Question Can i turn off pc from psu switch everynight ?

[autoblogart]

1) Does turning a pc off direclty from the psu switch when its on can short your motherboard ?? (Short circuit?

2) is it okey to turn off pc after shutdown from psu switch . Everynight ??

(If yes how long should i wait before pressing switch button on psu . 30 second . 1 minute ??? ......)

 

[COLGeek]

If I understand correctly:

1) No. You won't short the motherboard, but you could corrupt your HDD/SSD.

2) Yes. Every night is okay, too.

Once the power switch is flipped to the on position, you can press the power button immediately.

Why these particular questions?

 

[autoblogart]

If I understand correctly:

1) No. You won't short the motherboard, but you could corrupt your HDD/SSD.

2) Yes. Every night is okay, too.

Once the power switch is flipped to the on position, you can press the power button immediately.

Why these particular questions?

I have asked because i had a motherboard and i was turning off pc directly from ■power button . (I Keep holding power button in pc case until pc is off )
■and psu and unplug the cable while pc is on a lot of times . And the motherboard stopped working . Some mosfet died


3) my mean is when the pc is shutdowned from windows can i immediately go to psu and press switch button to off side ?

Or i have to wait for some seconds or minutes until all the power is gone from components then i press switch button ?
Got my point ?

 

[CountMike]

I have asked because i had a motherboard and i was turning off pc directly from ■power button . (I Keep holding power button in pc case until pc is off )
■and psu and unplug the cable while pc is on a lot of times . And the motherboard stopped working . Some mosfet died


3) my mean is when the pc is shutdowned from windows can i immediately go to psu and press switch button to off side ?

Or i have to wait for some seconds or minutes until all the power is gone from components then i press switch button ?
Got my point ?

Only thing you can "damage" is Windows if they don't shut down properly before all power is off. Proper way would be to just press start button for a second, wait for windows to shut down and then shut power off .

 

[USAFRet]

Can you?
After shutting Windows down properly, yes.

But why?

 

[drea.drechsler]

Turning off the switch (after proper shutdown of the OS) is actually a good idea since flipping the power toggle on the PSU completely removes it from input power. When it's connected to the mains the surge protection devices at the input of the PSU sees every power line surge and spike that your house might experience even if the PSU is off.

Surges and spikes may not happen often but surge protectors have a limited number of them they can experience before protection is lost. So flipping the switch is a way to make sure it doesn't come prematurely.

But one so-called feature you lose is +5Vsb power so you won't be able to charge your phone or tablet on the computer even when the OS is shut down.

 

[hotaru.hino]

An issue with doing this is every time you power on the PSU, there's inrush-current that happens because of various components on the AC side charging up. There are ways to counteract this: https://www.onelectrontech.com/six-countermeasures-current-limit-smps-startup-inrush-current/ , but I keep thinking in the back of my head that, depending on how the PSU manufacturer implemented this, flipping the switch enough times may burn out the inrush current protection part, since it uses the same design as a surge protector (which are only useful for a certain amount of "jolts").

My recommendation is unless you live in an area that's prone to electrical problems like surges or whatnot, don't do it. And even then, if you're using a power strip or surge protector, just flip that switch instead.

 

[autoblogart]

I

Can you?
After shutting Windows down properly, yes.

But why?

I am afraid of electrecity cuts thats why . Any advice ? Electricity cuts dont happen much but i am worried it can harm pc if power was still going to pc ?

 

[USAFRet]

I

I am afraid of electrecity cuts thats why . Any advice ? Electricity cuts dont happen much but i am worried it can harm pc if power was still going to pc ?

Use a good quality surge protector.

 

[drea.drechsler]

I

I am afraid of electrecity cuts thats why . Any advice ? Electricity cuts dont happen much but i am worried it can harm pc if power was still going to pc ?

If you do go the surge protector route be sure to get one with an indicator that informs you when it's surge protection is used up. If you don't have one plan on replacing it every two-three years.

Also, just "more expensive" isn't always what's good for you. You need to get one that's useful for your region since different regions have different surge experiences. If you're really concerned an electrician can install a device temporarily to monitor power line conditions and recommend surge protection you should have. An electrician that specializes installing surge protectors may know already.

Or just continue to switch it off as you have been. It won't hurt anything.

 

[Karadjgne]

When you shutdown Windows, the pc is Not 'Off' as such. The psu is still active, but in Standby mode. This does 2 things. First is it supplies power to the USB ports, if enabled (default is enabled), and the second and more important is that it supplies uninterrupted power to the CMOS chip, which contains all the bios settings and equipment lists and startup procedures etc.

The CMOS battery is almost never used. Which is why the stupid things last for so many years. The only time the CMOS battery is ever activated is in the instant that power from the psu is ever interrupted. That includes turning off the psu switch.

So No, it's perfectly safe to unplug the pc, disable the psu with the manual switch After a complete Windows Shutdown, however, you will then be relying on the battery 100% of the amount of time the psu is disengaged from power.

Your motherboard CMOS battery will go from years of life, maybe 6-8 years or so, to a matter of months, depending on the amount of time it's disengaged and frequency.

A half-dead CMOS battery can and will cause multiple issues, the least of which being that date codes will be changed, which creates conflicts when the last known good bios was saved by you yesterday, but according to the pc it was January 1st, 12:01pm in 1996 or whatever the bios decides is the default Start time.

So there are arguments both sides, valid. CMOS batteries are not rechargeable, so while relying on one for an overnight unplug is fine, just realize that reliance comes at a cost.

 

[drea.drechsler]

...

Your motherboard CMOS battery will go from years of life, maybe 6-8 years or so, to a matter of months, depending on the amount of time it's disengaged and frequency.

...

Many people have said you should change the CMOS battery yearly.

