i‘ve customized my power button to hybernate wen pressed once and to forcefully shut down wen hold down...

but ofcourse forcefully shutting down a system is bad, it corrupt os and unsaved file could go missing

this is only applicable when ur computer is unresponsive, maybe caused by virus or installing of programs

Well said!

joey150:
If you force a shut down(which is same as pushing the power button) it dosent fry the motherboard in the pc lol.
The computer just can't guarantee that It would save all your unfinished work or properly close all the running applications. Which in turn makes it boot slower on the next startup.
Its just like parking in a rush for a journey..your clothes get rumpled but the bag or clothe isnt harmed.
na so i take understand am. Dont form Charles Babbage for me here pls.

khalhokage:
So long as it's not a forced shutdown(holding down the power button) then it doesn't matter, but nevertheless hibernating is better for your hard drive in the long run than shutting down all the time.

I learnt something new today,thanks for this one

Marvel1206:
I have someone who is always raging anytime i shut down my computer system via the power button as he claims it damages my computer even though i've customized it to shut down any time i press it.
(Control panel/Hardware and Sound/ Power options/Change what the power buttons do)
and i don't think it has any effect.
But from what i know, if you press and hold the power button, it means your computer won't be able to shut down cleanly, you may lose work and file system might get corrupted.. If you try this on windows 95, it will run a scandisk if you boot it back attempting to repair all damages caused by the shut down.

My question is which is the best way to shut down a computer?
Power button or windows shut down..
NB: i've customized mine to shut down anytime i press it and i don't press and hold it to force shut down except when the need arises i.e When the computer freezes

Well, google is my friend

Many computer users were trained never to turn their PCs off by pressing the power button on their desktop PC’s case. This used to cause problems in the previous millennium, but it’s now perfectly safe to shut down with the power button.

This is especially useful on Windows 8, where there’s no obvious power button unless you know to look in the charms bar or the hidden Windows Key + X menu. But there is a power button — and it’s on your PC’s case.



Why Old Computers Couldn’t Handle This
If you ever used Windows 95 on an old computer, you’ll probably remember how you had to turn off the PC. You opened the Start menu, clicked Shut Down, and waited patiently for the computer to finish up whatever it was doing. When it was ready for you to shut down, you’d see the message “It’s now safe to turn off your computer” on your screen and you’d press the power button to shut it off.

The power button wasn’t very smart in those days. When you pressed it, it immediately cut power to the computer’s hardware. Just as you wouldn’t yank a desktop computer’s power cord out of the outlet while it was running today, you wouldn’t press the power button to shut off then. A sudden power cut means the computer won’t be able to shut down cleanly. You may lose work and the file system might be corrupted. If you did this on Windows 95, your computer would have to run ScanDisk when you booted it back up, attempting to repair all the damage caused by the shut down.

When you clicked Shut Down in Windows first, Windows wrapped up everything it was doing, closing all open programs and saving all data to the disk. Your computer wasn’t doing anything at all when that message appeared on your screen, so it was safe to cut power to it.



Why New Computers Can Safely Shut Down
Old computers used a pretty low-tech solution. Instead of suddenly cutting power to the computer, why couldn’t the power button send a signal to the computer’s operating system saying “Hey, it’s time to shut down, finish up what you’re doing” and let the computer shut down intelligently? And, when you did shut down from the operating system, why did you have to sit at the computer and wait to press the power button once everything was done? Why couldn’t the operating system say to the computer “it’s now safe to shut down, power off”?

These questions were answered by the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) standard, which new computers have used for more than a decade. When you press the power button on your computer’s case, it doesn’t suddenly cut power — it sends a signal to the operating system and tells it to shut down. The operating system can also understand multiple types of ACPI signals, which is how some laptops are able to have separate power and sleep buttons. And, when you click Shut Down in Windows, it uses ACPI to send a signal to your computer’s hardware, telling it to cut the power so you don’t have to press the power button by hand.

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In other words, your computer’s power button is smart enough to do the right thing. You can just press the power button on your case to shut it down. Bear in mind that this power button can be configured to do different things, so you can have your computer shut down, sleep, or hibernate when you press the power button.

