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BillRoland
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join:2001-01-21
Ocala, FL

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Re: Why is it bad to reboot a Windows PC?

Its not "bad" to reboot a Windows PC. I don't know why anybody would claim anything to the contrary.
Moffetts
join:2005-05-09
San Mateo, CA

Moffetts to lupus

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to lupus
said by lupus:

said by Mashiki:

said by Moffetts:

Have any of you reached the magic 1000 day uptime level on any of your Windows boxes? My current leader is an Exchange server at ~475 days.

Before I retired my old windows 2000 server, I was at ~600 days. Since it sat around, and simply acted as a local file server I never patched the bloody thing once it was nice and stable.

What about critical security updates that require a reboot?

I can't speak for mashiki, but in my case the Exchange server is barely opened up to the internet and only rarely gets logged into so those patches have been of little concern to me.

sivran
Vive Vivaldi
Premium Member
join:2003-09-15
Irving, TX

sivran

Premium Member

Not to mention it's probably been that long since 2000 got a patch.

I no longer have an active 2000 machine so I'm not sure, of course.

not
@comcast.net

not to Moffetts

Anon

to Moffetts
said by Moffetts:

Have any of you reached the magic 1000 day uptime level on any of your Windows boxes? My current leader is an Exchange server at ~475 days.

Which apparently, you never patch. :rolleyes:

Anyway, to the OP, I think the correct statement might have been "power cycling" a PC as in not properly shutting it down via the Windows commands. Maybe that's what you heard and misinterpreted as simply rebooting it via normal means. And that's usually frowned upon because Windows can sometimes corrupt if you do this, although, with Windows 7, that's almost no longer an issue.... even Vista was pretty proof on this, but I still don't trust it 110%. I've seen maybe 1 or 2 PCs running 7 get startup corruptions this way, but they were much easier to fix than a repair install, so in the end, it's not that big a deal.

Thaler
Premium Member
join:2004-02-02
Los Angeles, CA

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Rebooting a PC is bad? Damn, I usually just do it whenever there's a mystery quirk and I've tried the usual troubleshooting suspects.

Dustyn
Premium Member
join:2003-02-26
Ontario, CAN
·Carry Telecom
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Asus GT-AX11000
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Dustyn to Doctor Olds

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said by Doctor Olds:

said by Octavean:

Have You Tried Turning It Off And On Again?

***edit***

Too bad about that, youtube doesn't seem to have a clip of "the IT crowd" saying "Have You Tried Turning It Off And On Again?". Not one you can link to anyway.

This clip?

(youtube clip)

Nice.
I like how I can't watch this clip in Canada....
Dustyn

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Warm restarts? Nahh.
Hard cold restarts? Yes/No/Depends...
Libra
Premium Member
join:2003-08-06
USA

Libra to dave

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said by dave See Profile
Possibly you're confusing the two actions available: (1) press briefly and release = send notification to OS; (2) press and hold for 4 seconds or more = immediate powerdown.
[/BQUOTE :

Dave, are you saying that if you press the power button briefly it will do a proper shutdown? (I have a Windows 7 64-bit notebook which occasionally comes out of hybernation with a black display. I've had to press the power button down until it shuts down. I just updated the display driver hoping that will correct the problem.) If I'm understanding about briefly pressing the power button correctly - this is good to know.

Thank you.

Sincerely, Libra


JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

said by Libra:

Dave, are you saying that if you press the power button briefly it will do a proper shutdown? (I have a Windows 7 64-bit notebook which occasionally comes out of hybernation with a black display. I've had to press the power button down until it shuts down. I just updated the display driver hoping that will correct the problem.) If I'm understanding about briefly pressing the power button correctly - this is good to know.

Press and hold power button is the same as pressing the reset button that PCs used to have in the bad old days. It is NOT a clean shutdown. You will just see the display go poof to black and the power stops. Like pulling the plug. In fact, you might as well pull the plug on a desktop, it's just as bad.

