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'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!

All the time. When I'm not using my PC it's off. Why would I keep it on, it boots up in seconds.

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.

Uhhh yeah. My PC is booted in less than half a minute, why would I let it waste energy the whole night just to boot slightly faster? Even when I booted off of an HDD I still did so.

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 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.

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.

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).

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.)

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.

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.

Power is way too expensive for me not shut down my workstation and gaming pc. I have one lower foot print home server that runs continuously tho

People used to leave their PCs running 24/7 due to the fear of thermal expansion causing hard drive failure. It's not a problem anymore as far as I know, but this practice stuck with a lot of old power users.

It wasn't quite as silly when PCs didn't draw so much power.

The sleep functionality has historically been unreliable at best so that gets avoided as well.

Now, in 2026, even if I'm just going outside for 20 minutes I'll sleep the machine, unless it's doing something in particular.

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 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.

Always. When I'm not using my PC it's turned off. I only turn it on when I'm using it, and then turn it off when I'm done. Yes, this includes things like going onto short shopping trips.

The only times I've let my PC on when I'm not directly using it is when it's rendering something.

My computer loads up in 5 sec or less. And power bills are too much to be running all the time. Even sleep with devices plugged in takes power.

I shut it down when I am not suing it. Every time.

Every day when I go to bed

If I'm not actively using my PC for anything it is shut down and turned off from the wall socket. 3 monitors and a pc on the same extension, even when they're not switched on still draw power. I'm in the UK though and electricity isn't cheap.

It takes all of maybe 5-10 seconds from power on to desktop, I've barely gotten comfortable in my chair before it's ready for my login, I can't see any reason whatsoever to leave my PC powered on, ever.

I didn't change my GRUB menu not to see it.

Every time I'm done with it. Same for work. Even for laptops.

The only gaming device I can put to sleep for a longer period of time without feeling weird about it is my Steam Deck, and even in such cases it either means I'll be back in minutes (essentially putting a game on standby) or a few hours tops.

While I'm not a gamer, I'm a Linux user from kernel version 0.97.

I shut my system down for hardware changes, when the electrician is working, and when I go on holidays. I reboot after kernel updates.

Laptop? Whenever I ain't using it.

Steam Deck? Same.

I don't want the battery on either to go to hell in a hand basket.

Desktop? I usually keep it in sleep and every once in a while turn it offnto give it a full rest. Sleep manages to keep it cool enough and uses minimal power, so I don't have as huge if a problem with that.

Probably should turn it off more often, though.

I come from the HDD era. This means booting an OS from an SSD feels like instant to me. I shut down my PC when I was using Windows, I shut it down using Linux. Also I shut it down when I am not using it. And it really doesn't matter if I played games or not, I don't really understand the connection between these two things.

My gaming box is only booted and powered on when I use it, my server is up 24/7.

For my gaming PC, I shut it down whenever I'm not actively using it.

My laptop is usually just put to sleep, and only fully powered off if I don't plan to use it for a bit, or if I'm installing updates.

My servers stay on 24/7.

My PC is either on (when I am actively sitting in front of it working) or off (all other times). With a cool down, of course, for coffee breaks or a quick lunch.

I unplug the PC when I'm done. There are regular thunderstorms during this season.

So power surges happen from time to time. To prevent my PC from frying I completely cut the power source after I'm done and away from home. And since I'm using an old ass dell monitor (really should start looking for an modern one) I don't have to keep the monitor connected to power for pixel cleaning.

I'm no expert, but using Linux as well, I do reboot mostly since A: my pc wakes up randomly when put to hibernation (haven't fixed it yet). B: I'm using SSDs so a cold boot takes no time at all.

What kind of hibernating are you referring to? Since if its on RAM I can imagine possible data loss when the power is cut.

I shutdown my Desktop daily, sometimes more if for example I'm playing in the morning and going out for lunch and coming back in the evening and playing again. In short if I'm going to spend over an hour not using it I'll power it off, no reason to keep it on and honestly it powers on almost as fast as coming back from hibernation so why bother? That made sense before SSDs, but nowadays I don't see much reason.

There's one big exception, and that is sleeping in the middle of a game, to be able to be back in the game in seconds. It's one of my favorite features of the Steam Deck, but I haven't tried it on my desktop because I usually use it for other stuff too so it's not as useful there.