Windows 98 introduced support for ACPI, but it requires appropriate hardware. If you install a modern version of Windows on older hardware, you’ll still see the “It is now safe to turn off your computer” message and have to press the power button manually.



Holding Down the Power Button Still Cuts Power to the Computer
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Your computer’s power button is smart, but this might be a problem in some situations. For example, if Windows is frozen and you press the power button, the computer would send the appropriate ACPI signal to Windows, but Windows wouldn’t be able to respond. Your computer would stay frozen and not shut down.

For this reason, there’s a way to forcibly cut power to your computer in case you ever run into a problem. Just press the power button and hold it down. After a few seconds, the power will be cut to your computer and it will suddenly shut down. This is normally a bad idea, as it can lead to lost data, file system corruption, and other issues. However, if your computer is frozen and the power button isn’t working, it’s a failsafe you have available. This allows you to power cycle laptops when you can’t remove the battery.



How to Choose What Happens When You Press the Power Button
Windows and other operating systems allow you to customize what happens when you press the power button on your computer. If you always want to shut down your computer, you can do that — or you could always have your computer enter hibernate mode when you press the power button. The choice is up to you.

To customize this in Windows, open the Control Panel, click Hardware and Sound, and click Change what the power buttons do under Power Options.



Choose options from the lists here. You can choose separate options when your computer is plugged in or running on battery. If you like, you can also set the computer to do nothing when you press the power button, effectively disabling the power button. If you have a laptop, you’ll also be able to control what happens when you close the lid — closing the lid also sends an ACPI signal, so the computer can automatically go to sleep when you close the lid.



Bear in mind that this won’t work on any ancient hardware you come across. If you turn off an extremely ancient business computer by pressing its power button, someone will probably be unhappy with you.

Marvel1206:


but i've customized it to shut down like the normal shut down

then no worries.

joey150:
then no worries.

Okay thanks

Holding down the power off button cuts off power to PC internals like yanking off the power cable. Only problem is if you do this when your HDD is working (IE read/write going on) then you could get corrupted sectors on the HDD else there shouldn't be any issue if you've already stopped all major running processes. PCs today use power intelligently and as such HDD head parking and other power save modes mean you can power down in an instant. This does not mean that this is always the way to go though; Windows might have some updates pending which it configures during shutdown and powering off like that could be tricky.

Also, if you hibernate often, then you must defrag often as hibernating fragments your HDD seriously although you only tend to notice the effects when your HDD fills up. My personal advice is to shutdown normally at least once in 2 weeks.

khalhokage:
So long as it's not a forced shutdown(holding down the power button) then it doesn't matter, but nevertheless hibernating is better for your hard drive in the long run than shutting down all the time.

Take note, hibernating your system more than a couple of hours damages the battery, I heard and didnt believe, I had to learn the hard way.
It is better to shut down once you are done with you Laptop.

Marvel1206:


Noted, i love hibernating.. If i close the lid, it will hibernate
thanks

I hope you don't mean sleep o, cause closing the lid usually puts the PC to sleep by default, and sleep is entirely different from hibernate.

silkytouch:



Take note, hibernating your system more than a couple of hours damages the battery, I heard and didnt believe, I had to learn the hard way.
It is better to shut down once you are done with you Laptop.

That's a myth man, I've been using laptops for years and I always hibernate, I've had battery problems with only one.

khalhokage:


I hope you don't mean sleep o, cause closing the lid usually puts the PC to sleep by default, and sleep is entirely different from hibernate.

i've customized it to hibernate.. The default was sleep and i changed it to hibernate

bigboa:
Holding down the power off button cuts off power to PC internals like yanking off the power cable. Only problem is if you do this when your HDD is working (IE read/write going on) then you could get corrupted sectors on the HDD else there shouldn't be any issue if you've already stopped all major running processes. PCs today use power intelligently and as such HDD head parking and other power save modes mean you can power down in an instant. This does not mean that this is always the way to go though; Windows might have some updates pending which it configures during shutdown and powering off like that could be tricky.

