Leaving laptop on for days at a time? Questions.

to go to standby after the computer is idle for an hour or so. It should give enough time for all your virus/spyware scanning. The following day, you can wake the computer up by pressing any button and continue to check the results.

I'd put it on a laptop cooling pad. Fans do wear out and frankly to run a laptop 24x7 should be fine but then again some laptops will promptly overheat and reboot, lockup or freeze. Those Pentium 4 HT CPU based units being almost assured to not run 24x7.

If you remember, desktops also need a new fan every few years and some maintenance to clean off the collected dust. The laptop is not immune to the same maintenance. The downside is that laptops and their service just costs more.

Bottomline? Get a cooling pad. Even if you think the laptop runs cool.

The fans last longer in a clean environment. So no one can tell you it lasts 2 years since dust or dirt in the air will bring that down to just a few months. If the air was clean it may go for over 5 years (we have an office with very old laptops.)

Bob

thank you for the reply.

my laptop really does stay very cool. i also clean out the fans regularly with air as well as removing the bottom cover and getting out any gunk or dust inside.

i do actually have a cooling pad, but i have some worries about the unit.

the fans on my laptop suck air in from the bottom and blow it out the back. the fans on my cooler pull air down, so it's like creating a vacume between the cooler and the laptop because air is being pulled away from the laptop whereas the laptop is pulling air inside in order to cool itself.

this is my worry and the reason why right now i dont use my laptop cooler.

my main concern is the lifetime of the fan, keeping in mind it is maintained regularly (i really try to take good care of this thig).

any other thoughts? thanks.

You may be overanalyzing. Laptops are pricey so we don't use them as mini-servers except where it makes sense. I'll share what we do but won't debate it.

Cheers,

Bob

This is considered to be a desktop replacement unit. It has been running for almost 2 years without a problem. The lappy is also under 3-year best buy warrenty.

anyone else? thanx

I run my emachines 5305 24/7 with nary a problem, I have it on a passive "cooling pad", but the biggest difference, aside from cleaning the fan, was to install SpeedswitchXP. This slows down the CPU when max speed is not required and allows it to run cooler. Just my 2 cents.