how often should i restart my PC?

[KennyAtom]

my computer has been running for 3 days straight now, with no performance degradation or anything of the sort.

is there any benefit to restarting or shutting down?

[potato]

not really? i used to have my pc on for months

[Ghost Robertson]

I turned fast startup off because i didn't like everything being cached, If there is a problem/bug/error it can snowball into a larger problem if left cached.

Probably causes more work for my SSD's though.

[BlackBloodGhost]

Generally just reboot/shutdown when there are updates.

I don't really care about up-time myself, but I do keep my system running all the time so:

drakul ~ # uptime
23:18:47 up 10 days, 13:38, 25 users, load average: 1.55, 1.55, 1.2

That'll probably drop to 0 again in a couple of days when I do updates.

[vkobe]

Originally posted by KennyAtom:

my computer has been running for 3 days straight now, with no performance degradation or anything of the sort.

is there any benefit to restarting or shutting down?

electricity economy

letting your cpu, memory, motherboard relaxing

now you can put your pc in sleeping mode, so it is not really shut down, but it work for laptop and office pc

[It's so splendid, high above you]

I never turn off my computer or restart unless I have put off window updates for months and I feel its a good time to update. 6 years runnin nonstop still pumpin.

Same with my Steam Deck, I just let them boys RUN.

[Electric Cupcake]

There's no harm in running continuously, except to the electric bill. That's literally what servers and routers are for.

Shutting down when not in use is also fine. Shutting down and starting up again constantly will wear on the PSU, but shutting off for 8-10 hours when you're sleeping and then starting up in the morning (or whenever you wake up) is fine.

I've never trusted hibernate files and quasi-hibernate fastboot, so I can't say whether the hiberfil might get corrupted over time if it's exclusively relied on without a clean, full shutdown and POST.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by KennyAtom:

my computer has been running for 3 days straight now, with no performance degradation or anything of the sort.

There are needed actions your computer can't take without a shutdown&cold-boot or even a reboot. (Though, I don't know Win10/Win11 that well, but standard computer hygiene would say "yes.")

is there any benefit to restarting or shutting down?

Yes. Getting rid of invalid caches, saved settings, resetting important service logs, installing patches, properly registering changes, yadda yadda, etc.


If you're not planning on using it, there's no worthy beneficial reason to keep it running. Today's startup times are quite fast, so I don't see the point in keeping a computer running for so long.

Note: Some people may try to point out that failures most often occur during bootup. That's because of an already damaged system finally yielding to the spike in power, NOT due to of a boot/reboot.

[ṼṏẌṏḭḊ]

I restart mine about once a week or after big updates. Runs 24/7.

[↑↑↓↓←→←→BASelect]

I turn my pc off at night when I go to bed. I never restart my phone though and never have any slowdowns or laggyness.

[Chaosolous]

I turn mine off when I’m not using it.

I’ve heard mixed information about the pros and cons of keeping it on vs. turning it off.

I turn it off to save on the electricity and to give the moving parts a break and cool down. In my mind that’s helping… something…?

Others have told me that the act of turning it on or off itself is what can cause a lot of the failures. That and the risk of power surges.

This is all ♥♥♥♥ that’s above my pay grade to verify but that’s the unconfirmed and potentially (probably) false information I have.

Anyway, yeah;
I turn mine off.

[Hammer Of Evil]

i power off a system when i'm not using it, cause idk when i'll be back to use it again.

doesn't make sense to me to leave a pc in the office on while im out all day or working in a diff part of the house

[TGC> The Games Collector]

For some odd reason some of my software doesn't do its update check properly unless I reboot.

So it might be a good idea to reboot once in a while, just to have everything unload and reset properly.

[Jazz]

I shut mine off every night before bed.

[xDDD]

Probably one per week, or so.
Unless you turned off the "quick startup" function, in which case it'll ACTUALLY SHUT DOWN when you hit "Shut Down" (dumbest feature ever)

[Majestic Turkey]

Only when windows update forces it, but a prerelease feature for win11 is coming for updates without rebooting.