I Never Put My Computer to Sleep for These 5 Reasons, and You Should Too
Shutting down or putting your computer to sleep. Although sleep mode is more convenient for getting back to work quickly, there are compelling reasons to avoid using it for long periods of time. But basically, we can say that yes, it affects system performance. But not only that, it also means unnecessary power consumption and additional wear and tear on our components. The risks of misusing this practice may far outweigh the benefits.
Moreover, at a time when all computers are already purchased with SSDs, which greatly increase the boot speed of our computer, why use sleep mode? Let's take a look at five reasons why you should avoid this mode at all costs.
- Equipment performance deterioration
Frequent use of sleep mode can lead to a buildup of services and processes that have not been shut down properly. This can be an endless source of errors and malfunctions in our equipment and can completely degrade the performance of our computer.
Ultimately, all of this translates into potential problems with our programs, slowdowns due to full memory, or worse, complications with Windows updates.
- Energy consumption
Sleep mode is known to consume less power than keeping it on. But it still consumes electricity due to the RAM still being on.
On the contrary, turning off the PC will remove all the power loads allocated to the PC, thus saving on the electricity bill. In addition to that, the battery may suffer from excessive sleep mode, which will shorten its life significantly.
- Boycott system operations
Sleep mode does not guarantee that processes will terminate properly. This can result in corrupted files, modified configurations, or crashing applications or games.
This situation may also cause the current game to not be saved. And if you add any error in the execution procedures, your game may deteriorate very quickly.
- Hardware damage
Sleep mode itself does not directly damage the hardware. However, it may have a negative effect on it in the long run. There are cases where the battery of some laptops becomes hotter when entering sleep mode than when turned on directly.
This can lead to a continuous deterioration of the materials of our computer. In this case, the battery will be the first to be damaged, but it can also affect the hard disk or RAM.
- Fast boot for SSDs
Sleep mode loses some of its meaning thanks to the use of SSDs. Since the arrival of these devices, shutting down and starting up our equipment has gained incredible speeds (around 10 seconds on average, except for newer models). The fact that we don't spend any time turning the device off and on again leaves the sleep function meaningless.