Question for laptop users

[smokey982]

For people that use a laptop at home for personal use, do you shut it down after each use or let it go into sleep mode and leave it on all the time? I know some laptops get warm or hot after a long period of time, so is it best to shut them down daily? It's only used at home for various times. Some days it will be used for 10-15 minutes and other days it may be used for 1-2 hours.

 

[charper1]

While I am on-call I leave it on regardless of working a call or not; I don't like the stopping and starting vs leaving it on. If I know I am not going to use it I just turn it off .

 

[No_Brains]

thats the same for me.....
but i always have mine with me and i use it a lot.....espicially for school and it does seem to warm up at times.. so i bought me a cooling pad for about $25 but it was well worth it

 

[mike123abc]

I have a long standby time... Like 24 hours. Then I have it hibernate. Hibernate is off except that windows saves its state to disk before it turns off so you do not have to boot again, it just reloads the saved memory image and continues. Mine does not get hot in standby. I have it standby when I shut the lid, hibernate when I press the power button.

It is rare that I do a full boot, mostly when windows update requires one.

 

[charper1]

I have a long standby time... Like 24 hours. Then I have it hibernate. Hibernate is off except that windows saves its state to disk before it turns off so you do not have to boot again, it just reloads the saved memory image and continues. Mine does not get hot in standby. I have it standby when I shut the lid, hibernate when I press the power button.

It is rare that I do a full boot, mostly when windows update requires one.

This is what I do as well; I guess I did not fully explain that fact. I do the 4hr setup.

 

[Frank Jr.]

If it is the only computer you use at home I strongly suggest using a cool plate. Only drawback is they suck in a lot of dust.

 

[TheForce]

Since I decided to use my laptop (Dell XPS M1210) for e-mail it stays on 24/7. My wife had an older athlon hp and it would overheat so she had to shut it down. One of the things I check for in the stores' demo is to feel the laptops for heat. If they feel really hot, I don't consider then further. I now have a new XPS m1330 Dell for my wife and it stays very cool so we have it using standby, like my other Dell.

 

[iwc5893]

Since I work as the only installer/tech for my ISP, I leave mine on 24 hours a day since I'm subject to emergency calls at all hours. That being said, I haven't rebooted or shut down my laptop for the past 8 weeks.

 

[Jared Twomey]

Since I work as the only installer/tech for my ISP, I leave mine on 24 hours a day since I'm subject to emergency calls at all hours. That being said, I haven't rebooted or shut down my laptop for the past 8 weeks.

just curious.... vista or xp?

 

[No_Brains]

myself i dont like Vista....

 

[Stargazer]

I would think that it would get corrupted long before the 8 weeks is up but that all probably depends on what is running on there and for how long.

 

[iwc5893]

just curious.... vista or xp?

Neither...I run Linux although I've got both Vista and XP virtual machines.

 

[Jared Twomey]

Neither...I run Linux although I've got both Vista and XP virtual machines.

ah, ok... that makes sense

my linux machine runs forever. My vista machine I can keep up for a few weeks before it needs a reboot. And it gets used heavily, every day.

 

[bateau980]

As a desktop tech, I've found Windows XP Hibernate to cause more problems than the amount of energy it saves. Given, our image designers still need to learn quite a bit about XP. This is why I will set my laptop to standby after 2 hrs.

I have laptop users calling in with stories of how their computer won't wake up, lost data, or some random tale. Second question out of my mouth is "Do you use hibernate?" First question is "When is the last time your ran Disk Defragmenter... Didn't you get my memo?"

 

[mike123abc]

I have not had any problems with hibernate with vista.

 

[8bitbytes]

As a desktop tech, I've found Windows XP Hibernate to cause more problems than the amount of energy it saves. Given, our image designers still need to learn quite a bit about XP. This is why I will set my laptop to standby after 2 hrs.

I have laptop users calling in with stories of how their computer won't wake up, lost data, or some random tale. Second question out of my mouth is "Do you use hibernate?" First question is "When is the last time your ran Disk Defragmenter... Didn't you get my memo?"

Hibernation is fine for the occasional need to shut the laptop off but not have to go through the entire startup and loading process when you need to turn it back on once you get where you are going.

But regularly used, hibernation is not a good idea. Rebooting and reloading is the single best way to resolve most issues that develop on a Windows machine. Granted, you can configure desktops, laptops, and servers to use MS products that don't crash or lockup but most people can't. Shutdown and reboot is an important tool.