If I'm leaving for more than 24 hours -> off

After any update where the distro equivalent of needrestart says something is using an old binary, I just reboot instead of restarting individual services

You should shut down every now and then. At least on the evening you run an update, as a kernel update might've been installed.

i only shut down if nobody's home for longer than a day. 99.9% it just autosuspends so it can be woken up from lan because it also has jellyfin server

Of course I shut down my PC when I'm not using it, what kind of question is that?

I pretty much only ever shut down if I need to open the case for some reason, or if the battery dies.

There is occasionally an update where things don't work right without rebooting, but shutting down is pretty much completely unnecessary unless you're concerned about power consumption.

I run fedora atomic which needs to reboot for updates. I usually update and shutdown every night, so i get the updates running the next day when i start the computer.

Energy ain't free, the additional lights fuck sleep schedule, blackouts may happen, the computer produces heat which wears its own pieces, chances are it will be kept online meaning greater risk of being hacked, computer on means more read-write operations which wear the memory down as Nutin said, and so on.

At most, maybe it'd be justifiable if it's downloading/running something which can't be stopped. Or another possibility though not a justification, the person isn't responsible towards his/her machine. Otherwise, I struggle to think of reasons not to turn it off.

I can't even get sleep to work on my computer for whatever reason.

I get a bug with putting mine to sleep - becomes unresponsive and have to manual shutdown. So I've disabled sleep. With modern ssds, there is very little downtime on startup. 30-60s or so. No reason not to just shut down and save power.

Uhhh yeah. My PC is booted in less than half a minute, why would I let it waste energy the whole night just to boot slightly faster? Even when I booted off of an HDD I still did so.

I am of the old school mindset that stress cycles kill components. So, much like the centennial light, I don't turn off pc's ever. As a result I've only ever had one hard component failure (not including HDDs) over 31 years. Less energy efficient? Absolutely! But I'll trade that for component life even if it's a placebo.

If it's not a server then it's getting turned off when I'm not using it

i usually restart pretty often bc I like to keep it updated

Every day before I go to work. For 10 hours at least.

Hibernation is underrated. If you don't want to risk losing stuff you have open but want 0 energy draw, hibernation is great. As a bonus, you can store your swap file in an encrypted partition to prevent attacks possible with normal sleep mode.

I have my sleep option set to automatically switch to hibernation if it's been asleep for 3 hours.

Only when I update. My PC plays brown noise to my DAC that's connected to an amp that's connected to my speakers that I need to sleep.

I'm using an arch based distro so I get kernel and driver updates pretty frequently that need a reboot to load. There is some weird thing I haven't found a fix for yet, where sometimes a warm reboot forgets half my RAM (likely something to do with MCR)... but a cold start works fine. So I shutdown and restart and all is well. Once a week maybe?

Probably something funky on my end but my CachyOS machine struggles to wake up from sleep mode. Sometimes it works fine, sometimes it takes 5+ minutes on a black screen, sometimes it just never comes on. Regardless, I use an elgato stream deck (I like my funny buttons + dials and it powers my XLR mic), and it flat out doesn't turn back on after sleep.

This thing is up and running in like a minute tops from a cold boot anyway so I usually just run an update and full shut down every night.

Yes like once a week reboot

Rebooting is a good idea from time to time to ensure any new updates have taken fully and that old system drivers haven't lasted and continued to run.

For example, one time I installed an XOrg update but didn't reboot because my distro's updater didn't recommend it. And so I was very confused when I actually did reboot and graphics were borked. It took me a while to track down that the update - which I'd forgotten about - hadn't been compatible with my graphics driver and I'd been using the previous working version until then.

It's supposedly possible to restart / reload all software without rebooting, but it's a royal pain in the [proverbial] when it's deep in the system, and it's far easier to just reboot.

And if you're gonna reboot anyway, you could time that nicely for before you'd be about to stop using the computer for a while. Let it reboot first to make sure everything seems OK with any updates that might have been applied. When that works, you're at a fresh slate with no programs open, so you can then turn it off.

(And if it hasn't worked, you can roll back with something like Timeshift or whatever your distro provides, check that works and save the investigation for when you have time.)

Not shut down, restart.

But with such fast boot times, I just turn it off when I'm not using it.

No.

o5@TR5:~$ uptime
 19:59:08 up 55 days,  4:28,  4 users,  load average: 0.72, 0.72, 0.84

Yes I always shutdown my laptop/desktop. They boot so quickly I see no need to use sleep. The only time I use sleep is when I'm streaming with Sunshine but half the time WOL doesn't work anyway. 🤷‍♂️

My Windows work laptop on the other hand...

