Laptop Lifespan Question

Need to know some basic information to increase my laptop lifespan. I have g73.

1. Should I shutdown every night? If I'm afk for like 15-30min, sleep or hibernate?

2. Do I leave the battery in the laptop even though I'm using the charger instead and the battery is at 100%? Or should I just take out the battery since I'm using the charger.

3. Should I leave the charger charging all the time? Like when I go sleep and the computer is off, should I just leave it charging or should I unplug the charger whenever I'm not using the computer?

4. I notice the keyboard tends to get very warm whenever the labtop is on more than an hour. Is this normal? I use the labtop more than 5 hours a day and I'm scared it will overheat.

 

1. Shutting down every night is a good idea

2. It won't hurt your laptop, but leaving your battery in fully charged while on AC will decrease the life expectancy of your battery. Best thing you can do is store it at 40-60% in a cool place, cycling the power on it every other month.

3. See #2

4. Elevating the back end of the laptop helps with cooling, or a nice cooling pad. Download a good temp monitor like HWinfo32 to keep tabs on your machine.

 

Every notebook I've used for over a decade now usually run 24/7. I don't use sleep or hibernate or auto turn off. I do turn off the LCD at night, but computer stays on. I don't use screen savers either.

And so far I've never had a notebook fail because of extended use.

 

1) I put mine on stand-by every night. Did it with all my computers before and never had a problem.

2) You could take the battery out if you want. Discharge it to 40% and store it somewhere cool and dry. I don't though, in case of a power outage which happens here a lot.

3) Since I leave it on stand by, I also leave it on the charger. Remember, plugging it in and unplugging will reduce the life of the battery.

4) Yes. The CPU and GPU are in the vicinity of the keyboard.
It won't over heat, it's fine. If you use it on your bed a lot, it might be warm, but as long as it's within specified operational parameters, you're good. If you get a thermal shutdown though, you're in trouble.

 

What if I took the battery out, should the charger be plugged in most of the time, even when I'm asleep?

And what if I'm for 15-30min, hibernate or sleep.

 

If you take the battery out and neglect to plug in the laptop, your computer will be about as useful as a brick. :3

If it's OFF and you're not using it, sure, unplug it and remove the battery. Won't hurt anything.

If you're away from the computer for such a short period of time, just leave it alone, or put it to sleep. Hibernate is garbage imho.

 

Just another noob question. When plugging in the charger, should I plug in through the labtop first or the socket first. Last time when I plugged the charger into the labtop first and than plugged the other side to the socket, there was spark while I was plugging it in the socket.

 

Doesn't matter.

 

The best way to ensure it lasts a long time is to keep it sealed in original packaging. Like when you get it, dont even open it.

 

+1 amen to this. If you are that paranoid about ensuring your notebook lasts, just leave it in the box. That's a guaranteed method.

 

Jeez, bite off his head and then spit it out why don't you, lol. =P

 

on my old notebook (fujitsu-siemens amilo m something), i was always only using standby at night, so i didnt have to wait too long for it to boot up in the morning (im that addicted^^). still works like a charm. i had the battery in it all the time while staying plugged in, so it was constantly charging. despite this, the battery still is at about 40% of its original capacity after 5.5 years, so nothing significantly over the usual aging of battery.

the thing about standy is the following: all components are turned off except the ram, which keeps getting powered a little bit. well, if the ram fails one day, it will be cheap to replace. imho the stress of a reboot takes a higher toll on ur components than waking up from standy.

 

No need to be so rude, ziddy. Granted, a lot of his questions were obvious and could have been found with a google search, but still... Anyway, a bit of helpful info in this thread, was a good non-gsod related read.

 

Since I don't plug my power supply into a U.P.S., I leave the battery in mine when I use it. It covers me if I have any power issues. I look at batteries like any other consumable, and plan that I will need to replace it someday.

Aaron

 

I like to hibernate mine when not in use, but in all honesty, the laptop should last longer than its hardware will remain adequate for playing new games. It's really a matter of preference, imo; so if it makes you feel better, then turn off your machine at night.

Also, if you're going to turn it completely off; you may as well unplug the power brick. They constantly draw current regardless of whether your laptop is on. Same can be said of all AC adapters.

 

+1 to this. I keep mine on a surge strip and when I go to sleep at night I shut down the laptop and turn off the surge strip. cuts all power so you don't get any "vampires" eating up power while you're asleep.

 

Good tip . I also saw a gadget on gizmodo that spits out the charger plug when the battery is full, lol. Perhaps less practical, but pretty funny.

 

ha, i have one of those. it's called a dog that liked to trip over things.

 

which model do you have? mine doesnt have that feature... maybe i should RMA?

 

i strongly suggest that u shut down ur notebook at night .. to save electricity , money and best of all the planet.. u won't have any problems then too..

 

yeah, send it back if it's still under warranty. mine's the boston terrier with 4GB of stupid as opposed to only 2GB. I didn't get it at best buy, but I wish I had.

