does a forced shut down damage hardware

sunshinewelly · 12 Apr 2019 at 11:48

I have been having issues with Assassins Creed Odysey and have had to carry out around 25 forced shut downs in the last couple of days . The game just freezes my system so i have to force a shut down. Often then when stwiching the pc back on its not recognizing my TV (ie the boot screen does not appear ) - and i have to force shut down again until it eventually works. Then sometimes it will then freeze as its loading the OS. I dont know if i may have damaged something or whether i have a windows coruption somewhere

Minstadave · 12 Apr 2019 at 11:49

You won't damage hardware but can corrupt windows.

I've never managed to do any damage on windows 10.

UnworthyBean · 12 Apr 2019 at 11:52

There's a small chance of software corruption involved. Technically it can cause hardware damage to the hard drive but I've yet to see it actually happen.

sunshinewelly · 12 Apr 2019 at 11:58

can anyone recommend software to check my SSD integrity and also to test my ram

Plec · 12 Apr 2019 at 12:07

sunshinewelly said:
can anyone recommend software to check my SSD integrity and also to test my ram

SSD - CrystalDiskMark
Memory - Mestest HCI (400% - rule of thumb - read instructions)

WantoN · 12 Apr 2019 at 12:25

You don’t really need two threads for the same issue mate.

To answer your question, not really no. The greatest risks are data corruption; think SSDs, HDDs and external drives / sticks.

PSU failure can easily cause hardware damage, but forced shutdowns are generally safe.

sunshinewelly · 12 Apr 2019 at 12:31

sorry about the double thread. this one was different however as it was a general query about any damage caused through power shut downs

EsaT · 12 Apr 2019 at 13:57

SSD is in risk zone more than other parts.
While not having mechanical parts their logical level operating is magnitude more complex than HDDs.
And if power is cut down when SSD is doing some write to its internal "book keeping"/control data, that can cause drive to lose track of data or plain "crash".

For SSDs drive manufacturers should all have some own test tool.

Cooler running · 13 Apr 2019 at 00:26

If you rip it out of the wall then maybe, but if you've seen a blue screen or held down the power button, then this shouldnt do any damage to the hardware.

As per above it might cause issues for data integrity though. If its stuggling to boot you could boot to safe mode or reinstall windows, but I would struggle to believe this would be necessary.