is it a bad idea to keep your laptop on for long?

i basically keep my desktop on through the whole day, and turn it off before i go to sleep.

I recently got a P150hm and am wondering if doing the same would be bad practice? would sleeping it help?

also, my friend keeps the battery disconnected when he runs on the adapter. says its good for the battery. is this a good idea?

 

For your first question, you can run it on sleep... That's not an issue but you will be wasting power. I always shut down my laptop before I go to sleep. Battery question wise, if your'e running on AC power for a long time, will help to take out battery as it will be less exposed to heat etc.

 

I would recommend to leave it running for the whole time you 'might' use it.

Turn it off at night.

Battery removed (if AC power adaptor is connected to UPS).

 

I'd just turn it off when you're not using it for extended periods of time. However I regularly leave my laptop on for days if necessary to download things.

 

1) Leaving our computer on 24x7 is fine. It may cost you more on your electric bill, but you're not going to shorten the life of your computer hardware by leaving it on.


2) Technically, your friend is correct.

Keeping a lithium ion battery at 0% or 100% charge will shorten its charge capacity over time, because of the chemistry of lithium ion batteries. The best way to long-term store a lithium ion battery is to charge it to 40%, disconnect the battery, and then store it in a dark cool place. This is why when you buy consumer electronics with lithium ion batteries, they always come out of the box at around 40% charge.

If you keep your laptop battery constantly at 100%, you can expect to gradually lose about 25%-50% of the charge capacity of that battery after about 2 years of use.



There are two ways to think of this situation:

(1) I baby my gear. I want my stuff to last as long as possible. So I will go through the inconvenience of charging my battery to 40%, removing it, and storing it somewhere dark and cool when I am not using it. Or,

(2) I buy my stuff because it is meant to be used. I am going to use my laptop in the way that is most convenient for me (keeping it plugged in all the time with the battery in, at 100%). If I need to replace my battery after 2 years, no problem. Batteries aren't that expensive.

 

while I prefer the number (2) may I say that you can also buy a laptop that has dedicated software that manages the battery as well, such as the ThinkPad T-series (cough .. like mine .. cough).

atm I'm plugged in and my battery sits at ~85% charge. It will start charging when the charge drops to 60% and it will stop when it reaches 90%, and will do nothing if if's in the middle, even when plugged in, thus keeping the battery at good shape as long as possible (meaning one battery for the life of the laptop itself)

but loosing data with using your laptop without battery = big NO for me. Hell people even invented the UPS for that reason (uninterpretable power supply) ..

 

I have a record of leaving my laptop on for 11 consecutive days (LCD turned off while I was away). I don't remember how many times I left it on for a week or so. No issues so far.


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My laptop is always on unless it's rebooting or the battery's low.

 

Save the planet people and use less electricity .... Save urself money too....

 

I hate the planet and I hate saving money.

 

I can't remember the last time I voluntarily rebooted or hibernated beyond being forced to because of a crash. I just put my computer to sleep and then resume when I need it next.

 

Left a netbook running for literally months 24/7 at 100% CPU, still works fine.

 

The only time I reboot my laptop is when I need to. It sits on my desk running 24/7, no sleep, no hibernation.

 

rebooting is needed for making restore points of the system, updating stuff, optimizing stuff, etc. I always shut down my laptop when I'm done for the day, and turn it back on the next day.

I guess I can leave a laptop running non-stop only if I'm running some sort of website and/or email server and/or database that needs to be up all the time, or if the laptop is controlling something that needs to run all the time, or taking measurements non-stop. But for normal use I prefer reboot (once) the next day.

 

My laptop i son 24/7/365
Works like a charm.

 

Bad idea, IMO yes. Harmful/potentially dangerous probably not. Shutdowns is how the OS does OS related updates. My laptops are either on or off. I power down all my gear when I go to sleep unless I'm doing a large download as it heats up my room too much.

 

Leaving laptop on all the time or the majority of the time will 'prolong' its life.
Its the turning on/off cycle that "damages" hardware due to sharp decrease/increase of the temperature on the components.

Turning off/on laptop frequently will cause cracks especially on the solder connections and will decrease the life-expectancy of your laptop.

The other point is the electricity, "eco-crap" and how much cash you have to splash on power bills. Also If your laptop's fans are loud, it may not be possible to sleep near by, unless you are deep-slumber.

Leaving battery in while its plugged in mains and not being managed like the Thinkpad will cause Lithium crystalization, where the battery content 'crystalizes'. This pernamently ruins the battery's capacity.

-Mel

 

Well yeah, when windows asks to restart to complete an update I don't just ignore it.

 

When windows pesters me for updates and eventually decides it's going to "force" me to restart, I then resort to the magic known as net stop. Strangely widows update doesn't bother me much anymore...

 

Lol wow 1st time I heard someone's gear heat up their room ... Then again judging from your sig

 

My old 6950 (flashed to 6970) would heat my room to over 130 degrees F during the summer, it was literally cooler to step outside my room. I also live upstairs.

 

That's why you need to open the window. In winter, computers are awesome because they keep your room toasty. In summer they don't matter as long as you don't use AC.

 

I'm still in school so I don't worry about paying for electricity but does leaving a laptop on really put a dent in your electricity bill? I've always wondered how much it really affects it.

To answer the topic, I usually put my laptop to sleep when I'm going to bed, or when I go to class, or when I'm bringing my laptop with me for a short distance. The only time I really turn it off and/or restart is if I'm traveling with it in an airport or for a long period of time or when I'm doing a Windows update.

Also, for the whole battery removing thing, I don't do that because I consider it a hassle to remove it when I'm plugged in. What if the power suddenly died and you lost power? You'd lose whatever work you were doing and wouldn't have a backup power source. Also, it's not like you'd really notice a huge decrease and even if you do, you could always get a new battery or new computer down the road. Batteries are going to degrade over time anyways.

 

I have a small server (dual-core sandy bridge cpu, integrated gpu, two internal 2tb hdds and an external 2tb hdd) that runs 24/7, I've measured it at 35-40 watts idle (more than most laptops) and I can't say I've ever noticed its effect on my power bill.

We have snakes which require heat lamps 24/7, and even at 75 watts a piece, those are barely noticeable.

 

Also, there's the fact that making toast is probably the equivalent to running a laptop for a good hour or so.

If you use an immersion heater or anything along those lines you'd be mad to worry about the cost of your computer consuming electricity.

 

Well, when I was bitcoin mining 24/7 with my 6950, I noticed, but then I sold the bitcoins and came out ahead

 

If you close the lid when you leave it on be carefull not to fry the screen.

 

I experienced no issues with leaving my laptop ON for long periods of time.
Generally speaking, computers were meant to operate 24/7.
Reboots are needed in various scenarios as are shutdowns for periodic maintenance (such as re-pasting and dust cleaning).