Keeping laptop on 24/7 a bad thing?

[BlueWeasel]

Alot of us here keep our desktops on 24/7 (at least I do), and it's recommended by some due to cold boot issues/problems. I do turn my monitor off while I am at work and at night as I have always heard it draws the largest amount of power when in use.

The question I have is how is this recommended when it comes to laptops? Would it be a bad to keep my laptop plugged into AC power 24/7?

My concerns would be a reduced battery life as well as the expected life of my laptop hardware. Is it a safe to assume that laptop hardware, ie, HD's, screens, etc., are not as durable as desktop versions?

 

[tizodq]

i did this with my laptop i got from school and i killed the motherboard twice, and the battery wouldn't hold a charge after a while.

 

[GTdrew]

If you are concerend about the battery holding a charge just take it out of the laptop. My compaq functions fine with just the AC plugged into it and the battery pulled out.

 

[WobbleWobble]

My motherboard fried from leaving it on all night a few times. My friend's have also experienced similar problems with leaving the laptops on for extended periods of time.

It's ok to leave it plugged into AC though.

 

[dnuggett]

There should be no problems leaving a laptop on 24/7. I say should not be, but depending on your make/model there may be. I would not do it with one that does not have a warranty. I personally run a F@H client on mine when I'm not using it so it is on 21/7. On Monday the Switchboard PCA (power problem) went out and I just got it back from service today. I would also use a cooling pad under the laptop to lower the inherent heat build up, and make sure to turn the screen off overnight. The cooling pad will reduce your problem of lowering the expected life of the laptop. Not many leave their laptop on 24/7 but for those of us that do there are mixed results depending on the quality of our laptop. I do not believe that the hard drives screens or any other hardware (with one exception) are less durable then a desktop, but when they are used at close to 100% capability they are more susceptible to heat issues becasue of how close the componenets are together and the lack of a sufficient cooling system. The one piece of piece of hardware that I believe is behind desktops as far as quality is the power supply (internal, not your AC pack) and the switchboards that regulate power. This is from experience as well as observation of other equipment.

As far as the battery if you have a newer laptop with a Lion battery you will have no problems with adverse life because it is left on. The older NimH and NiCad batteries have had a problem because of their memory qualities.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: dnuggett

As far as the battery if you have a newer laptop with a Lion battery you will have no problems with adverse life because it is left on. The older NimH and NiCad batteries have had a problem because of their memory qualities.

It is a problem as Li-Ion batteries discharge over time. When it hits that 95% left (or whatever your laptop is set to), it automatically starts charging itself. This is a problem as batteries, especially Li-Ions have a limited number of charges.

As for leaving it on, I've seen a few laptops, including my own die from the heat build up. They were on hard surfaces and were not cheap notebooks. Mine was an IBM.