All that happens (if it dies) is you lose CMOS settings and RTC settings. In practice it doesn't really matter for modern motherboards since they have a save settings profile features. So just restore the settings profile and you're back in business. Next time Windows boots it updates RTC for you. That's the best indicator it's time to replace the battery.

Probably 90% of people don't even make any settings changes anyway. Those who do are simple and easy to recover (just enable XMP). Those who make extensive changes (custom memory timing, tweaked overclocking) will DEFINITELY be familiar with saving profiles.

But in practice I don't believe it will run down in months, at least it's never been my experience. I've always switched my systems off overnight, weekends and vacations with never a problem losing settings from a bad battery. And I've pulled out motherboards that have been in storage for several years...and fired right up with the settings intact (much to my chagrine, I might add).

 

[Phaaze88]

In practice it doesn't really matter for modern motherboards since they have a save settings profile features. So just restore the settings profile and you're back in business.

That feature breaks/is broken if:
-battery dies while the PC is switched off from the wall.
-updating bios. [At least on my board, it clears CMOS automatically after doing so. Those saved profiles go bye-bye too.]

Save profiles to a pendrive instead.

 

[drea.drechsler]

That feature breaks/is broken if:
-battery dies while the PC is switched off from the wall.
..

Nope. sorry. I can say I've never seen it at least because I've had all four of my AM4 PC's (even the atrocious B350's) as well as a couple AM3 boards unplugged and pulled battery to reset CMOS. That's the way I do it when I feel I have to...and that's pretty often when I'm dinking around with memory timings. After reconnect they restored settings from known-good profiles for each one. Those are Gigabyte boards, Asus boards and MSI boards.

On my current Asus B550 the profiles are retained even after a BIOS update. But they're worthless since the new BIOS refuses to load since they were saved from a prior rev. Don't know why the update doesn't just clear that storage area too.

umm...yah. updating BIOS with a dead battery probably isn't a good idea in it's own right. I'm just saying cause when doing something like that it seems a good idea to stack the deck in your favor to maximum extent.

 

[Karadjgne]

On my current Asus B550 the profiles are retained even after a BIOS update. But they're worthless since the new BIOS refuses to load since they were saved from a prior rev. Don't know why the update doesn't just clear that storage area too.

My Asus X570-I, bios profiles are saved. And mine have some timings tweaks. Lotta timing tweaks actually. After the update, I just recall the old profile, change 1 setting, save it which resets the revision, change the setting back again. Couple minutes work and I'm back to where I was instead of re-doing everything from scratch. Which is what would happen if bios also deleted the profiles.

It's one thing if it's just a couple of settings like xmp etc, but if manually adjusting the 40 odd sub-timings, that gets annoying when/if they need to be redone.

 

[drea.drechsler]

...
It's one thing if it's just a couple of settings like xmp etc, but if manually adjusting the 40 odd sub-timings, that gets annoying when/if they need to be redone.

I'm one with a lot of settings...per core Curve Optimizer, custom low-latency memory times (even the sub-timings) and custom fan curves are the most annoying areas. Anyone who's going to that much trouble had best become familiar with how to save profiles for their system.

But even then it doesn't help when updating BIOS since old profiles are ignored.

 

[autoblogart]

Use a good quality surge protector.

What if i dont have one and can't geT a good one . ??

 

[autoblogart]

An issue with doing this is every time you power on the PSU, there's inrush-current that happens because of various components on the AC side charging up. There are ways to counteract this: https://www.onelectrontech.com/six-countermeasures-current-limit-smps-startup-inrush-current/ , but I keep thinking in the back of my head that, depending on how the PSU manufacturer implemented this, flipping the switch enough times may burn out the inrush current protection part, since it uses the same design as a surge protector (which are only useful for a certain amount of "jolts").

My recommendation is unless you live in an area that's prone to electrical problems like surges or whatnot, don't do it. And even then, if you're using a power strip or surge protector, just flip that switch instead.

Turning off power strip is safe ?

 

[Karadjgne]

Yes. A power strip I just that. It's exactly the same as the outlet, just longer pieces of metal inside a plastic case.

The button doesn't do anything to protect you or the pc, it's entire design is to stop ppl from overloading the circuit it's plugged into. Turning off that button is exactly the same as hitting the switch on the psu, disconnects power to the 'hot' wire, but leaves the 'return' and ground wires connected.

 

[autoblogart]

Yes. A power strip I just that. It's exactly the same as the outlet, just longer pieces of metal inside a plastic case.

The button doesn't do anything to protect you or the pc, it's entire design is to stop ppl from overloading the circuit it's plugged into. Turning off that button is exactly the same as hitting the switch on the psu, disconnects power to the 'hot' wire, but leaves the 'return' and ground wires connected.

I have spoke earlier with a corsair live chat agent and he did say they wouldnt recommend turning off psu from switch or turning off power strip from button also

Thats totally fine with me
The only thing i am worried about if for example some day the storms cause an electtrcity cut will it damage my psu and components ??

Whats the best way to deal with this

 

[gamerbrehdy]

I press 'shut down' in the windows menu and switch off my PSU after my pc is completely shut down (no signal on monitor, fans stopped spinning, etc.). Partly because I don't want to waste energy when not using my pc (even though that waste is most likely minimal) and my I/O shroud has LED's that stay on preventing a good night's sleep. Never had any problems with shutting it down so far though (running on 230V powergrid at 50Hz).

Using a corsair RM650 if that info is relevant for the subject.

 

[Karadjgne]

Ok, Corsair techs 'recommendation' is valid, for reasons already stated, like battery, USB, wake timers, wear and tear on the switches physically etc, but it doesn't Hurt to unplug either, especially for storms. Both plugged and unplugged have good points and not-so-good points, so it boils down to 'its your choice'. Simple as that.