keeping notebooks on for a long time?

will keeping my notebook on for more than 24 hours damage it (more than 3 days?)? lets say that i have a good cooling. what effect/effects will that do to the laptop?

 

It shouldn't do anything to it.

Computers don't like sudden changes in temperature, so turning it on and off is when the damage is caused.

But when you leave it on for a long time, the temp is constant. The notebook will be happy

 

so that means its okey if my laptop is on for example 1 whole month without turning it off as long as the temp is stable and cool?

 

Yea, but you are looking at an increase in electricity bill and you are also killing the Earth . I don't see any reason for someone to leave their laptop on for 1 month straight unless they are running some server off of it.

 

You got a point there actually. Never thought about that
I usually turn my computer on when I come home and a few hours later I shut it off.

 

I'm not 100% sure it I'm right though, it's just what I read on the net.
I haven't actually seen any test results.

 

My Dell Laptop has been on 24/7 ever since I bought it... (1 1/2 years) still running ;]

 

wow, any problems encountered?

 

nope, still good

 

I see no point in keeping a computer on when you are not using it, unless the computer is performing some task. Whenever I leave my computer for longer than 10 minutes or so, I always either put it into standby or turn it off.

But as long as it is cool, no, there will not really be any detrimental effects other than a waste of electricity.

 

I've run mine for 3-4 days in a row with no problem while running utorrent. undervolted with the screen off, touchpad off, usb off, only one fan running locked, it was fine @23-28 c. The power supply was actually cool to the touch . Just don't waste electricity. Pandas don't like waste.

 

The only times my laptop will remain on are for overnight virus scanning every Saturday, and if I'm downloading something that I want to have finished the next day. Otherwise, off it goes.

Leaving it on shouldn't hurt it, but it will hurt your power bill, and thus your wallet.

 

never turn mine off, I just got this one, but the old one was switched on using utorrent for 3 years, the only reason I got this one was because the old one was exactly that, old and out dated.

 

I don't know if I've turned my Dell off in 4.5 years for any reason other than a reboot or for traveling.

 

Holy crap. I had an XPS that ran 8 hours+ a day, off at night, every night, no hardware problems, ever in 5.5 years. So averaging at 2 startup/shutdowns everyday, sometimes out of a cold car or hot summer, never hurt it.

 

I've left my laptop on for a few days to see the temps it would idle at when doing nothing, and I leave it on Saturday night for defragging and virus scanning. As long as its kept cool you shouldn't have problems; but if you're leaving it on and not using it, have the screen turn off.

 

I left on a HP 2510p with a 10w ulv cpu on for 6 months straight download stuff from utorrent and running Boinc 24/7. I undervolted the processor of course to bring down the temps.

I once had 5 laptop running Boinc for 3 months straight 24/7 without any problems. They are all still running strong.

 

I leave mine on all the time. I've had a bit of experience with this actually..

I've had my desktop for 9 years now, leave it on all the time, and it still works flawlessly. I reboot every now and then of course, but 99% of it's life, it's been on. It's always doing something, which is why I left it on.

My older laptop on the other hand i would turn off every night. thing failed on me 2 years in. not 100% its because i turned it off at night, but its very possible it contributed. computers, especially laptops gpu, don't like temp fluctuation. I'm pretty sure that's been proven with the 8600m gt failures (and I think the 360 rrod too), how going from high temps of 85c down to room temp over and over again can crack the components.

I also read something about military use and how a constant stable environment makes for happy electronics.

Take everything I say with a grain of salt, because im not 100%, but I do know that leaving it on does not hurt anything other than the electric bill, and i for one believe it benefits your hardware.

 

Mine is either running, sleep while it is in my backpack, or restarting because of updates.

 

It will cause some extra wear on your battery, but as long as the temperatures are not too high you should be just fine.

 

I don't agree with this at all, most people that I know myself included shut down computers daily if not to save power but also out of habit unless they are leaving it on for a specific task. On that note I have an 8 year old panasonic tough book that has be turned on and off multiple times a day for the last 5 years since I have owned it and who knows before that with no issues other then its getting to old and slow for tasks nowadays, the same goes with desktops that I have owned over the years.