I can fly to Costa Rica, get some coffee beans, fly back home, grind those beans, make a fresh espresso, and then maybe it will have finished booting from shutdown.

The answer, even with other OS's, it's typically yes you should shut it down. I always use sleep, but if I know that I don't have anything important open, I try to shut down

I shutdown every night because there's a bug where it won't wake up from sleep like 70% of the time. Easier to just shutdown than gamble and get annoyed.

It cold boots in like 20 seconds if there were no updates, so not a huge deal.

Rarely. My PC works fine when it's left on and that's good enough for me! It gets rebooted after updates but only ever switched off when I go away for a few days.

I'll be the odd one out, as a relatively new Linux gamer. I almost never shut it down unless I want OS updates. Weeks without an intentional shutdown usually.

I treat it more like a phone than I do a TV or radio like I saw other people mentioning. Always on, as I left it, running whatever it was running. Screen turns off after 30 minutes of course.

I don't pay for power, so that's not really a concern for me, and I use it frequently enough when home that most of my time involves the desktop in some way.

The title of this post caught my attention since I was wondering if I was missing something...I have a learned distrust of sleep mode due to peripherals occasionally not wanting to "wake up", resulting in me having to reboot the device anyways. Granted, I haven't been using Linux for very long so most of my computing experience is with MicroSlop OS machines; but after using them for 30+ years I have never heard a good argument for not shutting down if it isn't a critical system like a server. It should also be noted that I have lived in places were AC mains power being on 24/7 wasn't always a sure thing, so that probably plays a role in my thinking as well. Is there anything other than anecdotal evidence that suggests full power cycles are truly harmful and/or reduce service life? Truly curious now since I have no desire to buy new parts anytime soon given the current price hikes and availability issues.

If I’m not home and on the computer, it’s off. That means sleep and work time mainly, but also if I’m going out with friends for a few hours.

If you're specifically asking because of memory use, there is no need. Memory management in Linux is extremely efficient, and since everything is a process, a properly killed process doesn't block reclaim of that memory as you see a lot in Windows. You may see your "free" memory as being low, but that's kind of a misnomer as you should be paying attention to claimed vs unclaimed/cached memory, which will be "recycled" into other processes that request it. If you run into memory issues on Linux or BSD, you'll know it.

That being said, if your machine isn't suspending or cleeping, then you're just wearing your components out by leaving them on 24/7, so shutting down or suspending would be good practice to extend the general lifespan of your machine.

I grew up in the era of. PCs take forever to boot and sleep is good enough that when I turn it back on it’s still alive.

Laptop Sleep, desktop depends on when I use it last.

I only do system upgrades every so often, normally based off hearing some new feature in a program I want. When I do, that usually includes a kernel update and it asks me to restart.

I use hibernate (suspend-to-disk). This way I can save power and have all the apps open when I login after resume from disk. Full reboot happen after important security or major updates.

My swap volume is 150% the size of my RAM so that there is never a situation where I cannot do this. The only program I close before systemctl hibernate is my browser. That saves sone wear on the SSD.

Hibernate works surprisingly well on Linux. Even with LUKS encryption you can make it work.

I do because bazzite consistently kernel panics for me roughly every third wake-from-sleep with nothing in the logs.

No, never. Unless I have to leave for an extended period of time or I know there's going to be a planned power outage.

I shut down desktops before bed time. SSD cold boot is nothing. Steam Deck sleeps sometimes, useful for obvious reasons.

You can do whatever you want, just reboot after updates.

I power off if i wont be use

I use an immutable distro that only refreshes when booting, so yeah pretty much every night my desktop and the server updates when there's a power outage I guess.

I mostly shut down my machine and sleep it less often. I feel being off will use a bit less energy even if sleep is almost the same and is a bit more secure even though the sleeping machine should have the network adapter shutdown. I doubt it makes that much of a difference but it used to in the past and im a creature of habit. I can't say why I sleep it honestly I just do sometimes.

I'm with the once-a-weekers

Laptop sleeps all the time. "Shutdown" when the battery runs out. PC is basically never shutdown. <-- Gets rebooted every now and then. Server is basically never shutdown. <-- Gets rebooted every now and then.

For example, maybe once a week or once a month?

