Using laptop for long, continous time

[pranjal.3029]

Hey all,

This is my first time posting here, and this felt like the most appropriate sub forum for my problem.

I use my laptop for long, un-attended hours, like sometimes week or days without shutting it down once(It's usually downloading my steam games, or itunes library, I am also using it as a plex server). It's plugged in for all that time because I can't attend to it's charging needs. I am worried about my battery because now the backup the battery gives me when I sometimes take it off the table seems shortened than it's original backup times(Now, less than an hour when using internet and watching a movie). HWInfo64 says the battery wear is at 30%. This battery is almost 2 years old now, is this much wear abnormal for a 2 year old battery? In my use case scenario? I have been using it 24x7(as much as possible) for almost more than 6 months. I own an Asus ROG GL552VW, which has 4Cells 48 Whrs battery with a Core i7-6700HQ, GTX 960M, 8GB 2133MHz DDR4, 1TB 5400 RPM SATA 2.5" with Windows 10 Home 1709.

Update: If I decide to replace my battery after a few months, will everything be back to normal or am I harming my laptop in the long run permanently? What are some good practices, if any, for running a laptop-server?

 

[n0ns3ns3]

if your laptop is connected to the power line, you couldn't care less about battery wear (which is perfectly normal).
there is no problem in using it 24/7 as long as the temperatures are in check.

 

[itpeasant]

You don't have to worry. I have the same laptop, but replaced HDD for SSD for an huge performance boost. I also run a Plex Server and some tools to make life easier. Mine runs for weeks before a reboot is needed.

There is drain on a battery. Around 5% before the charger will fill it up again in Win10. I am not sure if those 5% happens in an hour or over the course off the day but just because the cable is plugged in does not mean that the battery is off. You can remove the battery easily. You don't even need to turn off the laptop for that. And in the event of an power failure Windows is perfectly capable of rebooting without any data lost. I also use variations. Battery out, battery in, and sometimes explicitly running only on battery to empty that sucker good and then charge and discharge a few times.. Replacing Battery is no problem, but why would you? Spending +/-$100,- on a battery that runs when new at best 2 hours. Only with maximum saving on and chrome browsing with only 1 tab instead of the 10 open i came little over 2,5 hours

Furthermore are there very little issues that can occur. It would be smart to enable spin down on your HDD's when inactive. That will extend life of the platters.
And if the CPU is getting hot when bussy, making the fan to work harder for a longer period of time, and waiting some more time is not a problem. You could set the CPU to down-clock to lower the temperature first rather than just telling the fan to work harder. I have tested it while downloading, extracting and repairing nzb archives at the same time while i just monitored. and there was little to no sign of slowing down in the process. for Plex it does not matter. On the client side is a buffer build up to cover that. Streaming music on the other hand is not nice when it stuters. So if this is four you i cannot tell

May i ask if you have fully patched your laptop with the latest v300 BIOS and Intel's fix for Meltdown/Spectre?

In my experience: major improvement. I wen't from around 2500 of the same sort regedit error entries per day in eventvwr to only 5 on the first day after the patch!!! i still have those entries on a daily base but now max 30 on a day. So you can imagine how much smoother the system got after endless hammering down on the register stopped after more than a year! SYSTEM tried to connect files to keys where it then fails because SYSTEM has no owner and administrator right's over the files it self made. and since it where different files. it tried first 1 and failed. Continued to 2 and so on. Until they where all tried and number 1 was suddenly next in line...