 

Hard drives have limited spinning life.
Keeping a notebook on all the time calls for preventative maintenance.
Much like replacing a timing chain on a car recommended at say 90 or 100k miles, a hard drive should be replaced far in advance of failure.All hard drives come with some contrived mtbf mean time between failure rating, sometimes this rating is scientifically arrived at.

Also leaving it on all the time allows for more dust to be sucked in and cling inside, allowing for higher temperatures. Air can cleaning or taking apart should be done.

 

I ran my E1705 every day, 24/7 for 3 years.

similar for my old desktop.

never had a problem.

none of my other computers are that old.

 

My laptop would cost me less than $2 in electricity to run it 24/7 every month, without even going into sleep mode or turning off the screen. At idle it pulls little power from the wall. Less than most light bulbs.

I'm sorry, but preventively replacing hardware is just stupid. Also MTBF is calculated and what it means is that for a large array of disks, that is the cumulative up time before one of the drives fails.

 

I certainly wouldn't run my computer if I'm not there though. What if the fans stopped working?

 

Nothing will happen.In such case it will shut itself off to protect itself.

 

Well if the fan stops working I don't think the computer will shut itself>it will kepp running.It won't go into slepp or hibernate.

 

The computer will turn off, there is a critical temp threshold for the GPU and CPU. If either go over that value, the computer turns off instantly.

I think most GPUs it's around 105C and for CPUs 100-105C.

So it's ok, let the fan die, the computer will be fine.

 

That doesn't prove anything.

None of my desktops or laptops have died ever (except for 2 that I killed from bad soldering).

I have an 11 year old toshiba laptop that is still working fine.

It doesn't matter what you do, turn them off, leave them on, they will still last a long time. Long enough for them to become useless.
Unless they have a fault somewhere, like the faulty nvidia chips.

 

My netbook has been on for 3 weeks straight, so far...

 

Old Thinkpad over here actaing as a firewall ...... I think it has been rebooted 3 or 4 times since 2001. I do cycle the battery occasionally and its not that great anymore but hey its 10 years old ( P3 )

a week or a month of use wont hurt it unless it starts to heat.

 

I leave my laptops on all the time, except when traveling. Some are years old and have no problems (other than the battery overcharging and not holding that great of a charge).

 

I usually keep it on, and dim the monitor.

 

Recommend getting the Cryo LX laptop cooler.

 

Actually MTBF is not always calculated in this industry. Sometimes they are just estimated although you may have to go back a few years before your memory. However, mid 90s quite a few of the 'larger high capacity harddrives' were earning reputations as bricks and door stops due to their high failure rate. Shoddy engineering as they went for larger platter sizes and est. fanciful mtbfs that didnt pan out. They foregoed actual testing to arrive at the mtbf.

 

My notebook is always on. It mostly runs on AC power with battery charging disabled.

On few occasions I run it on battery. I start charging the battery when it is 10% and then again disable the charging when it reaches 100%.

 

what are your exact temperatures?

Do you use a cooling pad?

What is your ambient temperature?

 

small USB powered fan blowing into the vents? Have you vaccumed the vents out?

 

Ok, I've read this a couple times now from different users, but how to you disable your battery from charging? I just recently took my battery out of my laptop and am only plugged in by AC, because of wondering/worrying about my battery's life.

Is there a way in windows to do this? is it determined by bios? is there a program or tool out there? Any help would be appreciated

Sorry to go off topic!

 

Thats a logical question

Different settings are available in different laptops. These can be found in power options related to battery.

My old Lenovo T400 had a feature like "Start charging battery only when charge is below x %".

My current Dell Studio has a feature to manually "Disable battery charging until next reboot". I can also enable battery charging manually when I want.

 

Dell Vostro 1700, T5800(2ghz dual-core), 4gb RAM, 120gb+320GB hard drives. Powered up 24/7, has been for over two years, though there was a couple of months where I left it off.

CPU is undervolted to a hard 1.00v, to prevent the fan hitting high-speed mode.

