Resolved Shutting down by cutting power

My streaming computer is an old pc running Windows 7. It and all the home theatre stuff is on the same power switch, which we shut down at night for safety reasons and to stop dozens of vampire devices sucking juice in standby mode. The next day we flick the switch and everything comes back on.

This system works fine and we have never had a problem but I have heard that repeatedly doing this can cause corruption in Windows. The streaming computer almost never writes data, except as part of real time normal background operations. Automatic updates are all off, and apps are minimal, mainly just Windows Explorer and the browser. I do have an HD PVR2 installed for the rare occasions I want to record something, but that is about all.

My question is what problems, if any, can these nightly abrupt power cuts ultimately cause, and what if anything can I do to minimise them? For example, would running chkdsk from time to time clean up any accumulated drive errors? Are there other things to watch out for?

I am not requesting comments about proper shutdown procedures. This is the way I do it and that is not going to change. I just would like to know what the possible long-term consequences might be, and if there is anything I can do to alleviate those.

 

Windows and data corruption. Even if the computer is not apparently writing anything, Windows is doing its work in the background. Switching off the computer without cleanly shutting down may not cause problem now but when it does, it would be a fully blown one and could wipe everything from hard disk.

 

It was with an old EIDE drive, but I have also seen where the file tables on a hard drive became so corrupted, the drive could not even be low-level formatted again. In other words, the hard drive had to be replaced and the user lost everything. And of course, he had no backups of his data.

This user used one of those gimmicky power stands under his monitor and instead of "gracefully" shutting down Windows and turning off power, he just flipped the master power switch. I suspect these power stands/stations are hard to find these days because of all the problems they caused. This is also another reason I don't recommend the use of surge and spike protectors. They are little more than fancy and expensive extension cords. If there is an extreme high (or low) voltage anomaly, they simply kill power. So I always recommend the use of a "good" UPS with AVR (automatic voltage regulation) with every computer system.

In some cases, heat is another problem when you suddenly kill power. When you "gracefully" shutdown a computer the proper way, the workload on all the hardware resources (CPU, RAM, graphics, voltages regulator circuits, etc.) drop to a near idle state where the system cooling (which is still being powered) has a couple more seconds to remove any excessive heat before the fans stop spinning too. When you suddenly kill the power, the fans almost instantly stop. A couple more seconds may not seem significant, but with many components (especially those with heatsinks) a couple more seconds of air movement will provide a significant drop in temperatures.

Do note with modern computers, they really use very little power when they go into sleep mode by themselves. I rarely ever fully turn my computers (or monitors, printer, speakers, etc.) off any more. I just let them go into sleep/standby mode).

 

Thank you for the excellent answers. This is exactly the kind of information I was hoping for. I live in New Zealand and we use the same electrical system as Australians, which means all power outlets have wall switches. There is one outlet that feeds via extension cords everything related to audio and video and I don't really want to run a separate line. We have dozens of devices running when power is on, TV, DVR, satellite decoder, HDMI switches, amp, satellite and UHF receivers, sub-woofer, Hauppauge, computer, several smaller gadgets like audio extractor, wireless headphone, etc. I don't want all this running even in standby mode when no-one is using it, especially at night, and it is very convenient just to be able to flick a single switch. This has worked well for several years, but the computer is a more recent addition.

The PC is not valuable and has no important content other than video bookmarks and my AHK scripts. I use old hard drives with it and have a couple in reserve. I have cloned the current set-up with Matrium Reflect so if worst comes to worst it is a simple matter to restore or replace the drive. Naturally it would be better not to have to, which is why I asked my question, but if it becomes corrupted over time, I can easily live with that. Thanks again for the useful responses.

 

If you always - as in EVERY SINGLE TIME - gracefully shut down Windows through the Windows Start menu "Shut down" option and then flip that outlet wall switch, I don't see that as a problem. It is killing the power when Windows is still running that can potentially cause damage.

If you (or others in the house) are in the habit of just hitting the wall switch, what you could do is get a good UPS with AVR and connect your computer gear to it. Then you can configure the UPS management software to signal Windows to save any open files, close any running programs, gracefully shut down Windows, and then kill power to the computer whenever power is lost. Most UPS come with this software. APC UPS use a program called PowerChute and I use it to monitor my UPS and to gracefully shutdown Windows when I am down to 10 minutes of battery runtime left. But I can easily set it to shutdown the computer after as little as 1 minute after a power outage. In this way, not only will your computer be protected from power anomalies such as surges and spikes, dips (opposite of spikes) and sags (opposite of surges) and brownouts (long duration sags), but should you forget to shutdown gracefully and just flip the switch, the software will kick in and do it for you.

And note that most UPS come with several outlets - some supported through the batteries, and some that are just surge and spike protected. So you could connect the computer to the battery side of the UPS, and devices you don't care if they go off instantly to the other side.