 

Hello,

1. Sleep Mode, will only work if you have a constant source of power - Either Battery or Adapter - If you go into Sleep Mode, disconnect the Adapter and the Battery, sleep mode will fail and your system will want to boot into Windows Safe Mode.

2. Hibernate Mode, will work even if you disconnect the battery and the Adapter. Hibernate does not require constant power and will not fail.

Sleep Mode is very fast booting - The Session is completely stored in RAM and thus loads very quickly
Hibernate is very slow booting - The Session is completely stored on the HDD and thus loads nearly as quickly as a standard boot.

It is recommended that if you use either mode regularly that you do a "restart" every now and then. Some services and applications don't handle the Hibernate/Sleep modes well and can slow down and/or crash a system if they have not been "refreshed"

Regarding Battery Technology I would recommend you take a look at "BatteryUniversity" It will help you understand the way Lithium-Ion battery technology works as well as help you figure out what is true and false about some battery suggestions that people have. Plus if you need help getting to sleep - reading some of the technical stuff there might help...

In Peace and Agape,
Trav...

 

To add to Trav's advice:

Apparently he missed the whole Vista and Windows 7 "thing" These OS's have a hybrid or Super Sleep mode, where the PC will do a memory store like hibernate, and then go into low power mode. This way, if all is well, you can restart quickly. If you lose power, it can still restore where you left off by loading the hibernate storage.

 

Only reason I don't turn off my laptop at night is if im downloading torrents

 

Hello Chastity,
I am not sure I understand - Here I thought I knew it all - Mind sharing how to enable this "Super Sleep Mode"? I see Sleep and Hibernate in the "Shut down" options for Win7 - Is the Hibernate option this "Super Sleep Mode"?

I tried the "Sleep" and the computer went to sleep - I removed the Adapter and Battery for 30seconds - Then Put the battery back in, and powered up. Windows 7 wants to either "load Windows Normally" or do a safe mode - It does not return to the same "session" as when I put it to sleep.

I tried the "Hibernate" and there is more HDD activity (expected it is saving the session to the HDD). I removed the Adapter and Battery for 30seconds - Then Put the battery back in, and powered up. Windows 7 is "Resuming Windows" and I am right back to the same session as I left it. - Granted I might have exagerated that this Hibernate takes just as long to boot as normal, but it does exactly what I said it does. -

I am curious as to what this "Super Sleep" mode is as I don't see it on any of my Windows 7 machines and I've got 8 notebooks on my benches right now. I tried this on my G73 and several other non-ASUS notebooks.

Please Teach Oh Great One,

In Peace and Agape,
Trav...

 

See "What is hybrid sleep?" here...

 

From Microsoft's Support pages:


Hybrid sleep is another new power-saving feature designed primarily for desktop computers. Hybrid sleep saves any open documents and programs to memory and to your hard disk, and then puts your computer into a low-power state.

Unlike mobile PCs, desktop computers typically don't have battery-based power backup. So if a sudden power failure occurs to a desktop computer in standard sleep mode, data loss could occur.

But with hybrid sleep turned on, Windows can restore your work from your hard disk. On desktop computers, hybrid sleep is typically turned on by default.

When hybrid sleep is turned on, clicking Sleep automatically puts your computer into hybrid sleep. When hybrid sleep is turned off, or if your computer doesn't support hybrid sleep, clicking Sleep puts the computer to sleep.

To turn hybrid sleep on or off:

1. Open Power Options by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking Power Options.
2. On the Select a power plan page, click Change plan settings under the selected plan.
3. On the Change settings for the plan page, click Change advanced power settings.
4. On the Advanced settings tab, expand Sleep, expand Allow hybrid sleep, and then do one of the following:
   
   • If you are using a mobile PC, click On battery or Plugged in (or both), click the arrow, and then click On.
   • If you are using a desktop computer, click Setting, click the arrow, and then click On.
5. Click OK, and then click Save changes.

 

Hi Chastity,

Thanks so much for your information -
Guess my day is complete... I learned something NEW - Thanks for the lesson..

I did do some testing this morning and I see why they call it hybrid - The Sleep process is storing the user session in RAM and on the HDD then does the shut down. This adds at least 30 seconds to the sleep (shutdown process)
If there is no power loss prior to turning the laptop back on, it returns to the user session as quickly as a "normal" sleep.
If there is a power loss the system does return to the user session but through a "resuming Windows" (hibernation) mode.

Pulling out my handy dandy stopwatch - I noticed a significant time difference between the "hybrid resume" (sleep with power loss) and the normal Hibernation. Anywhere from 1-2 minutes - Also there might have been an issue with the video driver. I did this on the non-ASUS notebooks that I test daily and will be discussing the outcome with a few other engineers.

I am assuming the semi-failures (time lags and video corruption) I saw are the reason the "hybrid sleep" is not default and not documented and necessarily supported by my company (a notebook manufacturer).

In any case, thanks so much for the lesson -
In Peace and Agape,
Trav...

 

I believe for notebooks, they have a different approach. If you sleep and are on battery, when the battery gets low, it will do a hibernate and shut down.