CPU temperature creeps up to ~62C, then the fan comes on in silent mode. Takes the temperature down to low-mid 40's, then shuts off. Anyone wondering about temperatures - all my systems run under 100% load, as I do climateprediction.net.

Battery lasts well. Last time I cycled it, I started at 10.43pm, it was showing 9% remaining at 12.40am. I was copying across the network using wifi(transferring emails up to GMail). 11 minutes later, it shut itself down, though I entered the BIOS and it said 2% remaining - and kept the machine powered up in there for another 10+ minutes, but doing no work.. That's with the 17" screen on full brightness, using both hard drives.

No hardware failures. I'm very much a believer that power cycles cause more harm than the system being left powered-up, so long as temperatures aren't bringing it close to design tolerances.

 

That's one feature I miss about having a thinkpad. I had mine set to charge below 35 and stop at 65.

 

We have three notebooks and two desktops in different areas of the house and they are all left on 24/7...I don;t see the point in running them for a couple hours then turning them off. The only time I turn them off and disconnect them is during a really bad lightning storm. The electric Bill is not really affected by standbuy PCs. Especially notebooks.

 

I had a desktop in my old corporate job that I left on 24/7 for 7 or 8 years for one reason only... it was always too damn slow to wait for it to boot up in the morning. Several people in my office did the same.

These days, we are a little more environmentally friendly.

For those of you who constantly leave your laptops on, is it that you don't move them anymore and they are for practical purposes little desktops, or do you actually take them to work and home and to meetings, etc., constantly turned on with the lid closed, sitting in your laptop bag? doesn't that waste your battery life? if you have a hard drive with platters doesn't that risk damaging the drive if you bump it? i suspect my Envy would overheat in the bag or the sleeve if i did that.

 

The main reason we turn off and unplug our computers are due to lightning strikes. Years ago we lost two computers during one storm and the insurance company was a royal pain in the rear-end. Now - if we hear thunder or see lightning we turn off and unplug our computers just to be safe.

Our house now and our previous house both have electrical transformers within fifty-feet of the house. Which are not good during electrical storms and outright power surges.

 

As was mentioned earlier,-
It's the ON-OFF cycles that slowly kill the system. If you maintain the same ON state constantly - the system will last longer. Sleep/Hibernate cycles are similar to ON/OFF, btw.
One example. I have a ThinkPad R40 (2003) that still runs flawlessly on the original hardware and never went to service. It was OFF maybe 1 time per a few months. Gaming, Videos and 24/7 music playback did nothing to the system.


<<< If have several desktops at home and worried about surges/brownouts/etc - consider getting UPS.

 

Um why are you getting a laptop if your planning to keep it on 24/7?

 

To all those who keep the laptop on 24/7. It's really stressful on the CPU, and the motherboard.

Yes, its true that turning on a Laptop and turning off a laptop are the most "dangerous" points during laptop usage, with power entering and leaving the motherboard. But at the end of it all, you're just another user who is careful with his or her electronics, and got a great build.

For example, I have a Compaq Armada (something) with a Pentium 166MHz and it works absolutely fine (the battery bowed out in around 2002) but still holds a 1-2minute charge (for lightning spikes and what not, its good ) I've must of turned that thing on and off about.... 10000 times (no that's not an exaggeration) and its still kicking around for solitare. Sister had a DV6550SE, lasted 3 years and then it just wouldn't power on, but she threw it in her purse and just didn't take care of it if you know what I mean.

Just keep care of your laptop, wash your hands before you use it, keep it in a case, and most importantly, be gentle with it and clean it, and your laptop will last a hell of a long time (whether it will be meaningful after 6 or so years based on its hardware is another story)

 

Yep, its a good idea to keep a computer on as long as possible. A laptop is a little different with the battery, but as someone has said they are not really expensive.

 

Also, don't forget about the positive energy
If you think positive thoughts and smile alot while using the machine, it will last longer. In almost 15 years in IT I've seen a lot of cases when people practically killed their electronic friends during the outbursts of aggressiveness (without even touching it).
One time a guy just touched the plastic keyboard while being very angry and the lappie's MB was gone. We're bio-machines with very complex EM fields, that change with every thought
Keep it in mind.