Shutting down

Tina · Aug 04, 2011, 22:47:31

OK having had my windows 7 laptop a week now, I'm kinda getting used to it.. even quite like it

My question is should I fully shut down my laptop at night?

Now with my Macbook, I rarely shut down, but have heard conflicting things about windows 7. So what do you all do? Thanks

Simon · Aug 04, 2011, 23:00:06

I always shut down at night.

Tina · Aug 04, 2011, 23:03:08

Thanks Simon think I will too .. just forget after using a Mac. I'm usinf Firefox, can you recomend any good addon's please? Got Adblock plus and foxclocks so far

Simon · Aug 04, 2011, 23:04:42

Sorry, I don't use Firefox, Tina, but my own personal preference is for as few addons as possible, as the more you have, the more chance there is of conflicts, bloating, etc...

Steve · Aug 04, 2011, 23:10:29

Quote from: Tina on Aug 04, 2011, 22:47:31
OK having had my windows 7 laptop a week now, I'm kinda getting used to it.. even quite like it My question is should I fully shut down my laptop at night?

Now with my Macbook, I rarely shut down, but have heard conflicting things about windows 7. So what do you all do? Thanks

Windows is not as efficient as Linux/Unix in freeing up 'unused' memory. You can keep an eye on the swap file/memory usage if you want but I do find you can keep Windows 7 going for a few days without rebooting

Technical Ben · Aug 05, 2011, 07:13:42

I use to use hibernate a lot. You can use this is you wish. It puts the PC in a complete off mode, so saves on power too.

Ray · Aug 05, 2011, 10:04:42

I always use Sleep/Hibernate on my PC and Laptop, works well and rarely get any problem with it.

esh · Aug 05, 2011, 12:29:54

I find this is not so much a problem with memory leakage.

After all, I've had Windows 2000 systems run for hundreds of days quite happily, but what I do find with Windows 7 is that after a few dozen cycles of sleep/resume, some device will not properly 'wake up' again. This is strictly a problem with the driver (or the hardware) rather than Windows itself it seems, and can be a niggle or a complete failure (such as the graphics card not re-initialising properly). Generally I would not be afraid to use sleep when you walk away from a computer, and hibernate mode overnight. I tend to shutdown a lot because it starts up reasonably fast these days.

Lance · Aug 05, 2011, 21:43:27

The only time I ever shutdown is when there are updates to install or I'm aware for more than a few days. My laptop quite happily goes the month with just sleep.

Technical Ben · Aug 09, 2011, 14:24:31

I kind of agree esh. I don't know the specifics, but the errors do seem to be more down to the hardware than the software. Either motherboards or usb devices fail to support the power options correctly.