Should You Power Off Your PC '

If you own a desktop PC you have thought about this question on more than one occasion. Growing up we were exposed to computers for the first time, one of the earliest task we learned was powering up and shutting down the PC. Were you ever instructed to power down your computer every night with the given impression that this will somehow miraculously make the life of my computer last longer? This advice could not be further from the truth. Powering on and off your computer on a daily basis subjects the computer components to cycles of heating and cooling which stresses the computer hardware and shortens its lifespan.

At Integrated Computer Services the desktop PC's stay on overnight, we also suggest that our partners do the same. To be clear we are speaking about desktops that stay in the office overnight, not tablets or laptops. Your personal computer is one piece to the giant puzzle in your network. Networks are constantly receiving updates and scheduled maintenance on a daily basis. If your computer is powered off at the end of the day, it will be left out of all the maintenance being performed during those hours. This leaves a window of opportunity for your PC to miss out on critical security updates, or new installs.

As a result your computer has more chances of becoming infected and unmaintained. Some regularly scheduled maintenance tasks includes updates, installs, patches, antivirus, and cleaning up disk space. In a lot of instances these tasks can't be performed during the day because your computer is in use. A lot of these tasks require systems restarts and full control of your workstation and will induce downtime if scheduled for business hours.

You might have some concerns about unnecessary energy consumption. Newer PC's are made to consume little amounts of energy, your screen should also be set to go to sleep when not in use. We hope this shed some light on the questions that been around since the beginning the technology revolution!