Re: Leaving laptop on all the time..

In article <AdlJa.3815$N%>, "Ryan" says...
>
>My laptop has truly become a desktop replacement.

Same here.

>I have a feeling that it
>cant be safe to leave a laptop on for very long periods of time.

Why would it not be safe? Of course it will not be safe if you don't have some
kind of a firewall if you have it online all the time, but that is no less safe
than with a desktop machine.

Generally there are much fewer moving parts in a laptop, and for hard disks the
life expectancy depends on start/stop cycles instead of running hours. Besides,
a laptop uses much less electricity so it is even cheaper running a laptop 24/7
than a desktop machine!

>Whats acceptable, a few nights? Few hours?

Well, I bought my first laptop a bit over 1.5 years ago, and kept it running
24/7 ever since I got it. One reason for switching to a laptop from a desktop
machine was so that I could keep it running all the time, which I did not want
to do with the (loud) desktop machine.

I sold that laptop around two months ago and got my current Acer TravelMate 803,
which has also been running nonstop all the time. I reboot it once every two
weeks just in case the free memory slowly fragments or whatever. Been very happy
with the new laptop, it stays completely silent while running all night beside
my bed.

And yes, I run a filesharing client on it.

Patrick

"Lucar" <> wrote in message
news:bdcg6p$hkt$...
| "Patrick" <> wrote in message
| news:...
| > Well, I bought my first laptop a bit over 1.5 years ago, and kept it
| running
| > 24/7 ever since I got it. One reason for switching to a laptop from a
| desktop
| > machine was so that I could keep it running all the time, which I did
not
| want
| > to do with the (loud) desktop machine.
| >
| > I sold that laptop around two months ago and got my current Acer
| TravelMate 803,
| > which has also been running nonstop all the time. I reboot it once every
| two
| > weeks just in case the free memory slowly fragments or whatever. Been
very
| happy
| > with the new laptop, it stays completely silent while running all night
| beside
| > my bed.
| >
| Completely silent? Are you sure? These days laptops usually have a small
fan
| to cool them down.
|
| Lucar
|
|

Even if the fan isn't working due to it being temporarily shutdown by the
OS, the hard disk motor would still make a fair noise. I believe I have one
of the quietest (an IBM travelstar) and you can easily hear that it is far
from completely silent.

"Paul Noga" <> wrote in message
news:bddbf3$9am$...
> Even if the fan isn't working due to it being temporarily shutdown by the
> OS, the hard disk motor would still make a fair noise. I believe I have
one
> of the quietest (an IBM travelstar) and you can easily hear that it is far
> from completely silent.
>
Well one way or the other, that's what I meant, they're not completely
silent.

Lucar

In article <bdefof$qjs$>, "Lucar" says...
>
>"Paul Noga" <> wrote in message
>news:bddbf3$9am$...
>> Even if the fan isn't working due to it being temporarily shutdown by the
>> OS, the hard disk motor would still make a fair noise. I believe I have
>one
>> of the quietest (an IBM travelstar) and you can easily hear that it is far
>> from completely silent.
>>
>Well one way or the other, that's what I meant, they're not completely
>silent.

Well, okay, perhaps I slightly exaggerated, sorry.

What I meant, is that when the fan (which is VERY noisy, by the way) is not
running (that is, when the CPU load stays below 50%), I can not hear any sound
from my laptop that is on the bedside table when I'm in bed. That was actually
rather unnerving at first, I could not hear whether my laptop was still running
if I woke up in the middle of the night! :-)

The hard disk in my Acer TravelMate 803 is a Hitachi TravelStar (the 40GB
4200rpm model). I didn't know they could make hard disks that quiet before I got
that laptop.

Patrick

> Generally there are much fewer moving parts in a laptop, and for hard
disks the
> life expectancy depends on start/stop cycles instead of running hours.
Besides,

True, but all the componets are close together in a tiny space and heat is
always a concern. And repair work on a laptop is much more expensive than
with desktops, as the componets tend to be much more expensive to replace.

Scott