What happens if you don't turn on your computer/laptop for a long time?

[Andre36]

Hi,

What happens if you don't turn on your computer / laptop for a long time (for me more than 2 weeks)?

My laptop turned on but I could see nothing but the cursor. And I tried to fix it by turning it off several times but the problem is still there.

What should I do in this situation? Help! I need to do my summer lesson

Thanks.

 

[Vayra86]

This is a bit of a... limited opening post.

We need your system specs, most notably age of laptop and the exact model name would be even better.

What you should do... plug the laptop into wall socket, let it sit there for a while, try again. And give it time, as well. If you see a cursor, at least something went OK. You were already booted into Windows.

As for your first question, nothing usually happens. PC's can be left off for years and still work. The thing that ages a bit might be power delivery; the battery, or the circuit itself does suffer from prolonged use but also from doing nothing as dust accumulates. Another one is mechanical hard drives, those are not great for (very) long term storage either.

 

[Andre36]

I think battery is the problem. It's non-removable battery so I can't discharge the power. But thanks for your answer I will try again

 

[dorsetknob]

What happens if you don't turn on your computer / laptop for a long time (for me more than 2 weeks)?

If stored with a charged Battery then it should boot no Problem (If possable always fully charge before reuse)
if it was stored in Hibernation Mode then over time it would Drain Battery (never store laptop in hibernation mode always fully shut down).

Plug laptop into its wall charger and leave for an hour ( See if the Charge /battery light is indicating)
test again later ( also check it will enter Bios esc or F1 /F2).

 

[Bill_Bright]

What happens if you don't turn on your computer / laptop for a long time (for me more than 2 weeks)?

It should boot normally - unless the battery was dead and the charger not plugged in. I agree with the others. Plug the charger in and walk away for a couple hours.

It is likely you will be behind in Windows and security updates, so you should probably let it update too.

All this assumes your battery and notebook are not otherwise damaged.

 

[theonek]

nothing happens though, for me turns out that I haven't been power on a pc for 6-8 months and everything runs just fine!

 

[Bill_Bright]

Note a PC (desktop or tower computer) does not behave the same way as a battery operated notebook.

Unless you unplug the PC's power supply from the wall (or flip the master power switch on the PSU to "0" or off - if it has such a switch) a PC simply goes into standby mode. It is not totally "off".

 

[Kapone33]

Note a PC (desktop or tower computer) does not behave the same way as a battery operated notebook.

Unless you unplug the PC's power supply from the wall (or flip the master power switch on the PSU to "0" or off - if it has such a switch) a PC simply goes into standby mode. It is not totally "off".

Exactly why some MBs have RGB on even when the system is powered down.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Exactly why some MBs have RGB on even when the system is powered down.

I don't know about RGB (as in red, green and blue LEDs) but many do have a single LED to show that power is still present. This is primarily to remind users not to go yanking out or inserting RAM or pulling other components or connectors while the +5Vsb standby voltage is still running through many circuits.

 

[Kapone33]

I don't know about RGB (as in red, green and blue LEDs) but many do have a single LED to show that power is still present. This is primarily to remind users not to go yanking out or inserting RAM or pulling other components or connectors while the +5Vsb standby voltage is still running through many circuits.

I should have said ARGB. I have only had one board that actually turned it off on Windows shutdown.

 

[Mussels]

if the battery went flat, it was probably resuming from hibernate which can be incredibly slow if the laptop has a slow hard drive

also, sometimes hibernate just doesnt recovery very well, a reboot makes things right.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I should have said ARGB. I have only had one board that actually turned it off on Windows shutdown.

Assuming you mean Alpha and not Adobe (or even amber), I don't see where it makes a difference. When in standby mode, "IF" a LED is lit, I still have only seen 1 LED. But that certainly does not mean there are no boards that light multiple LEDs when simply shutdown (put in one of several stand-by modes). I'm just not aware of any, nor do I see a purpose for more than one lit LED when in stand-by.

