How long can a laptop be left on

godtabh

A friend wants to Skype me a rather large file via Skype from Iceland. Problem his he has a well dodgy (slow connection) is it could take a while.

How long realistically can I leave my laptop on?

I have laptop proped up so that fans have enough air etc but its only downloading stuff so no major taks involved.

Dell Inspirion 9300

Pentium M 1.73Ghz
512ram
60gig 4200 rpm.

Any other info needed just let me know

Splinter

got a 1.7 centrino myself and it aint bn switched off in bout a week, shouldnt b an issue, remove the battery if u can so it will stop overheating, if u cant then dont worry bout it

slumped

Would it not be better (cheaper and probably quicker!) to have it sent by express mail?

S

Michael Collins

Once it's not resting on something that retains heat (eg. bed, carpet floor etc) you should be able to leave it on indefinately. Especially with a Pentium M.

godtabh

Its a dvd of his trip to Iceland for his parents. He doesnt have a dvd-r (ICeland is very expensive!) and he wants me to burn it for him to give to his parents.

So just take out battery and away I go?

Should you take the battery out if you dont use the laptop unplugged much?

chump

He could be a smart-arse and divX it, and that'd cut it down to maybe 500-700mb's which shouldn't take long to DL ... how bad is his connection?

You could then turn it back into a dvd

godtabh

he is sending it over as an avi and I'm gona use winavi to put it on a dvd.

Conection is 5kb/s on average. He is sending it from a Power Book but that shouldnt make a difference.

Could be the fact its been sent thrugh Skype or my firewall isnt set up great

Splinter

he could use somethin like winrar and just cut it into a few pieces then send each piece and that way if it fails midway u wont lose much. www.rarlabs.com i think that could b the safest option tbh. cause if either of u drop connection or it just cuts for some reason u could lose it all

godtabh

Is there a Mac winrar? I said that to him to break it up but he said he couldnt find a demo version (I think this is just gona be a one of so he doesnt want to pay for it either)

logic1

kearnsr wrote:

Conection is 5kb/s on average. He is sending it from a Power Book but that shouldnt make a difference.

So ~4GB on a 5k/s connection... isn't that about 10 days if the rate stays constant and you have no issues?

Bit of a ****er if it gets corrupt half way through eh.

He could try Winraring it and splitting it into smaller archives of a few megs each or using winace to split it.

At least you could just get the last archive piece if something goes wrong.

edit: I should have read Splintrs post before replying

.logic.

SouperComputer

you should definatly get him to break it into chunks, otherwise you could end up with a duff download after a lot of time! you can get RAR for mac.

ideally put the laptop on a flat surface, desk, or whatever. Also, if there are feet to raise the laptop underneath, pop em. removing the battery is a good idea.

SolarNexus

Can he not upload to a webserver which you then download at a reasonable speed?

theres no need for two people leaving their computers on with such a crappy connection unless its absolutely necessary.

godtabh

its down to about 700mb

Was gona take about a day by my reckoning but I was afraid of leaving on the PC for that long.

I'll try and get him to break it down.

What would you recommened for uploading to a file sever?

SouperComputer

yea 700mb will take about 30hours or so

Splinter

kearnsr wrote:

its down to about 700mb

Was gona take about a day by my reckoning but I was afraid of leaving on the PC for that long.

I'll try and get him to break it down.

What would you recommened for uploading to a file sever?

www.uploadr.com is a nice one, ya can password protect on it too if needs be. can get files of 100mb up onto it mondayto fri and up to 200mb on weekends, i think thats a good plan tbh

godtabh

splinter wrote:

www.uploadr.com is a nice one, ya can password protect on it too if needs be. can get files of 100mb up onto it mondayto fri and up to 200mb on weekends, i think thats a good plan tbh

nice one

whill check it out