Pressing the power button for 1 second or less, and releasing it, will cause a clean shutdown. You'll see the PC go through all the normal shutdown processes.

Anonymous_
Anonymous
Premium Member
join:2004-06-21
127.0.0.1

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to John Galt6
said by John Galt6:

Some applications have memory leaks that affect performance.

A reboot resolves that, temporarily, until it leaks again.

Some people don't do system maintenance, so their drives are heavily fragmented and full of crap. It takes a long time to boot.

you do not need to disk defrag SSD hard drives.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave to Libra

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to Libra
You should check in Control Panel -> Power Options. These screenies are for a laptop, but the same thing (absent 'lid') applies to desktop systems.

Though if your computer is hung coming out of hibernate, it's unlikely to be in any state to do a clean shutdown. Worth trying, of course, but don't expect a miracle. If you're lucky, the PC is up and it's just the video system that's having trouble.
Libra
Premium Member
join:2003-08-06
USA

Libra

Premium Member

Dave and JohnInSJ,

Thanks for confirming that a hard shutdown is bad.

Thank you for the screenshots. I've seen those settings. I'll put the setting in for the power button to shut down while on battery and AC. When this problem has happened all the buttons light up so I know the computer is running, just no display.

I appreciate your advice.

Sincerely, Libra
Hotch
join:2012-06-12

Hotch to vaxvms

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It is all ways a bad idea to cold shut down Windows with the one exception where you are froze up and cutting the power is the only choice. However, up through Windows Me and and I think XP, (memory is a bit hazy on that OS), if you did a cold shut down
Up through 98 and I think XP, (memory is hazy), sometimes when you cold shut down Windows on the power back up will tell you that Windows did not shut down correctly and offer some "fixes" to choose from. I think that little situation should answer your question.

Warm boots, (reset button) or restarts are fine.

As far as running the computer all the time or turning it off when not using it, I've listen to experts debate that for 17 years. No one has ever come up with hardcore proof or legitimate sources as to what is clearly better.

Personally I run my computer 24/7. I only reboot for Window Updates or other limited specific issues when they arise.
dave
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join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

Back in the late 1970s, it was definitely the case that when you shut off a roomful of half-a-dozen large-ish PDP11s for a holiday weekend, there was a decent chance that one or two weren't coming back on until field service had applied the proper sacraments.

I'd guess that this has become less and less true with higher and higher levels of semiconductor integration. Fewer and fewer discrete parts = less to go wrong.

Though having said that, we had total powerfail at work this past weekend due to a thunderstorm, and the guy in the next cube from me ended up with a dead PC (I think he said the POST lights were blaming RAM, so it's not the filesystem-shudown thing).

sivran
Vive Vivaldi
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join:2003-09-15
Irving, TX

sivran to Hotch

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to Hotch
said by Hotch:

Warm boots, (reset button) or restarts are fine.

Er, one should only hit that reset button if you can't restart or power off normally. It's the same as if you just cut power to the machine, as far as the OS is concerned. Granted by the time you hit the reset button, the OS has already shat itself anyway.
Hotch
join:2012-06-12

Hotch

Member

You are correct. Poor wording on my part.

Mashiki
Balking The Enemy's Plans
join:2002-02-04
Woodstock, ON

Mashiki to lupus

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to lupus
said by lupus:

What about critical security updates that require a reboot?

The server wasn't setup to be connected to the net, no point in applying updates that weren't needed once it was stable.
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

scross to Libra

Member

to Libra
said by Libra:

When this problem has happened all the buttons light up so I know the computer is running, just no display.

I've found that a lot of times you can cure this problem on a laptop by shutting the lid for a second or two, then reopening it. There is a magnetic (or other) switch that will detect the close/open, then send a internal signal to wake up the display.
15444104 (banned)
join:2012-06-11

15444104 (banned)

Member

It is true that a "hard" shutdown is BAD for a computer, like others mentioned a power loss or using the power button to turn the computer off.