Generally-speaking --- and there are some specific situations where this doesn't apply --- your computer cannot start using a new kernel unless you reboot the thing, and there will be kernel updates. And some of those are security updates. So, yeah, you should reboot at some point.

It's not really a "your computer will perform more-slowly if you don't reboot occasionally" concern, though.

I put my desktop and laptop to sleep when I'm not home when I'm sleeping.

After some updates, I usually restart. As I am on an Arch based system, its usually at least once per week. Sometimes I am doing some projects, in which I want to leave the state as it is and not interrupt my "work". Usually this takes at least a few days, so during that period I don't update anything and continue my work. And sometimes at normal usage I don't need to restart, but after 5 to 7 days I "force" a restart just to get to a clean state again. Can't hurt.

I give it a reboot if I'm not using it and there has been a kernal update. Sometimes games launched in Lutris breaks alt tabbing and I reboot to fix that.

I took a keyed industrial switch home from work that I have the power cord ran thru which also has a CT wrapped around it hooked up to a little ammeter screen and it gives accurate power draw info (volts, watts, amps)

It's cool but I have to turn the switch to put power on my PC which every time I do I see something flash on the motherboard and it posts three times before booting and does this weird power cycle thing so I hope I'm not fucking up the caps or something LOL.

I've been meaning to re-wire it so the PC stays connected to the wall and I just use the switch on the case to turn on and off. Then keep the CT and ammeter connected and those turn on only when I turn the switch because I don't want that screen on when I'm tryin to sleep.

I also have a little light controller in the box with the switch, ammeter, and 120v light that's like this old school bay accessory from 2006-ish that's supposed to hook up to lights in your PC case but I took some multiconductor cord and terminal blocks home from work and strung them around under my desk.

I realize all this is like an unhinged setup lol. I also have a remote start button in my living room so I can turn the PC on when I'm chillin in there and interact with it via a KVM.

I'm also a adept of Sleep, I only shutdown when I know I'll be out of home for a extended period of time or when it randomly hangs 🫠

Currently runs all the time but it also runs Frigate NVR. I also access my desktop with a laptop I use as a thin client.

When I finally have Frigate setup on it's own hardware I will be shutting my desktop down when not in use.

yep, its how it updates to the latest container image.

Every few weeks when I run a full system update. Otherwise, only when Teams fucks up and I'm out of other ideas to try. It usually doesn't fix it. (And when it does, it's probably just arbitrary anyway.)

Oh, wait. You said shut down. lol, no.

Actually, I guess when my local energy company runs a power saving event.

I always use sleep, except when i'm away for a few days. I use shutdown on the computer in the living room though, because I don't use it much. As for the steam deck, always sleep!

Uhhh yeah. My PC is booted in less than half a minute, why would I let it waste energy the whole night just to boot slightly faster? Even when I booted off of an HDD I still did so.

My Bazzite PC lives in a cabinet under my living room TV, next to my PS5.

I put it to sleep when not in use, so I can wake it with my 8bitdo controller.

It's basically a second gaming console.

If I'm traveling I shut the desktop PC off, but I haven't in years because I haven't been traveling. I run local Game severs on the Desktop PC and even when I'm not using it I might want to use those on my Laptop or Steam Deck.

I always shut mine off, I worry about the low quality hardware.

I prefer shutting it down over sleep, because theres always some shit that doesn't work after wakeup

I put my machine to sleep usually. Only reboot/shutdown for rare cases, rearranging my office, that sort of thing.

Never turn my PC off, regardless of OS. (Edit. under normal day to day operation. I only technically turn my PC off and unplug it on the rare occasions where I have to travel and be away from home for more than a couple days, and I turn off and unplug most my expensive electronics when I do so, partly as fire prevention partly to just protect them)

Introduces to much thermal and electrical stress for my taste, and most assuredly shortens life span of the system/components from my personal experience.

Usually I don't. I mainly game on my laptop, and I only turn it off when I need to bring it with me somewhere, which is roughly once per month.

Electricity is cheap, whereas my time isn't. By leaving it on, I can continue where I left off without having to open anything.

No. It's never shut down. I suspend it when I'm not using it but never shut down.

I used to keep everything running and only turn off the screens but I changed my habit and there was a minor monthly electricity bill decrease that was worth it.

I last rebooted when after a few weeks of running something leaked memory when using wine, which caused slowdowns every two minutes or so when gaming (when dumping into virtual memory). the last time before that was something similar, so no, this machine only reboots if necessary for stability.