Can I keep my alienware laptop open all the time?

Can i leave my laptop open? like 24/7 all week ? with bittorrent..
and its okay if my Laptop Heat Up ?

 

I dont see why not. The cooling system is designed to handle high end gaming, so a small program like bittorrent should be just fine.

I run a few of mine 24/7

 

hmm, I don't think its good for a computer to be left on for days at a time multiple times.

 

I think its ok as long as temps are within normal range.

 

If we can't keep our computers on 24/7 then we have a big problem

 

Yup, me too, I just have it ran for about 50hrs a few days ago, with no heating issue at all, however according to my experience on having it on, I dont really like it to run without a shut down or a restart longer than a day because if you run lots of programs and games during those period, the laptop can get slowed down noticeably the longer you leave it on, however if you mostly have it idle, it will be fine

 

Computers are supposed to be designed to run continuously, and in the previous decade they did (I know a ruddy twin-Pentium!!! system that ran eleven years of just about 24/7 uptime), but computers these days seem to lack that sort of reliability.

Generally though, I've noticed that continuous running can lead to software glitches, and I do recommend at least a restart once in a while. Running overnight is usually fine for desktops and my own desktop that I'm writing from has had just about 24/7 uptime for the last few months with no discernible problems aside from the sort of software glitch I just mentioned. But notebooks? In my experience it's bad to leave them running overnight. I really wouldn't recommend having the M14x active 24/7, it doesn't even run at a good idle temperature. I would say it's fine to let it run a bittorent overnight a night or two, but not absolutely 24/7.

 

First question is why would you dedicate your AW machine for 24/7 torrenting? Just slap on your older computer/desktop and let it do the work. o.o

 

Not everyone has an older/other computer lying around.

 

Not to mention it's more EE than someones gaming desktop.

I myself have been looking for a cheap netbook for 24/7 use for that reason. I RDP to my home PC when I'm at work often and I'm sure it'd be cheaper in the long run just to buy a $100 CL netbook.

 

You can expect any moving mechanical parts to wear out on any system that is left running 24/7. Parts that often last for the entire life of the system and beyond can and will fail. Fan and hard drives are some of the best examples of components that can and will wear out.

 

Take it from me; my system drive (a Momentus XT 500GB) in my G73 went out on me after a shortish two years, and I had it running overnight most days playing music.

 

As we start using more and better SSD's, hard drive ware should become a thing of the past. Fans will always have issues though, unless liquid cooled laptops become a thing (which I don't honestly).

 

Hi Defengar,

You are right that an SSD will not wear out due to mechanical failure, but it will eventually cease to function. All flash-based memory has a maximum number of times it can be written to. Once that max has been reached, it will be "stuck" at the last value that was written. All SSDs have a certain amount of extra flash cells that it retains to allow the drive firmware to replace some failed cells, and have algorithims that are designed to spread writes across all the cells to prevent premature failure. Most consumer drives should last many many years (most are warrantied for 5+ years) of standard usage, but if you subject it to continuous writiing, it will wear out faster. Chances are that even with 24/7 operations you would get several years, but it all depends on how much you actually write to it. Here is an article that discusses this: AnandTech - The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD

Have Fun!
Rich S. :-

 

It's worse to constantly turn it on and off.

 

I was more talking about in the future. 5-10 years from now SSD's will likely be more durable, reliable, and cheaper than they are now
At this time though, getting SSD's in raid one is probably a good idea (if you have the money).

How? Restarting after leaving it on for a long time can iron out some glitches.

Off topic, why did you get 2 m18x r2's? If I may ask.

 

With regards to the OPs question;
Any usage is going to be ware and tear. Even the process of turning it in and off.
Having said that though, I'd try not to worry about it, my last laptop was a crappy ASUS and stayed on 24/7 downloading torrents and never suffered hardware failure, a quality Alienware system should be fine.
I'd be more concerned about all the dirty diseases your Comp will catch from mass torrent downloading.

 

Thats why I have a dedicated torrent computer
Its a dell mini 9 running OSX, everything downloads from that to a bare hdd, then the drive gets put into a docking station for scanning on another computer, then the files go into my server for use.

 

Anandtech is a great site with (sometimes) very technical articles. I bought an 80 gb ssd 2-3 years back and became concerned, afterwards, about getting to the point of write-failure, but you really need to write an obscene amount of data for it to be of any real concern. Intel was, I believe, estimating the life of their MLC drives at 5 years based on writing 20 gigs of data every day.

Mr Fox hit it on the head -- expect mechanical parts to wear out. You might be able to curb some of this by letting drives park heads, go to sleep, etc. You might also need to do minor maintenance more frequently as I would expect quicker dust build-up.

 

Do you know if running the system for long time with the lid closed (plugged to an external display) could lead to damage versus open lid?

 

That is typically dependent on the intake location. If you are using a notebook that has its intakes over the keyboard, or in the keyboard even, it will choke its airflow and cause overheating which can and will reduce lifespan.

Also, if the speakers are top-firing and on the inside, it's never good to have air pounding against the lid either.

 

LOL, I remember us communicating about this a very long time ago. I still have never gotten around to doing this with my Dell Mini 9 yet, but still hope to do it some time.

 

Its a great little machine when running osx, much smoother and faster. I still hate osx, but it runs perfect for my downloading machine, sits right next to the router in the basement.

 

Yes, I agree. It's an amazing little machine. If the keyboard were not so small I might use it a little more than I do. That is the only thing that I find miserable about it. I upgraded it to 2GB of RAM and I am running Mint Linux on it right now.

I have no use for or interest in OSX per se. I mainly want to do it because I am "not supposed to" and I like tinkering with odd projects. It's sort of a conquering quest more than anything.

I like your idea of where it is installed. I might connect mine directly to the router and attach a larger USB drive to use it as a mini server as well... good idea.

 

Well monitor your temps and see how it does. If they idle a lot higher than normal I wouldn't recomend it.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

Great stuff. My last downloading lappy lived a similar life. It was more gimp than computer

 

The only bad thing about using the dell mini 9 is that its all passive cooling in it, so she can get real hot real fast. So there are a few fans running on it to keep it cool. When I used to use it to encode movies I had a big desk fan pointed down at it all the time

 

Im a IT admin.


I say it's fine not to restart. However, a restart fixes most issues

 

Please don't say you're on Windows servers next..

 

A mixture of windows and linux.

 

Are your servers Alienware laptops that you leave "open all the time?"

 

An old beater laptop would be the best to have running 24/7.

 

For reference, I've run my refurbished m15x about 10-16+ hours a day for 18 months. It's my gaming rig, work computer, and home business computer. It spends all day running SQL Server, Visual Studio, etc. and then (currently) gets crushed at night with the Planetside 2 Beta. These things are built pretty well. This one's going to my wife, so hopefully my new machine on order will be able to keep the same pace.

 

I usually leave my Alienware running 24/7 for a few days and only shut it down when I need to clean the fans out. I run my fans at 100% 24/7 (cause it's awesome to do so!) and they get dirty pretty quick lol. I got used to the noise and my 580Ms maxes out at 55C in games.

My laptop is my main PC, I do all my 3D work on it, surf the web, movies, games, you name it.