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If I use computer daily in my work, should I shut it down in the end of the day? It uses more energy but it can upgrade and run scripts itself overnight, re-starting the computer won't take time, and it can do some useful distributed computing if there are no processes overnight. Are there other pros/cons?

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  • For your desktop, I would recommend using "deep sleep" mode or "hibernate" mode (different systems call it different things). In this mode, your machine powers off completely, but it can be brought back up to the same state when you turn the power on the next morning.
    – Brandin
    Dec 16, 2015 at 17:16
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about navigating the workplace. This question should be asked on a SE about computers.
    – David K
    Dec 16, 2015 at 17:30
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    "distributed computing" Yeah, I'm fairly sure you should stop that right now. Have a look at: One of my colleagues is mining bit-coins with company resources. What do I do?
    – Lilienthal ♦
    Dec 16, 2015 at 18:00
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    @junior: Welcome to the workplace. As the comments say, this isn't the best type of question for our site, since we don't know your IT department's preferences, and it really comes down to opinion and personal preference if they don't care. However, we hope you'll find the site useful for other issues. Please take the tour and look through the help center to get a better idea of what are good questions for the site.
    – GreenMatt
    Dec 16, 2015 at 18:02
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    Ask IT what they want. Where I work we back up all of the machines nightly, so leaving them on is important.
    – Andrew Whatever
    Dec 16, 2015 at 18:33

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If this is a workplace question and not a general tech question then the answer is easy. Defer to your manager or local IT staff.

Some companies do run scripts for virtual software installs at night, some do theirs on Friday afternoons, some workplaces have older machines (that might not handle a full shutdown everyday), some upgrade PCs every 2 years. Some jobs require people to use so much memory and swap file space that shutting down is a no brainer. Just too many scenarios here to even think about so the only answer would be ask manager or IT staff.

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  • When I ran an IT shop, we set desktops to automatically sleep when idle, and we used WakeOnLan to wake them up for nightly backups/updates.
    – Johnny
    Dec 17, 2015 at 0:22
  • @Johnny - We have done the same thing before. The problem is we never would get 100% restart on the WakeOnLan. Might not seem like a big deal but is if your IT guys aren't all on location.
    – blankip
    Dec 17, 2015 at 2:53

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