However a regular shut down using the OS to turn the PC off is not only healthy for the PC, it allows security and other needed patches to be applied, it also saves electricity and prevently unnecessary wear on mechanical components like the HDD, fans, and other mechanics parts, also even though the PC is being cooled by fans there is still constant source of heat being applid to the chips like the processor, and this can still if left running constantly degrade the thermal paste quicker than if you turn the unit off when not in use.

I have an 11 year old HP Pavilion 7955 that STILL sees daily use 12 hours a day and it has ALWAYS been turned off from 12 am until 12 pm, it still functions PERFECTLY.
Moffetts
join:2005-05-09
San Mateo, CA

Moffetts to not

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to not
said by not :

said by Moffetts:

Have any of you reached the magic 1000 day uptime level on any of your Windows boxes? My current leader is an Exchange server at ~475 days.

Which apparently, you never patch. :rolleyes:

Yes, and? Not sure what your point is.
dave
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join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

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to 15444104
said by 15444104:

I have an 11 year old HP Pavilion 7955 that STILL sees daily use 12 hours a day and it has ALWAYS been turned off from 12 am until 12 pm, it still functions PERFECTLY.

I have a 866 Mhz Pentium III system that has pretty much been powered up since I got it (used) in 2002, and it still functions perfectly.

John Galt6
Forward, March
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join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp

John Galt6 to Anonymous_

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said by Anonymous_:

you do not need to disk defrag SSD hard drives.

Yes, but those are very recent. I was generally referring to the more common platter drives...

pc repair
@centurytel.net

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Harddrives are cheap nowdays but they are also starting to go out faster as the capacity rises and also more cheaply designed for profit. Run smart and look at the days each hd has run.
It doesn't matter what drive I have used in the last 5 years, they do not last like they used to. I have shut one pc down everynight and left one running every night but lose hd's no matter which but I do not replace as often the hd on the pc I shut down everynight.
Libra
Premium Member
join:2003-08-06
USA

Libra to scross

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I've found that a lot of times you can cure this problem on a laptop by shutting the lid for a second or two, then reopening it. There is a magnetic (or other) switch that will detect the close/open, then send a internal signal to wake up the display.
~~~~~~~~~
scross,
Thank you for passing that tip along. I hope I don't experience that problem anymore, but if I do I'll keep this in mind.

Sincerely, Libra
Libra

Libra to dave

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to dave
A question about power button shutting down pc: I've had two BSODs in three days. I used the power button to shut down the pc and it shut down very fast. When I used power button to start computer I get the Windows screen saying it was shut down improperly and there is a critical kernel error in the Event Viewer. Is this from Windows shutting down the pc and presenting a BSOD, or did using the power button do this? (not that I had any choice).

Sincerely, Libra
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

Do you 'press and release' ?

Do you see a 'Windows shutting down' message? (I suppose this might not happen if the laptop cuts of screen power before....)
Libra
Premium Member
join:2003-08-06
USA

Libra

Premium Member

I did "press and release". I didn't see anything because I was looking at a BSOD screen which turned black when I pressed the power button.

Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium Member
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30

Doctor Olds

Premium Member

said by Libra:

I did "press and release". I didn't see anything because I was looking at a BSOD screen which turned black when I pressed the power button.

When you do that you then need to press "Tab, Tab, Enter" to get a Restart as this screen is hidden when the video has gone kaput.


dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

Not in my XP systems you didn't.

Power button = clean shutdown without user interaction.

I've got an old XP system in the basement, maybe I'll check it this weekend.

Dustyn
Premium Member
join:2003-02-26
Ontario, CAN
·Carry Telecom
·TekSavvy Cable
Asus GT-AX11000
Technicolor TC4400

Dustyn to Doctor Olds

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to Doctor Olds
said by Doctor Olds:

said by Libra:

I did "press and release". I didn't see anything because I was looking at a BSOD screen which turned black when I pressed the power button.

When you do that you then need to press "Tab, Tab, Enter" to get a Restart as this screen is hidden when the video has gone kaput.

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· bMw4LigY
Are you sure it's not to order a TAB?