How Long Has Your Mac Been On? 32

Hardware

How Long Has Your Mac Been On?

Hey

I was wondering the other day how long I could keep my Mac on before an update or crash of some sort would require a restart. Thankfully the update came first (Mac’s don’t crash). I managed to last 14 days before I had to restart. I was wondering how long have you kept your Mac on, and did you experience any problems.

To find your uptime. Open Terminal and type:

uptime

Believe it or not, that will show how long your computer has been turned on.

At the end of those 14 days I was seeing Finder get a little bit slow. Things did start to hand more and more. This is probably due to small bits of memory taking up space and not being cleaned up effectively by the apps. Firefox did start to get very slow.

How long have you had your computer on for. I am sure Mac’s can last a lot longer, but I like mine to be upto date so the restart had to be taken. Did take about a hour to start up again after.


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32 Responses to “How Long Has Your Mac Been On?”

  1. 1

    If you include putting it to sleep mine has been on for 5 days but then i installed an app which required a restart.

    Finder was slowing down and safari was slightly slow.

    And your right MACS DON’T CRASH

    Comment By GG on November 17th, at 9:31 pm

  2. 2

    If there were no updates, I wouldn’t even turn off my mac.
    My mac pro has 10GB of Ram, so even after couple of weeks my mac pro is running smoothly.
    Even I recognized that Firefox starts using a lot of CPU after a while, but I could fix the problem with a few changes in Firefox.
    By the way, I switched to mac just 6 months ago from windows, and even after a few days running windows you had to restart because it was getting to slowly.
    With my mac, no problems at all :).

    Comment By Thomas on November 17th, at 10:00 pm

  3. 3

    I’m on a MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM, it has been on for 20 days and two hours, with an actual runtime of 4 days and 6 hours..

    So far no negative side effects, I do a regular cleanup using MainMenu, and I have to restart safari about every 3 to 4 days.. Other than that, nada..

    Comment By mleonard0310 on November 17th, at 11:25 pm

  4. 4

    I have had my Mac on for 8 days. After those days I had to restart because and update arrived. In my experience no problem with the other programs, the RAM memory clean good and every application that was open stay in a good state after each Sleep or Safe Sleep.

    Really, I have an image that probes the last record, and I hope soon to get a new one.

    I want to finish my comment sharing this experience that happens today. I put a DVD to play a movie, I know the DVD have problems on a normal DVD player, and so I forward it to the problem section and the whole computer crash, any suggestions? Thank you.

    Even that, I enjoy my Mac very much.

    Comment By Jimmy on November 18th, at 4:12 am

  5. 5

    I’m working on a Macbook with 2 GB RAM. My record for not turning off or restarting my laptop was 129 days. I do not know how much my “using the computer” time is, but it is an average of 7 hours a day.

    I don’t know if Macs don’t really crash, but so far mine hasn’t crashed yet =]

    The weird part compared to mine and yours is that my computer wasn’t running slower at all. It was going the same speed as it was 130 days ago.

    Comment By SD on November 18th, at 5:41 am

  6. 6

    I have a MacPro that feeds my media library to a MacMini… While I restart my MacPro weekly, my MacMini is only ever used as a media device, and I never really think much of it… I just checked its up time and it was 74 days…

    Comment By rfrye on November 18th, at 7:09 am

  7. 7

    64 days is my record to date. My iMac is running continually, though a UPS – I understand that Macs are designed for this. Usually it is more like 14 days before a restart is advisable to sort out some minor glitch that has crept in – sometimes two or more restarts are necessary to get everything back on track, which, I assume, allows the Mac time to fully carry out defrag. I notice that afterwards the amount of disk free space has increased significantly.

    Installing some 3rd party software can upset things, particularly CMs which my iMac has taken a strong aversion to for some reason!

    I understand that self maintenance is scheduled for 3am, at which time my computer and I are asleep so I run the scripts manually from time to time and also repair permissions.

    The length of time a Mac will run trouble free depends on what one has installed and how one uses it.

