Hard shutdown, bad?

[srynznfyra]

I want to know whether shutting down a computer by holding down the power button for a few seconds, is bad for the motherboard or shortens its life. Bear in mind that i mean the motherboard and/or expansion cards, NOT any other components.

Also, is it bad for the PSU? I wouldn't have thought so but I'll check anyway .

_Fela

[RecT]

The ONLY problems with a hard shutdown is for unsaved documents that are currently open. Bear in mind that before Windows 95, the only way to turn the computer off was with the power switch.

[srynznfyra]

The ONLY problems with a hard shutdown is for unsaved documents that are currently open. Bear in mind that before Windows 95, the only way to turn the computer off was with the power switch.

Are you sure about that? I heard it can do damage to components such as harddrives...i was just wondering if it did anything to the mobo. It would make sense if it damages the HDD. If you're sure it doesn't damage or shorten the lifecycle of anything then i'll take your word for it.

btw i'm not worried whether it'll damage harddrives or not.


EDIT: I just had a thought - maybe it's only the software that can get corrupted on a hard shutdown for a harddrive. I know that's possible (and has happened to me 1 or 2 times believe it or not, luckily both times fsck sorted it out and i got to keep my data).

[RecT]

I have never had a component problem with hard shutdowns - even with a spinning and accessing hdd. The only issue i've had is with documents not being saved. Everything else software wise, the OS is pretty good (post XP) at sorting out.

I don't see a shutdown damaging other components. Electrical components (I hear my gf snoring at this point) usually only get damaged during voltage spikes or power overloads, which I don't believe will occur when power is cut.

A power overload (mains supply issue) may kill the PSU, but that should protect the rest of the computer. For safety sake, I use power strip plugs with smoothing and overload protection.

[WWP]

Im not convinced that a spike would only kill the PSU, there is a fuse to be sure but i've had a lightening strike kill my mobo before the PSU was fried.

[srynznfyra]

I have never had a component problem with hard shutdowns - even with a spinning and accessing hdd. The only issue i've had is with documents not being saved. Everything else software wise, the OS is pretty good (post XP) at sorting out.

I don't see a shutdown damaging other components. Electrical components (I hear my gf snoring at this point) usually only get damaged during voltage spikes or power overloads, which I don't believe will occur when power is cut.

A power overload (mains supply issue) may kill the PSU, but that should protect the rest of the computer. For safety sake, I use power strip plugs with smoothing and overload protection.

Okay. I've actually done tonnes of hard shutdowns on this crappy computer I'm on now, I haven't actually had any hardware failures yet except a dud RAM stick that took just 20 minutes to pinpoint thanks to memtest86 :P (that was because it was 4 years old and crappy), and also a corrupt harddisk partition (fixed easily by fsck), that was caused by me killing a system process that was continually wearing out my harddisk but in fact should run anyway (or what I got would happen).