Probably not that's cutting the electric flow all at once and probably causes some sort of degradation to the system and parts inside of it.

I don't think that's ideal. Best would be doing it from the software side or whatever you call it when you do the command inside the operating system. It's definitely better than suffering from a power surge or unplugging it, though.
I remember sometimes stuff messing up when I used the power button, but this was like a decade ago.

By power switch I don't mean I. The PSU but through the controller on the case that hooks up to the motherboard. Parts shouldn't degrade over a motherboard operation unless no one's thought of that issue

>>1397
That's what I assumed you meant in my post here >>1395. I've had some weird behavior happen when I do that before, like it 'forgetting' placement of icons on the desktop and other minor stuff. It wasn't a big deal, but it demonstrated to me that it wasn't an ideal way of doing things. Maybe it was just my setup, though.
But, yeah, I'd try to shut it down through the operating system I think. The button connected to the case that's connected to the motherboard would be second place I think.

>>1393
Most modern OSs will do software shutdown if you press the button on the case. Unless you hold it down for a few seconds in which case it'll cut power before a clean shut down.

9 times out of 10 it isn't going to matter. The 1 out of 10th time it might bork your entire OS install. It really depends on the OS, what it's doing at the time and the particulars of each machine. I can tell you that over the years I've had many machines have power cut due to power outage or similar reasons. Out of all of those times maybe once I rebooted into a BSoD situation.

I'm also of the opinion that there is no reason to turn a machine off ever unless your reason is security and you're running full disk encryption on it. I leave all my machines on 24/7 excluding laptops. They do not draw much power when idle and I'm of the opinion that it causes less wear to internal parts than turning them off and on all of the time. I have some computers here that have been running 24/7/365 for over 30 years now. They still work fine and will probably continue working long after I'm dead provided someone is around to care for them.

These days I've invested in UPSs but for many years I didn't use those either. The power network here isn't the best and suffers from outages nearly every winter and sometimes in summer during large storms. I've never had an issue with them going down due to power outage. But you do want to watch out for pulsing. When a line is down the power company will pulse the line 2-3 times in an attempt to bring it back up. This happens automatically. Anything plugged directly into the grid will get pulsed right along with the main line. In those cases you want to yank the power cord out of the wall and wait on the pulsing to pass. The line will either come back up and run as normal or it'll go down all together until a crew can come out and fix the problem (usually a downed power line).

For the above a cheap powerstrip isn't good protection. You want a UPS with battery backup. You want it set-up correctly to send a shut down signal to the machines hooked up to it. It'll give you 5-15 minutes of power to finish up any task you're working on and to allow the OS to shut down cleanly. You want to replace your batteries every so often. If you buy a used UPS always buy a new battery along with it.

>>1403
>I have some computers here that have been running 24/7/365 for over 30 years now
Are you running servers or something? Or is the reason you don't switch them off just for longevity? Might be cheaper to just save on electricity and replace the components. I've only ever left my computer on overnight for big downloads or processing.

>>1405
You save almost nothing on electricity by turning them off. Even if you have the CPU churning away 24/7 at 100% you aren't saving much compared to them being turned off. Anyone that thinks this way hasn't personally tested it. PCs consume almost nothing compared to your dryer, hot water heater, AC/Heat and other appliances. But the ones I mentioned at the main ones in every home.
>Why do you do this?
Other than wear and tear on the parts the main reason is simple. When I want to use a machine I want to use it NOW. Not 5 minutes from now. On older machines without SSDs start up can be several minutes. Some of mine are servers, firewalls and that kind of thing. But many of them are just old desktops that I use for various purposes or just for fun.

You've seen Lain I'm sure. My living room basically looks like her bed room.

If you really want to save power you'd be unplugging everything from the wall whenever you aren't using it. Since they all draw a bit of power even when "powered off". Anything connected to the grid has a load on it.

>>1405
>replace the components
Not sure if you're aware but it's impossible to replace components for some legacy hardware. I can not replace my capture card since they don't make good ones anymore. I have several dongles using proprietary DRM that allow them to control old industrial hardware. They can not be replaced. They still haven't been cracked. They will not work with a VM. If they aren't connected to the serial ports of your old 286/386 machines and don't detect some ancient version of MS-DOS they will not work. Meaning a $10-100k+ piece of industrial equipment is now totally useless. There our bounties for some of this stuff upwards to million dollars. Still no one has stepped forward to claim them. I've personally been at it myself for many years.

A lot of my machines run 24/7 simply because they're running some task. I have one desktop dedicated purely to encoding video. It has a 12 year old CPU in it now. It has stayed pegged at 99-100% load for most of those 12 years. It runs at about 75C in summer and 70C in winter if I crack open the window next to it. It's air cooled with a good aftermarket fan. The stock fan couldn't keep it below 90C and it would constantly throttle itself to keep from burning up.

One month I compared the difference between running that machine 24/7 or leaving it turned off. I didn't encode video for that entire month. The difference in my bill was like $0.50. AC and Heat are the main things that contribute to my power bill. In summer the AC adds about $90 a month and in winter the heat adds somewhere between $120-$150. I have a split duct system and not much of a house to cool/heat. I also don't run the AC or heat that much either. I keep the place about 75F in summer and 65F in winter.

All that to say. The computers cost almost nothing to run. They only start costing a lot if you're running a proper server farm with large banks of multi-core CPUs and GPUs going at full load all of the time. Even then the main cost is cooling them. Not the actual processing they're doing.