC on all the time and just puts it to sleep and he doesn’t seem to have issues requiring him to reboot. He games every day whereas I’m not always using my gaming PC.
Edit: got me curious about this so I finally just skimmed through some articles really quick. Apparently SSD health is not really a concern on more modern M.2 NVME type drives which is what I have (I do have one older SATA SSD) and booting may do more writes than just leaving them on, but the modern drives are built to handle this but heat is still a concern. But at the end of the day, this is just a small part of why I do. The power bill is my main reason since it can cost me a few bucks keeping it on when not in use. Performance is secondary too. Likely won’t be that bad keeping it on all the time like I do with my Linux servers.
I always turn off my pc, it takes maybe as much time to boot as it does for me to walk from the power button to the sofa (it’s a living room setup and those 2 things are a metre apart)
I shut my computer down whenever I intend to stop using it for more than a couple of hours. So that means every night, and some other times as well. Starting the computer doesn’t take very long. So I don’t feel like it is a hassle or trouble. Being completely shut down saves a bit of power; and there are other minor benefits.
One benefit is that it prevents accidentally waking the computer in the middle of the night, filling the room with light and noise while I fumble in a tired state trying to shut it down. (Not saying that happens often, but it has happened - and it is not nice.)