It should be noted there is no industry standard for LED lights on motherboards. None are required. If any are present, there is no standard for the color. And regardless the color, there is no industry standard for their function. When powered up, a lit LED can mean anything - depending on what the motherboard maker chooses. They could be solely for aesthetics. Or they could simply indicate power is present. Or, if more than one, they could represent some code that is supposed to be useful in troubleshooting.

All I am saying is when in standby, a lit LED usually just indicates there is still voltage present on the board.

if the battery went flat, it was probably resuming from hibernate which can be incredibly slow if the laptop has a slow hard drive

also, sometimes hibernate just doesnt recovery very well, a reboot makes things right.

Right. The thing about hibernate mode and notebooks is the notebook is supposed to boot back to exactly where it was when it went to sleep (or you closed the lid) - with all your programs running and open windows opened as they were - even if the battery runs down completely. So the notebook is not just booting to the Windows desktop, but if you had a Word document or Excel spreadsheet running, and your browser was open with several tabs open, they are all supposed to be restored too. That's why notebooks, even under normal conditions, often take longer to come out of hibernate mode - especially if your network/Internet connection is not the fastest. But the point is, you "shouldn't" lose any data (most recent Word doc edits, for example) when coming out of hibernate mode.

The function does work perfectly most of the time. But as Mussels noted, sometimes it doesn't. I have found one of the common reasons for hibernate failures is low free disk space.

Note for PCs, there is the "hybrid" sleep mode. This is different from hibernate in that the +5Vsb standby voltages also keeps the data in your RAM alive for even faster wake speeds. DDR4 really takes advantage of this. But if the computer loses power for any reason when in hybrid sleep mode, no problem because the hiberfil.sys file (used by hibernate) was also created when it went to sleep and that's the file that restores all your open programs, open windows and documents.

 

[Kapone33]

Assuming you mean Alpha and not Adobe (or even amber), I don't see where it makes a difference. When in standby mode, "IF" a LED is lit, I still have only seen 1 LED. But that certainly does not mean there are no boards that light multiple LEDs when simply shutdown (put in one of several stand-by modes). I'm just not aware of any, nor do I see a purpose for more than one lit LED when in stand-by.

It should be noted there is no industry standard for LED lights on motherboards. None are required. If any are present, there is no standard for the color. And regardless the color, there is no industry standard for their function. When powered up, a lit LED can mean anything - depending on what the motherboard maker chooses. They could be solely for aesthetics. Or they could simply indicate power is present. Or, if more than one, they could represent some code that is supposed to be useful in troubleshooting.

All I am saying is when in standby, a lit LED usually just indicates there is still voltage present on the board.

I meant addressable the ones that can output multiple colours on a strip or fan.


Right. The thing about hibernate mode and notebooks is the notebook is supposed to boot back to exactly where it was when it went to sleep (or you closed the lid) - with all your programs running and open windows opened as they were - even if the battery runs down completely. So the notebook is not just booting to the Windows desktop, but if you had a Word document or Excel spreadsheet running, and your browser was open with several tabs open, they are all supposed to be restored too. That's why notebooks, even under normal conditions, often take longer to come out of hibernate mode - especially if your network/Internet connection is not the fastest. But the point is, you "shouldn't" lose any data (most recent Word doc edits, for example) when coming out of hibernate mode.

The function does work perfectly most of the time. But as Mussels noted, sometimes it doesn't. I have found one of the common reasons for hibernate failures is low free disk space.

Note for PCs, there is the "hybrid" sleep mode. This is different from hibernate in that the +5Vsb standby voltages also keeps the data in your RAM alive for even faster wake speeds. DDR4 really takes advantage of this. But if the computer loses power for any reason when in hybrid sleep mode, no problem because the hiberfil.sys file (used by hibernate) was also created when it went to sleep and that's the file that restores all your open programs, open windows and documents.

 

[John Naylor]

How was it stored ? Subject to cold / hot temperatures .

I am still PO'd that no one offers a decent cell phone with replaceable batteries any more or one whose charge doesn't last a week. But I could never agree to a laptop design that didn't have a replaceable battery.

