Laptops are integral to our work and lives. Most people use them daily for emails, presentations, internet browsing, and streaming their favorite shows, making upkeep and longevity crucial. No one wants to engage in habits that could affect how well their laptop works or potentially put their machine at risk of security breaches. One common behavior is closing the laptop's lid when you're done using it instead of formally shutting it down. Why wait for your computer to power off when you can simply shut your screen?
It turns out you might want to reconsider that. What's best for your personal device depends on a few factors, but there are key things to keep in mind, no matter what type of laptop you use. Here's what to know about always relying on closing your laptop lid.
What Happens When You Close the Lid?
When you close the laptop lid, it can go into a few different modes, and some are more helpful than others. Exactly what happens when you close your laptop lid versus shut the computer down depends on your laptop manufacturer and operating system, said Patrick McKee, an associate teaching professor in the department of computer science at Rowan University in New Jersey.
“If you do close the lid, you actually want to make sure that the laptop is changing modes. You can tell that it's changing modes if the noise that usually comes from the laptop, like the fans and stuff like that, quiet down,” McKee noted. If the fans stop running, your laptop is switching to sleep or hibernation mode. But if the fans stay on, your laptop isn't changing modes at all and “it's actually still on,” he said.
“Now, normally when you initially close the laptop, it goes into [sleep mode] and sleep is a very low power consumption mode, but it still takes a little bit of power, so it still is kind of using that battery,” McKee explained. When a laptop is in sleep mode, it can perform necessary updates, which is why, if you come back to your laptop a little while later, you may notice that the machine has restarted or your programs are refreshed.
According to McKee, “manufacturers and the operating systems usually have this second mode that it goes into after it's been in sleep mode for a little bit.” This is called “hibernate mode,” and it usually switches after about 15 minutes of sleep mode. “Hibernate is largely equivalent to just turning the laptop off — there is very little power consumption that happens in this mode,” McKee said. You can keep it in this mode for days without using much of the battery.
“As far as consumer health and laptop health is concerned, you want to make sure that you're getting into that hibernate mode,” McKee said ― especially if you're not going to turn the computer off at night.
Why You Should Shut Down Regularly
You should turn off your laptop at least once a week, if not more. According to McKee, you should be fully turning off your computer at least once a week. And for some laptops, that frequency should be even higher. “The main components that can cause wear and tear now on a computer is, essentially, heat,” said Hazel Yamada, co-department chair of computer information systems at Portland Community College in Oregon. Computers only generate small amounts of heat in sleep mode, she added, and it's not enough to impact the longevity of a laptop.
“If you are going to be not using the computer for a weekend, or you're going to be putting it inside of a case or traveling with it, it is best in those situations to turn your computer off just because your computer, in that case, is going to generate heat unnecessarily for a long period of time,” Yamada said. In a laptop case, there's not much ambient airflow, which makes that confined space even warmer for a laptop, Yamada said.
Moreover, when you fully shut down your computer, you allow it to clean up or delete any temporary storage, according to McKee. “It is smart for folks to restart their computer from time to time,” Yamada stressed. “This has less to do with the hardware longevity and more from a security point of stance. System updates to someone's computer are very important, and some aspects of software and system updates can only be applied during the computer's boot up process.” This keeps your computer as safe as possible from hackers and bad actors.
Battery Care Tips
Don't let your battery die often, either. If the only time your laptop shuts off is when it dies, that's not great, either. “The general advice is you want to keep your laptop battery at no less than 20%,” McKee said. In fact, it's best to keep your laptop charged between 20% and 80%, he added. But if you do charge your laptop above 80% or below 20%, it likely won't have a huge impact over time. Manufacturers have created charging software that doesn't damage the laptop if it does get to a charge above 80%, McKee said.
“We are not talking about if you let your battery go to 100 every night or down to zero a few times, it's not going to drastically flip a switch on your battery that reduces battery life,” Yamada said. With all of these habits, it's more about long-term habitual use rather than one day of letting the battery hit 0% or forgetting to shut down your laptop over a weekend. “What I'm talking about are optimal strategies — but this is over a long-term period,” Yamada said. “Someone who owns a laptop for three years, they're likely not going to get much difference between one pattern of usage or the other. It's more based on gradual patterns and your recurring habits.”
