Is It Bad To Close Laptop Without Shutting Down?

Is it bad to close laptop without shutting down? Most people don’t think twice before shutting their laptops down. In fact, do you even remember the last time that you shut down your laptop completely?

Closing the lid down is an extremely efficient and easy way to pause operations. Some people don’t even know what really goes on when they close the lid on their laptop.

You might have heard a bunch of theories about factors that affect laptop performance. Some people will tell you that to maximize the performance of your battery, you should always run it in full cycles. Some will say that it doesn’t matter how you use it as long as you don’t let the device overheat.

There’s so much stuff swirling around the Web regarding adequate laptop maintenance that an average person is almost always confused. You will find 10 conflicting opinions on different websites. If you take a look around your workplace, you will realize that everyone treats their laptop in a different manner.

Some people are incredibly cautious and particular, while others are quite messy and don’t think twice before slamming the lid down and putting the laptop in their bags.

Many people are delusional to the point where they think that just turning off the lid suspends all operations, while some think that as long as the lid is down, the laptop will shut down automatically.

Is It Bad To Close Laptop Without Shutting Down?

If you don’t actually go to the power menu and shut your laptop down yourself, it won’t be getting any rest. First, let’s talk about what happens by default when you shut down your laptop.

In the simplest of terms, your laptop enters Sleep mode. The Sleep mode on your laptop is designed to consume very little power, but it keeps all essential things running.

For instance, when you open the lid again, you will find that all of the applications that you had running on your laptop will still be active. As soon as you turn on the lid, full-power operation is resumed again. Think of it as a standby mode where your computer suspends everything.

If you were writing a document on a word processor, it would remain open. All settings will remain normal and everything will resume from just where you left it. What this means is that your RAM cache is still occupied. This won’t be cleaned until you restart your computer.

If you have a bad battery or very little juice in your battery, this low-power state will eventually consume the last bit of it, and your computer will power down.

You will lose all of your saved data, especially if it’s an older computer. On newer devices, the settings will be saved and your data will be written to the hard disk before the computer powers down on its own.

Can You Control What Happens When You Close the Lid?

The simple answer to this question is yes, you can. You have the option of controlling whatever happens once the lid is brought down. The Windows operating system, which is the most commonly used operating system around the world, makes it easy for you to configure a wide variety of settings on your laptop.

You can decide what happens when you shut down the lid, and you can also decide what happens when you press the Power button. Primarily, there are three settings that you can choose from:

  • You can decide to shut down your computer
  • You can decide to put it in hibernate
  • You can put your laptop in Sleep mode

Now, let’s talk about these different settings:

Hibernate: When you put your laptop in Hibernate mode, the computer will save all of your data on the hard disk. All of the information that was written in your RAM will be moved to the hard disk, so that the computer can resume operations from the same moment that you left it.

It’s an excellent choice for when you want to save the current state of operations and resume after a while. But, you should know that hibernate mode takes time; the laptop will require a few seconds at the very least to write all of the data to the hard disk and save it.

Shut Down: This one is pretty self-explanatory. As soon as you close the lid, the laptop will shut down. All open applications and files will be closed immediately and the computer will power down.

However, there are certain applications that might prevent a successful shutdown; so your laptop will remain stuck on the prompt screen. If that happens, it will continue to consume power, and you will only notice this when you open the lid again.

Sleep mode: This is the most common mode. It’s the one that’s configured by default. It’s a very low power mode, so you won’t have much to worry about.

So, Is it Bad to Close the Laptop Lid Down?

As you can see, it’s not bad at all to close the lid down. It all depends on how you have configured the settings on your laptop. It is bad if you shut it down automatically without saving your data, so that’s one of the settings that you should never configure on the device.

Modern laptops are designed to consume much less power and they are incredibly customizable. With the right operating system, you can decide whatever changes you want to make to your computer without having to worry about anything at all.

However, you just need to make sure that you keep your laptop clean. Try to avoid stressing the power cord as that could lead to battery damage and could cause severe problems in the long run.

More importantly, you should avoid getting any kind of spills on the laptop. Even though they come with spill resistant keyboards now, there is always a risk that your laptop might sustain damage if a liquid ends up seeping through.

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About David

Hey there, I'm David. I recently joined the Spacehop team from Tech Devised, and love writing about all things TECH! When I'm not writing, you can find me enjoying the great outdoors with my golden retriever Lucy or enjoying a pint at my local Irish pub.

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