Leaving Laptop or Desktop on 24/7?

[GrimReepr]

What is the correct answer to this? Leave them on or shut them off?

I keep my desktop on 24/7 and only turn my monitor off when not using it.
No Hard Drive turn off, no standby, no hibernate.

Recently I have been leaving my laptop on 24/7.
I have it set to turn off monitor, hard drives, and standy at certain times.

What is the right answer? Should I be turning off hard drives in my desktop or not?

 

[MDE]

I leave my laptop on 24\7, not a single problem from it. In fact I run Folding@Home on my laptop keeping the hard drive and CPU working all the time.

 

[NascarFool]

I leave all my comps and laptops on 24/7. I always set the monito to shut off after 10 minutes in the power settings and I set the screen saver to none.

 

[JMoore]

I leave my comp on 24/7, but I don't see why I would leave my laptop on. All it would do is drain battery. Unless you keep it on the charger 24/7, but I doubt that is very good for the battery life.

 

[uOpt]

If the laptop has intact battery management that isn't a problem. In ACPI I can see that my new thinkpad shuts off power to the battery completely when it is full. I have an Inspiron 3500 that I never turned off since I bought it in February 2001 and the battery is at full power. Obviously it is working there, too, although I can't see it in ACPI. But I know that many, I mean really many laptops, even modern ones, screw this up.

In doubt, I would just ebay a second battery to leave in while constantly operating and put in the original one only for special occasions.

 

[AmigaMan]

I would be hesitant to leave my laptop on 24/7. As we all know, heat is a major factor in the lifespan of electronic devices. Laptops don't normally have the same cooling systems or area that a traditional desktop has. Therefore, due to the lower cooling ability of the laptop, one can expect a shorter lifespan. Plus if a component does fail, which is cheaper to replace, a laptop or desktop CPU/HD/mobo?

Of course it's 9am and I'm only on my first cup of coffee and I could be talking out of my ass. But that's my reasoning as to why I won't leave my laptop on 24/7.

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: MartinCracauer
If the laptop has intact battery management that isn't a problem. In ACPI I can see that my new thinkpad shuts off power to the battery completely when it is full. I have an Inspiron 3500 that I never turned off since I bought it in February 2001 and the battery is at full power. Obviously it is working there, too, although I can't see it in ACPI. But I know that many, I mean really many laptops, even modern ones, screw this up.

In doubt, I would just ebay a second battery to leave in while constantly operating and put in the original one only for special occasions.

That's a good idea about the second battery. I will personally probably do that now since I am paranoid about my original battery degrading or whatever cause I leave my laptop plugged in and on 24/7. Good suggestion!

:thumbsup:

 

[Tiamat]

24/7 is fine as long as you remove the laptop battery, Lithium Ion batteries do not like warm temperatures for prolonged times.

 

[Wuzup101]

I leave my laptop on 24/7; however, when I'm not using it I usually put it to sleep. Even so, when its idle and awake it's never more than about 30C when I go to use it. Sleeping it usually drops to just above room temperature, as seen right after I wake it. I run my laptop on the battery every day when I take it with me to class, so it's not like it's plugged into the charger 24/7. That is something I'd be a little worried about doing. You have to use the battery if you don't want it to degrade. You should atleast fully charge it, fully let it drain, and then fully charge it monthy for best performance.

 

[wisdomtooth]

Ditto on leaving out the battery when I leave the laptop on AC power to prevent its degradation.

On leaving the computer on: I've always had one computer on for FTPing, and leaving it on does take a toll on the hardware. I've had two HD failures, one a 40GB IBM Deskstar (this is before the brand got a bad rap from the subsequent "deathstars") and a Maxtor 100GB.

The fans also start to get worn bearings and dust bunnies after being on for a month or two, and start to become LOUD. Which means you have to turn off the machine, clean them off and relube them-- No small job, considering that you have to tear open a lot of components to get at them: the graphics card fan, the CPU heatsink fan, the case fans, and worst of all, the PSU fans.

So unless you need to, I'd say leave the computer off.

These days, I have an old P3 with an obsolete vid card (that does not need a fan) running the FTP server with old HDs that won't mean much if they die, so I can leave it on. My souped-up main rig, it's on only if I'm using it.

 

[jvarszegi]

I set my dual Xeon machine to go into standby after an hour; the monitor's set to shut off after twenty minutes of inactivity. I save wear and tear on the machine this way, plus saving power. I used to leave my laptop running all the time, but I don't do that any more.

 

[uOpt]

Originally posted by: wisdomtooth

On leaving the computer on: I've always had one computer on for FTPing, and leaving it on does take a toll on the hardware. I've had two HD failures, one a 40GB IBM Deskstar (this is before the brand got a bad rap from the subsequent "deathstars") and a Maxtor 100GB.

Well, apparently the latests Maxtor disks don't take constant use well, they appear to die like flies on it.

And a deskstar dies no matter what

I never turn my main desktop and my main notebook off. With the exception of these maxtor trash drives, one deskstar becoming extremely loud and the requirement to undust the whole thing every now and then everything is fine. I do that for 13 years now without a single non-suspect component failing.