I'll repeat the question in your 1st post .. Wjat is the make / model of the laptop. While the laptop might not be designed to be user replaceable ... neither was my phone screen, battery, lappop HD, and GPU ... , nevertheless, I have done all of these. Won't be able to determine how feasible this might be w/o make / model.

 

[denrick]

I heard that placing the battery in the refrigerator is a good method if you're planning not to use your laptop for a long time. Is this true?

 

[Mussels]

I heard that placing the battery in the refrigerator is a good method if you're planning not to use your laptop for a long time. Is this true?

it could cause condensation inside the battery, so i'd never do it.

 

[Komshija]

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There were times when I didn't even touch my current and my previous laptop for like 3 months. Really. They were all the time connected to the power grid. I also didn't touch my PC for a three weeks while being on vacation. Do you know what happened? Nothing.

 

[dcf-joe]

I am telling the absolute truth in this post.

We were cleaning out some old areas in our office building about two months ago, so still in the year 2019, and we found this old laptop that we thought probably hadn't been turned on in years. Of course the battery was dead, but the power supply for the laptop was with the laptop, so I thought what the heck and plugged it in. This laptop turned on just fine and booted into Windows 98 just fine . Being an old mechanical hard drive, this laptop took forever to boot, but it did go straight to the desktop just fine.

I was looking around on the C drive, and some of the documents had last modified dates from the year 2000. I was around nine years old possibly the last time somebody had used this laptop and I'm going to be 30 in a couple of years .

 

[Bill_Bright]

I heard that placing the battery in the refrigerator is a good method if you're planning not to use your laptop for a long time. Is this true?

40 years ago, that was not an uncommon practice. But not today. The problem with condensation is very real. Refrigerators provide a very cool and dry environment. The problem is not when the battery is in the refrigerator, but when the battery is taken out and exposed to warm, humid air. In some scenarios, condensation could form.

That said, all portable devices may be exposed to cold or even freezing temperatures. For example, if left in the trunk of a car in sub-zero weather, or in the cargo hold of an aircraft, the devices could be frozen. This typically is not harmful to the batteries or the devices IF allowed to acclimate to normal room temperatures slowly before applying power.

Removing the battery from the laptop if not being used for long periods is fine - but just put it on a shelf, not in the refrigerator.

 

[shovenose]

Well, I recently plugged in an HP/Liteon power supply that had sat in my closet for about 4 years. It exploded in a shower of sparks and smelled nasty. So I took another PSU out of the box and it worked fine. So basically nothing happens unless you have a rare failure.

 

[Bill_Bright]

First, that was a HP/Liteon PSU.

Also, electronics do age, even if not in use.

Items in storage, unless sealed in some protective box or bag, can still collect dust, insects, and other debris that, once power is applied, may cause a short. For this reason, when I take electronics out of long term storage, I take it outside and blast with compressed air.

Items in long term storage may also be exposed to other abuse, including falling to the floor, water damage, damage by hungry insects or rodents and more.

 

[eidairaman1]

Well, I recently plugged in an HP/Liteon power supply that had sat in my closet for about 4 years. It exploded in a shower of sparks and smelled nasty. So I took another PSU out of the box and it worked fine. So basically nothing happens unless you have a rare failure.

Capacitor failure

 

[biffzinker]

The problem is not when the battery is in the refrigerator, but when the battery is taken out and exposed to warm, humid air. In some scenarios, condensation could form.

Would it be possible to vacuum seal the battery before placing it in the frig? Thinking Food Saver

 

[Mussels]

Would it be possible to vacuum seal the battery before placing it in the frig? Thinking Food Saver

yes, but then it'd need to be left in the bag for several hours after removal to prevent the condensation issues

people misunderstand what batteries in the fridge does, all the lower temperatures do is keep the battery CHARGED for longer, it doesnt make its overall lifespan any longer

 

[shovenose]

Capacitor failure

I assumed as much but I popped it open and no capacitors appeared leaking or bulged. I suspect something conductive fell into it through the vents and shorted it out.