Leaving laptop on all day?

Do any of you guys leave your laptop on for long periods of time? I was told its bad for the parts and the overall life of it, if you leave it on for longer than 24 hrs straight. I think the longest I had mine on for was 21hrs. Would it be alright to leave it on for say 1.5 days straight? Just for the days when I have to work on stuff and doing long hours. Regardless, I always turn it off whenever im out of the house, even if its for just an hour.

I do know, that a laptop isnt meant to be run like a desktop. Smaller casing = more heat

 

It's okay to leave your machine on if you want - I leave mine on for days at a stretch sometimes. Normally I turn it on in the morning and then turn it off when I go to bed. One friend of mine has had his laptop on for over a year and a half, it runs 24/7. Not that I would leave mine on that long, just saying it can be done. So, feel free to leave it on.

I'd recommend getting a cooling pad to help with the heat if your notebook gets hot; it will take some stress off the cooling system. My notebook runs on the lowest fan speed unless I run a demanding application thanks to a cooling pad.

 

I have run my old IBM T20 24/7 for the last five or six months. Of course it clocks down to 550MHz from 700MHz to save energy. But other than that its solid.

dont know if i could have done that in windows xp, but I was using gentoo linux when it had that uptime.

 

Well i've had my old laptop on 24/7 for last 2 years with only break beeing 2 months when I was away for longer period. If anything then I would have to say that leaving your laptop on can actually do it some good, switching it on'n'off too much will probably be more harmful if its working stable and not overheating then I cant see any reason why it shouldnt work like that for more cpl years.

 

My old Thinkpad 600E was on for essentially 6 years. Got restarted occasionally (esp. when it had Win98 on it) and got shutdown for driving or flying somewhere, or for maintenance; but in general use I always left it on.

 

Technically, the on and off dance is more harmful then leaving a computer on through the period. However, this is as it applies to Desktop computers. Notebooks...I'd be a little more anal about. As said, heat reduces component life, and with no space inside for the hard disk and other items to stay cool, I'd rather not have the entire thing bathed in unescapable heat 24/7.

That said, if I'm downloading a huge file you can bet it'll stay on as long as it takes.

 

I've heard that leaving computers on for long periods of time puts less wear on the computer than turning it off and on as needed because you won't have all of the metal contacts inside expanding (due to heat) and contracting as drasticaly and frequently.

 

it's not all so simple.

from continuos working, the fan brushes and the bearings will wear out.

the plastic around the connectors and printed circuit boards will deteriorate from constant heat for continues periods of time. It will become brittle, so it can lose contact from next vibration shock.

screen, if on, will lose the brightness... laptop open, will accumulate lots of dust between the keys and possibly inside, depending on the model...

 

Mine runs 24/7 at full load, folding.

 

i have mine set to go into hibernation or standby if i'm away from it for longer than several hours

i think that keeps things cooler and only takes a few seconds to get right back into windows when i open it

 

Mine normally is shut down at night. Otherwise I keep my laptop on all day.
Tim

 

mine stays on all day and night and then in the morning i reboot it to clear out the mem.

 

I'm a new camper here, have my brand new IBM T43 Thinkpad for about a week so far (my first laptop in general) - gets working throughout the daytime but down for nights or extended period of time when not in use. Also, I'm developing a habit of putting it into hibernation instead of power off if I expect longer the a about half hour brakes in day usage.
Having said that, my home desktop PC stays on for almost weeks long 24/7, so far very stable.

 

Unfortunately thats a windows issue, not a linux one.

 

I keep it on as much as I can. It's always doing something or the other.

 

I've had my acer on 24/7 since i got it in 2003. I set my notebook to backup when idle for 60 minutes, running vice-versa over wireless to a NAS box. I also used to run virus scans and adware scans once a week in the wee hours, but stopped doing that when it wasn't finding anything anymore (safe browsing and email will prevent almost all adware/spyware and virii).

I also have an old desktop pc that is on 24/7 as a HTPC. It was my main computer before and has been on 24/7 since 1999. I actually don't think i've ever had a computer that I turned off on a regular basis (except maybe my 486 DX2/66)