Correct Way to Turn a Computer On or Off

The Universal Power symbol

Many people turn they televisions, toasters, kettles, fans, radios and other electrical items off by a simple flick of the switch on the wall. Even though this is fine in the majority of cases, when it comes to computers, its a good idea to stop it. Right now.

You may be surprised to know that even holding down the "Power" button that most computers have on the front of them to turn off a computer can do serious damage if used wrongly.

If you turn off your computer like this, then it is called a "Hard Shut down". This way of turning off computers is generally reserved for emergencies or when the system stops responding to commands.

Hard Drive with the "Arm" Moving

Its a very bad idea to turn off your PC any way that isn't one of the below. This is because your PC needs a chance to close any open files, park the hard disk arm and do a myriad of other things you can't see. If the PC is turned off when it was writing something, like one of your photos, music or even part of the system, you could lose those files completely or even stop the whole PC from turning on again. On top of that, every time you  perform a hard shut down the tiny little parts in your computers hard drive (Where it remembers things) suddenly jerks to a halt, which can scratch and corrupt even more data, but this time permanently.

There are four proper ways to turn off your PC, non of witch involves an actual switch, ironically.



Shut Down
This is the normal way to turn off a PC and the easiest. It completely shuts off all the power to the entire computer and makes it safe to unplug. It is perfectly healthy to do this every day, multiple times a day. Doing a full shut down like this also helps your computer clear out files and memory that it doesn't need but may still be lingering.

The Start menu

As an added note: This is where the infamous saying comes from that IT support fellows use the world over: "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" And you'd be surprised how often that does solve the problem!

Now, I am using windows 7 (We will talk about this in later posts) but these menus may look slightly different for you if your PC is slightly older. However, they all follow the same system so it wont be that different.

To do this, you need to press the "Start button". This is the most powerful button ever invented! And its always on the bottom left of the screen. It looks like a multi coloured window. It should make a menu pop up above it, From this menu you can do everything your PC is capable of.

In the bottom right hand side of this menu is the power controls. As I said they may look different to mine. Look for the word "Shut down", Nice and concise isn't it!

Careful now, on some versions this will kick your computer off into the process of turning off. And once you press the button it is very difficult to stop it. On other, older, versions it will display a blue box in the middle of the screen so you can confirm your choice. 

Sleep
This is a popular method for when you are just going out for a bit, or you use your PC a lot, so much that its a waste of time turning it off. Sleep mode doesn't really turn your computer off, and it still needs to be plugged in. Its power is vastly reduced and the computer stops what its doing to save power, however its still alive enough so that if you just tap a button on the keyboard it will spring back into life in a few seconds!

To put your PC in sleep mode, you need to get to the start menu again, and this time look for "Sleep" or "Standby" on older computers.

When you press this button the screen will fade to black, the computer will do nothing for a bit, then go quiet, like it is turned off. Only it isn't really, Move the mouse of tap some keys and it will come right back.

I however would not recommend sleep mode. Simply because the way it works, your data is kept in a way that requires constant power. If you have a power cut or you turn it off at the wall due to forgetfulness then its gone forever. 

Hibernate
This is by far the better method of keeping your computer sort-of-awake. It acts just like sleep mode but with one big difference. If you lose power in sleep mode your data is all gone that you had open, but in hibernation mode it is kept in a way that doesn't need power. All that will happen is you need to turn it on the longer way again!

The trade off for this is that it takes a tiny bit longer than sleep mode.

Look for "Hibernate" on the same menu as before.

This mode is great for portable laptops, when you need to get off the train quickly or similar, it keeps what you were doing, but doesn't use battery until you turn it on again. Most laptops are set to do this automatically when you close the lid.


Restart
This is the same as shut down, but it also turns the computer on straight away for you. This is good to handle the old "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" scenario, but also for freshening up a computer that normally only uses sleep mode. It is sometimes needed when you install stuff on the computer (We will cover that later as well).

This is again normally near the other power controls.

There are other modes, such as "Hybrid" which is a cross between sleep and hibernate. But I have only ever needed the above four. So lets not complicate things any further. So that covers turning the computer off and on. Always remember its your choice which method you use, but I recommend the good old "Shut down". 

To turn on your computer you just need to press the physical power button on the computer tower. This is what its for! 

Next post: Your first time on the internet! 

I'll throw you in the deep end and get you on the internet! we'll see what the weather is going to be like shall we? 

Previous Post: Common Computer Definitions

We continue on to cover the second problem facing new computer users, the seemingly endless list of equipment that covers "computers".

Extra reading:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/Turning-off-your-computer-properly

Credits:

search.microsoft.com