Am I killing my laptop??
 

I have my laptop running almost 24/7 for more than a year now... without having the battery plugged in of course?
I start to realize this can't be good... so at night... is it enough to put the machine in standby or does that not really help keeping my machine healthy? I do not feel like switching it off completely.

Since the HD thread went so well I will try your tech comments again... feel free to flame :)

Why not, just keep it running but keep it cool enough.
It can run for years

And remove dust now and then

i hope you restart it at least from time to time - i won't feel comfortable without doing updates for more than a year

I turn off mine every night.

were in the same place my friend :-)
it seems like it's okay.. maybe just put it on standby... :)

i turn mines off at night too

my pc runs 24/7

i think you are making its life shorter

I turn mine off when I'm not using it, but that is not very often -

It'll prly kill ur battery life. I would take the battery out.

Other than that, leave it going

mine is turned off every night.
if you will keep it cool and clean forom dust it'll work for ages =)!

If there are times that you don't need it to be on then turn it off. Let it rest once in a while. And yeah, keep it cool enough.

i think computer can work 24/7
if u hold it in a cool place...

I leave mine on 24/7

I turn mine off at night. And when I am using it; I use my laptop cooling stand that I just bought and I LOVE it.....

The laptop will probably be fine so long as it's not 37C/100F in your room, but the HD may fail a little earlier than expected. My experiences may not be typical, your mileage may vary, blah blah, but I've found that the laptops I have used do not have very good cooling for the HDs.

get a notebook cooler
http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...ook_cooler.php

why would it effect your battery?

i leave mine on 247

laptop cooling stand
what an awesome idea
i can not believe i have never looked for something like this
thanks for mentioning that ;)

thanks also for the mention...
plus everybody else for their comments.

its true
always unplug the battery when you are working with a direct power connection
it will kill any battery
i only plug in the battery when i need it
golden rule of thumb

eh.. Notebook coolers are not necessary IMO if you have a half-decent laptop. E.g. not whatever the cheapest HP/Dell/Acer/whatever you grab.

No need to shut down the laptop either. Your power saving features should automatically shut down the hard drive and such after inactivity.

The only thing that is truly "limited lifetime" on a laptop is the screen backlight and to a lesser extent inverter. Just shut the lid when you're not using it.

I keep my laptop on 100% of the time, save for 30 minutes or so while in transit to the office each day. At night, it sits on my bed closed.

And yeah, I abuse the living crap out of it. Thinkpads are the only thing I will even consider using these days, everything else just falls apart within a year.

I also leave the battery in mine.. Been over a year now, and I still have within 20 minutes the same run-time as when I first got it (5.5 hours or so of typical use). Granted, it's probably better to remove - but again, decent laptop with some smart charging logic should help you out there as well.

I leave my PC's running 24/7. In fact one has been on for pretty much 9 years straight. No hard drive failures, but I have them set to stop after 1 hour of no use. The one thing that is sure to go bad earlier is the power supply fan.

As for laptops, I shut mine off. I'm leery of the one and only fan. If that fails while you are asleep I'm not sure what might happen.

Whenever I don't use my laptop, I put it to sleep mode

laptops are way more sensible than regular PC`s.I turn off my laptop every night and sometimes even during the day.

my PC runs 27/4 I just restart it from time to time
but I turn off my laptop every night cos in my previous laptop HD & fan failed in a year of non-stop work

No, they need to work all the time........

Turn it off when you're not using it.. that's the proper way:)

i let mine run non stop.. they are cheap now a days. if n when it dies well buy a new 1

at least a day rest would do

laptops are not really designed to function that way

-a

Because the battery can't hold a full charge being connected to terminals. So it drains just a tiny bit then recharges it. Over and over.

Im on my laptop 24/7 it runs fine

http://h20239.www2.hp.com/techcenter...attery_max.htm

do you actually use it? From what I've read, it doesn't cool well and is pretty noisy... :helpme