Also, if you hibernate often, then you must defrag often as hibernating fragments your HDD seriously although you only tend to notice the effects when your HDD fills up. My personal advice is to shutdown normally at least once in 2 weeks.

thanks for the info, my computer automatically hibernates when it's around 5percent. Normally, I do shut down most times

khalhokage:
So long as it's not a forced shutdown(holding down the power button) then it doesn't matter, but nevertheless hibernating is better for your hard drive in the long run than shutting down all the time.

Hibernating does not affect battery life, does it?

slap1:

Hibernating does not affect battery life, does it?

No I doesn't.

I have the same issue, do u shut down because u can't hibernate or more appropriately, u can't find the hibernate ? I ve been forcefully shutting down mine cos I have the same issue, if I shut it down d normal way, it starts hanging which could be very annoying.... Do u or anybody have any idea of how to restore the hibernate?

MrOreo:
I have the same issue, do u shut down because u can't hibernate or more appropriately, u can't find the hibernate ? I ve been forcefully shutting down mine cos I have the same issue, if I shut it down d normal way, it starts hanging which could be very annoying.... Do u or anybody have any idea of how to restore the hibernate?

i can find the hibernate.. You cnt find 'hibernate' on your system?

godoluwa:
it will damage ur pc hd

Forget that thing; you know how many times I power off my system without shutting down; only that when next you boot you will wait extra 30 seconds for repairs.

Marvel1206:


i can find the hibernate.. You cnt find 'hibernate' on your system?

Found it... thanks

Emeka71:
Forget that thing; you know how many times I power off my system without shutting down; only that when next you boot you will wait extra 30 seconds for repairs.

you mean you do force shut down? It slowly kills your computer bruh

Marvel1206:


you mean you do force shut down? It slowly kills your computer bruh

I see that as the only way out when my computer freezes. The method doesn't kill computer because when next you boot; the system could take at least 30 seconds to repair.

bigboa:
Holding down the power off button cuts off power to PC internals like yanking off the power cable. Only problem is if you do this when your HDD is working (IE read/write going on) then you could get corrupted sectors on the HDD else there shouldn't be any issue if you've already stopped all major running processes. PCs today use power intelligently and as such HDD head parking and other power save modes mean you can power down in an instant. This does not mean that this is always the way to go though; Windows might have some updates pending which it configures during shutdown and powering off like that could be tricky.

Also, if you hibernate often, then you must defrag often as hibernating fragments your HDD seriously although you only tend to notice the effects when your HDD fills up. My personal advice is to shutdown normally at least once in 2 weeks.

I used to be a HUGE fan of Hibernating. I even configured my laptop to Hibernate after pressing the power button. I would go up to a month without properly shutting down.
In the last 6 months or so, I've stopped it. Hibernation has made my laptop quite slow, even though I now reboot every few days. The laptop has also 'crashed' a few times, but thankfully I've always been able to reboot after a system restore via the boot menu. The 2-yr old Laptop is 1TB and has been more than 90% full for more than a year. Part of my to-do list is reset the laptop to factory settings, after I do a backup and note the list of programs I'll need to reinstall.

spacyzuma:


I used to be a HUGE fan of Hibernating. I even configured my laptop to Hibernate after pressing the power button. I would go up to a month without properly shutting down.
In the last 6 months or so, I've stopped it. Hibernation has made my laptop quite slow, even though I now reboot every few days. The laptop has also 'crashed' a few times, but thankfully I've always been able to reboot after a system restore via the boot menu. The 2-yr old Laptop is 1TB and has been more than 90% full for more than a year. Part of my to-do list is reset the laptop to factory settings, after I do a backup and note the list of programs I'll need to reinstall.

Please my system refused to boot due to forced shut down. It's being saying failure to configure Window. I need help.

tonypeaches:



Please my system refused to boot due to forced shut down. It's being saying failure to configure Window. I need help.

you've been forcing shut down or just this once?
cc: femdevscon cyberdemon