You have to take into account that an idle computer is actually much cooler than one usuing CPU, disks and graphics. My laptop is not very warm when just idleing.

 

[wisdomtooth]

Undusting it periodically-- That's the main reason why I'd shut off a computer if I don't need to use it.

Even when the computer is idle, you still got all the fans going. If there is one thing I dread, it's having to periodically clean them out and lube them. Or if a fan's spindle is sufficiently worn and it wobbles while it spins, it's time to spend money for a replacement. Note for animal lovers, especially those with pet cats: You'll have to clean them even more frequently.

On my pimped-out rig that is on only when I use it: I clean it out maybe once a year, did not need to lube the fan bearings yet.

On my always-on P3 FTP server rig: I have to declog and lube the fans once every two months.

BTW the Deskstars before the much-maligned 60GB DTLA-series were rock-solid. It was very difficult to kill an early Deskstar.

 

[WackyDan]

Age old question.... on or off.... I've always argued that it depends on how much you want to spend on your electric bill each month if YOU are the one paying it. Electric rates vary throughout the country-so don't be quick to assume that just because you think you have cheap power, others do.

My old PIII that I use as my general do everything but gaming system sucks about 104 watts while fully running without monitors fired up. That 104 watts though includes my speakers, two KVM switches, printer, and one USB device. If left on 24/7 that could add up. Being a home owner, that matters to me. I have a router, switch, and VOIP phone DTA on 24/7 -on a separate circuit... I haven't bothered to measure those yet.

As to whether it hurts electronics is an age old debate as well. I've been running that PIII system since Sept of 1998 when it was born as a PII. I never lost a component. The ASUS P2B MOBO is original, the Matrox card is from 1999, the 20Gig HD from 2000 or 2001, the ram is from 1998, power supply from 1998 including case fans, optical drive is from 1999, NIC is from 2000, Sound card is from 1998. Anything that came after sept 1998 was an upgrade.

AND I turn this system on and off almost every day, and sometimes leave it on for a few days depending what I'm/it is doing. Never a failure.

So... in the end I wouldn't worry much one way or another.

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: MartinCracauer

Originally posted by: wisdomtooth

On leaving the computer on: I've always had one computer on for FTPing, and leaving it on does take a toll on the hardware. I've had two HD failures, one a 40GB IBM Deskstar (this is before the brand got a bad rap from the subsequent "deathstars") and a Maxtor 100GB.

Well, apparently the latests Maxtor disks don't take constant use well, they appear to die like flies on it.

And a deskstar dies no matter what

I never turn my main desktop and my main notebook off. With the exception of these maxtor trash drives, one deskstar becoming extremely loud and the requirement to undust the whole thing every now and then everything is fine. I do that for 13 years now without a single non-suspect component failing.

You have to take into account that an idle computer is actually much cooler than one usuing CPU, disks and graphics. My laptop is not very warm when just idleing.

I have had my computer on constantly except for several reboots due to driver updates for several months. My "new" 160GB Maxtor has not had any troubles :crosses fingers;

I leave it on constantly because my electricity bill is taken care of the landlord (agreement in lease).

 

[uOpt]

A well-built modern PC with a P4 northwoods or an AMD64 will take about 120 watts when idle. My Athlon XP with via chipset was much more of a power hog, and I have no doubt prescotts will be, too.

In my area you pay about $1 per watt and year, so that translates right into $120 per year.

Video cards when not idle take up a lot of power. My power consuptions goes up 40 watts and more with GeForce cards. So don't run a 3D screensaver.

Same for CPUs, my Athlon 64 draws a lot when busy. Same thing, if you leave it on, make sure there's no 3D screensaver, no setiathome and no application which constantly draws 100% CPU running.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: MartinCracauer
If the laptop has intact battery management that isn't a problem. In ACPI I can see that my new thinkpad shuts off power to the battery completely when it is full. I have an Inspiron 3500 that I never turned off since I bought it in February 2001 and the battery is at full power. Obviously it is working there, too, although I can't see it in ACPI. But I know that many, I mean really many laptops, even modern ones, screw this up.

In doubt, I would just ebay a second battery to leave in while constantly operating and put in the original one only for special occasions.

No actually that is not entirely true! I just got a thinkpad t42 and a very nice feature was the fact it would stop charging the battery once it got to 100%. I know this because the charge of the battery slightly gets lowered as it's not being charged, when the battery gets to 96% the power management software will kick in and charge up the battery agian. On my sony vaio though, when I had the batteries in it would always keep it 100% charged which is bad because it will reduce the life of the battery.

I had dual batteries in my sony laptop with all power saving settings on, I was using WIFI in hawaii doing simple web surfing and was able to get 3 hours out of the battery. Then on the way back I had wifi disabled, dual batteries with all power saving settings enabled and tried to watch a movie but the power to the laptop cut off at only 1:20 minutes! I was watching the movie with a pretty hot girl and I was sad to disappoint her, we were watching cruel intentions.

 

[uOpt]

Hm, good points.

That might explain why my work-provided Sony had its battery die, while my Inspiron and Thinkpad have no trouble.

I like it when my sig is getting reinforced