Sleep Mode or Idle?

[PsychoPsyops]

I've been told a couple years back that Sleep Mode prolongs the lifespan of your hardware because it lets it rest. Now, I've been hearing that Sleep Mode actually stresses your hardware more than if you were to leave the computer on all night.

I currently put my desktop computer to sleep when I go to bed or when I leave the house. Is this better than leaving it on and turning my monitor off?

Thank you for your time in advance.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Off will probably extend the life of the hardware, sleep is mainly for convenience in faster time to usable. Some of the relevant issues are determined by the quality of the power supply though. The better and newer the power supply, likely the less it becomes an issue. Lower quality power supplies are more likely to have issues with inrush current, noise, ripples and sleep support states.

 

[PsychoPsyops]

Off will probably extend the life of the hardware, sleep is mainly for convenience in faster time to usable. Some of the relevant issues are determined by the quality of the power supply though. The better and newer the power supply, likely the less it becomes an issue. Lower quality power supplies are more likely to have issues with inrush current, noise, ripples and sleep support states.

Sleep off? Or monitor off?
Your answer wasn't really clear.

 

[Darkbreeze]

ALL off. Shut down completely. If the time between uses is short, a half hour or less, sleep is fine (It's fine anyhow, just not going to probably last quite as long as when turning off. Cumulative run time will be much different between a rig sleeping for years and one that's shut down between uses.) but if it will be hours between uses it's better to shut down, in my opinion.

Consider a car at idle. Yes, it uses much less fuel than when it's being driven down the road, and there is a lot less wear and tear from road travel, but it's still stressing components to some degree more than if it was shut off. Very much the same concept.