Leaving a Macbook on 24/7?

I'm about to receive my Macbook 13.3" soon and was planning on using it as my primary computer. It will be replacing my desktop PC so I was wondering if there will be any issues of leaving it on 24/7? I do a lot of downloading/uploading throughout the day and have to leave my computer on.

 

believe it or not macs are made to run 24/7. I ran a g5 and powerbook g4 for nearly 5 years without turning it off once and still working fine (well exception of the times I had to reboot probably 10 times in 5 years after an update or some kind of power outage in my area).

Thats why alot of people use the g5/mac pro as their server to run 24/7 with no slow downs because the osx never needs partitioning (does it in the background without even knowning it) and never slows down. Arnt macs great?

Better yet I have a friend who still has the older g4 towers and never shuts it off or puts it to sleep and been running 24/7 for nearly 8 years and still working fine. Only bad part for him is that he wants it to break so he can buy the new mac pro, LOL.

 

Well, it depends on which apps you run.

My current uptime is 14d 22h. I've gone almost a month, but something was causing a memory leak (cough cough, firefox) and I couldn't resolve it without a reboot.

 

Lol, I dont use firefox I love safari =D

Only use firefox if I need to absolutely use it such as for school uses firefox.

 

Hasn't been a problem for me, so far. I often leave the computer to do CPU intensive work for several days on end.

Few people ever turn their MBs off anyway, when it's not working, the computer remains in sleep mode. So in a sense, most people have their MBs on 24/7.

 

My MacBook Pro is on mostly 24/7. I rarely put it to sleep, as it's connected to my external display. No issues.

 

Do you leave the screen open or closed while it's on and hooked up to the external display? I want to set my MBP up as my main computer...but I'm afraid that, if I leave the lid shut, too much heat will be trapped and I could damage the screen. Thoughts?

 

When attached to the external display, just turn the screen brightness all the way down on the macbook, and you can keep it open.

I think its better to keep the lid open because i believe the fans suck air in through the keyboards.

 

Keeping the lid open to draw air through the keyboard is a pretty common misconception however there is no truth to the matter.



As you can see in the above image there is shielding that protects the internals of the system from spills. The only areas that aren't covered are the two tiny circles where the light sensors see through.

The fans suck air from within the system and force it directly out. This seems to be pretty efficient because this way only warm/hot air from the system is sucked up.

You will be fine leaving it closed I run mine 24/7 with the lid closed and have never had any issues. If your worried about heat you can always check out a laptop stand so the notebook can hover and not be on a flat surface. This will in turn keep the notebook cooler and they are fairly inexpensive.

 

I've been leaving mine on 24/7 but I'm thinking about letting it autosleep if I don't touch it in 3 hours. Since OS X is Unix underneath, it loves uptime. I have had Linux up and running for years at a time and the only down time or reboots were related to power failures that lasted longer than the battery backup. You should be fine leaving any Mac on as long as you like (unlike Windows).

OTOH, you might want to save power and hardware wear and tear so letting it automatically go to sleep after a long period of no use might make sense.

 

wow airman! thanks for that image! its a pain to look for 17" SR Macbook Pro.
now i know (or at least have an idea) what this strange heat or noise/s came from.

to the OP. yes, you can leave your notebook on 24/7. as long as you dont stress it (high CPU usage). although, i think it is a good idea nonetheless to leave your notebook lid open.

as others mentioned. you might need to watch for memmory leaks, there are certain application that have bugs in it, which slowly sips your memmory, this is not harmful, but just a waste of memmory usage, you will probably only notice it when switching/opening new application, mac after all has a very good memmory management system. the cure for this is to quit and reopen the application that is causing the memory leak (look it up at a utility called activity monitor -the name of the task manager in mac) or just restart your computer (it is rather quick after all)

 

No problem glad some people appreciate it

Wobbles I have a few more images that are taken a bit closer if you'd want them just shoot me a PM.

 

G5/ Mac Pro's are meant to run 24/7 because they use server processors which are made of better silicon.

I'm not sure if running a laptop 24/7 would be a great idea IMO. Although mobile processors are meant to withstand more heat, you increase the chances of degenerating others parts (HDD, CD-ROM, & RAM) due to the compact size.

Is there a reason why your going to be running your notebook 24/7? Are you folding for a cure?

 

thanks airman... i think this is sufficient.. i can zoom it in pretty close. it is after all a 2724 x 2304 resolution

i hope you dont mind that i save a copy of the image of your sexy sexy macbook pro innards !

thanks again airman... i've been searching for this type of images... i did found one, but not as big as this.. and it is not santa rosa.. thank you!

 

Glad to help

Here take these other two as well :

 

heey! thanks! airman.. its brave of you to open this notebook

btw, when i do an apple hardware test i get this drowning noise.. anyone got a clue why? or if you're one has this problem also?

so as not to make this thread out of topic... i make a new thread here.. help me out

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3116077#post3116077

thanks

 

You can leave it on all you want. According to iStat pro mine has been on for 24 days and I rarely turn it off. I do however close the lid to put it into sleep several times a day for takin it to school.

 

You get these little stands (they're cute and probably just 10cents each), you just put then in the back of the notebook and it elevates it, they're just like a little bended sheet of metal. It keeps for notebook cool and allows ur lid to be closed?

mac doesn't have an option to turn off the display when connected to an external one? (so you can keep the lid open)

PC does... ?

EDIT: whoooppps sorry wobble, wrong post.. i meant to post it here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=229615!!
sorry!