Leaving notebook on 24/7 good for it?

[Feneant2]

I've been wondering on this. Some people say it doesn't hurt to leave it on all the time, but with the heat they produce compared to a pc, I don't know how good it would be. I have a Dell 9100 and as I use it to play Everquest 2, I usually leave it on all the time as I am in trader mode selling goods and items. Do you all think I am asking to fry my laptop by leaving it on all night and running an intensive application? I left EqLive running on my desktop pc for around 6 months straight and did not have any issues, but I don't know how much I trust my laptop.

I've also noticed that the fans on it are loud as heck. I don't know if its normal or not, but they seem to be on more often than not. I don't really want to get a program to shut them off to not get it too warm.

Any consensus? Will it damage the notebook to have it on all the time or is it fairly safe like a desktop pc?

 

[AmigaMan]

the only concerns I would have is how good is the cooling on your laptop? Heat kills electronics and if your laptop isn't getting cooled properly, then it's life will be shortened. I don't know if your hardware supports it, but try monitoring your CPU temps and if possible your videocard temps.

 

[Feneant2]

I might install motherboard monitor, keep an eye on it. The air that comes out the bottom is fairly cool, but the one from the back is quite warm.

I've been thinking of getting the Vantec Laptop Coolers LPC-301 & LPC-305 - http://www.cluboverclocker.com...oolers/vantec/301_305/ - it looks pretty good, anyone use it that can vouch for it?

 

[zodder]

That does look pretty sweet and worthwhile. I hope somebody posts their experience with one.

 

[Abhi]

Get I8kFANGui ...

It monitors your temps and controls the fans ....

Google for it...

 

[Wuzup101]

I've only turned mine off thus far when I have to restart it after an OSX update. Other than that it's on 24/7. I wouldn't worry about it too much. It might take some life off of the notebook, but the machine will probably be obsolete (sp?) by then anyway.

 

[blahblah99]

Your hd is most likely to fail than the elctronics. IE, mechanical first then electrical.

 

[MDE]

I leave my eMachines M6805 on 24\7 and it's been just fine since July.

 

[Feneant2]

Cool, thanks all. I will probably start leaving it on then

 

[vegetation]

Only issue is harddrive may die sooner than expected. With notebook drives being so cheap these days it's not a problem but be certain you have a backup!

 

[farscapesg1]

Originally posted by: vegetation
Only issue is harddrive may die sooner than expected. With notebook drives being so cheap these days it's not a problem but be certain you have a backup!

I am going to second this. I've gone through 1 hard drive and my second one has started acting up (making clicks and responding really slow) after buying a Sony Vaio laptop 1-1/2 years ago. The original died just after the 1 year warranty was up, and now the 2nd one is going. When this one finally dies, I will probably try to replace it with a faster rpm model.

 

[saltedeggman]

turn off hd when in idle state....like 2+ hr

 

[jvarszegi]

Feneant2,

Why don't you just set your laptop to go into standby when you close the lid? I imagine restore-from-standby time on your laptop is under three seconds, no big deal. I do this on my Thinkpad, and it's very convenient for me because in standby mode the thing draws very little power; I can just close the lid, throw it in my bag and go, and effectively get instant bootup at my destination. Your requirements are a little different, but I still don't think that there's much point in running down the lifetime of your laptop when you're not around. This is also an easy way to take your machine off the network without inconvenience.

Doing this, I probably haven't booted up for anything but a software installation in a couple of months.

Jeff

 

[Feneant2]

I don't leave it on because I dislike turning it off, I leave it on because im in trader mode in Everquest 2

 

[Looney]

I've had 3 notebooks in my life, and all o fthem i've left them on 24/7 unless i actually had to transport them. Of course i had HDD failures, but other than that, nothing else... you really think notebooks will produce that much heat that they'll fry the CPU or mobo? I highly doubt it, as even the desktop replacement notebooks with their desktop versions of the CPU have some sort of stepping built in to throttle itself when it gets too hot. LCD going dim? I'm not too sure, i have to say my older notebooks aren't as bright, but that could be due to the technological generation at that time.

 

[jvarszegi]

Feneant2, I'm sorry for not reading your original post better. I guess you can't do anything that will turn off the hard drive or processor, because both of those may be involved in normal function (such as supporting Trader mode in Everquest). You should still be able to set up your power settings to turn off the LCD after a while, say a half hour, which should prolong the life of your screen. Then just get an external drive if you have one and back up every so often, and I think you'll be just fine. I mean, chances are that the hard drive will never break. How much RAM do you have in the machine? If you're REALLY worried and you have a couple of gigs of RAM, you can probably muck about with a RAM drive, as long as the files (say, from Everquest) will fit into a gig or whatever. That would probably reduce disk activity and speed things up for when you're playing the game.

I think that if I had your requirements, I'd always pay a little extra up front for an extended warranty. I used to skimp on that when I bought a new computer, but after learning the hard way, I now usually get a three-year at-hom warranty on a new notebook, mostly because I can't afford to wait several days during shipping if something breaks.

 

[Engineer]

I've had my Gateway 1.5GHz PentiumM on for 2 years. Even ran SETI on it for about 6 months. Work on a shop floor so have to blow the dust out of it once and awhile....but runs like a champ!

YMMV

(P.S. My floor is not air conditioned, so the temperature runs above 100 degrees several times a year. No problems so far)