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Bruce asked: “My laptop – If I put it in sleep mode, pack it away in a case and turn it back on tonight, is there a heat issue or should a person always power it down?”
Bruce, if it’s a relatively modern computer, it’s probably ok… but if it’s a relatively modern computer it probably turns on very quickly and you don’t need to do that anyway.
The main concerns you should have are the heat issue that you referred to, and moving parts. If your computer has no optical drive, and an SSD instead of a hard drive, then you’re probably fine for moving parts and heat becomes the main thing to be worried about.
How does your own computer handle that? If you put it to sleep and leave it on a table does it feel hot to the touch at all? Some do, these days more and more don’t. If yours is the kind that does, then don’t risk it. It will be in a confined space with no air flow and, while electronics do know to turn off rather than face damage when they overheat, that’s not fool proof, especially in the long haul.
If you put it to sleep and leave it on a table does it feel hot to the touch at all?
If it stays as cold as it does when it’s off, then it’s just probably trickling an insignificant charge to the RAM to keep it from losing the memory of how you left it, and you’ll probably be fine.
However, As we said before, if your computer is modern enough to behave that way, it’s probably modern enough to turn back on in seconds, so why bother? If in doubt, turn it off.
If you are about to move to a new location, there are advantages to shutting off your computer, also. Or at least logging out before putting it to sleep. When you bring the computer back to life, it doesn’t assume that it’s still on the same network, but it starts fresh looking for new connections.
But, as we said, the real issue is does your computer have an SSD (Solid State Drive) or does it have a traditional rotating hard drive? A machine with an SSD boots up from completely powered down very quickly, so there is no reason not to shut it down when you’re moving about.
If you’re staying put, however, and just walking away for a while, sleep mode is preferable because the computer can then wake itself to handle updates or other maintenance tasks.