    Can anyone tell me why the sound volume level on my iMac has decreased every time I’ve updated my OS (Tiger)? Better yet, can anyone tell me how to change and increase the volume settings.

    Comment By John on November 18th, at 1:16 pm

  8. 8

    I wonder what the record is for Windows users. I am interested to know how long a Windows PC can remain on and in use before it crashes or requires a restart. Mine Macbook Pro has been on for 6 hours, which is far longer than usual because I left it on over to encode some very long videos. I’ve still not reset and all is running as smooth as when I started it up last night.

    Comment By Ian on November 18th, at 4:32 pm

  9. 9

    Only 72 days before an update:
    http://www.floor44.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/picture-2.png

    Comment By Andrew on November 18th, at 7:32 pm

  10. 10

    Macs don’t crash? You’re kidding, right? Yesterday, I moved my laptop a few inches while working and it put itself to sleep. And while you may not get the blue screen of death, you get the spinning wheel of doom. The little augur of misfortune that locks up every bloody program and forces you to restart by taking off the battery! Macs have their own temperamental moments. They just aren’t as blunt about it as PCs.

    Comment By Aesi on November 18th, at 10:10 pm

  11. 11

    Currently on 12 days, 5 hours, and 14 minutes. I only turn it off when my hot corners stop working which is after like 10 days. I need to restart. lol

    Comment By Josh on November 19th, at 3:11 am

  12. 12

    I am puzzled. I thought that the hard drive should not run continuously. Is this true? What are good guidelines on usage? I am not so much concerned about energy usage as wear and tear on the computer. Thanks.

    Comment By ACrook on November 19th, at 6:36 am

  13. 13

    My macbook air hasn’t been restarted for about 9 days
    but it has been in sleep mode a lot because i like to keep my desk tidy so i close the lid of the laptop and there for it is in sleep mode heeps

    Comment By Ben on November 20th, at 12:19 pm

  14. 14

    Oh i forgot…
    MY MAC DID CRASH
    2 TIMES!!!!
    once it wasn’t serious it was just that i had everything running for 6 hours
    the second time the HARD DriVE CRASHED!!!! i lost EVERY THING and i had to get it replaced
    SO MACS DO CRASH!!!!

    Comment By ben on November 20th, at 12:23 pm

  15. 15

    I have recently moved over to Macs, but I would regularly keep my Windows XP machine on for months at a time. I’m sure I’ve kept it on for 6 months at a time before. I currently have a Windows XP machine at work that is part of a security system that requires 24/7 uptime. It has been running for 4 months, and I don’t expect to have to restart it ever, until something fails. OS X and X Server are essentially the same operating system, and although I’m new to X Serve, I certainly hope it is made to stay on all the time. My users won’t like it if I tell them they can’t access certain files because I had to restart the server every few weeks. Time will tell.

    Comment By Michael on November 20th, at 4:56 pm

  16. 16

    All computer operating systems crash especially because of malfunctioning hardware. Macs are very solid and “applications” do not leak memory after the terminate. The process’s memory is freed.

    Operating systems sometimes leak memory. I do not know if this is true of Mac OS X but most BSD-derived Unixes and Linux seem to have this issue well under control so that the do NOT leak much if any memory.

    I have owned a PowerMAC G5 for three years. It has crashed perhaps 12 times DUE to flakey hardware. To my knowledge it has never been a software panic (crash).

    Macs to me are very stable though Linux seems rock solid in this arena.

    The kernel programmers at Apple are second to none, IMHO.

    I have found that restarting APPs is enough and I do not have to reboot. Web browsers notorious leak memory. Also, the MAC has some processes it occasionally take a lot of CPU time such as processes associated with Spotlight.

    You can run Activity Monitor to see which processes are taking up most of the CPU or memory.

    Comment By Of Course Macs Crash on November 20th, at 7:13 pm

  17. 17

    My MBP usually only gets rebooted when Software Update says so. It often goes for days without sleeping too because it sits on my desk all the time and I regularly forget to close the lid when I finish work.

    Comment By Simon on November 20th, at 10:09 pm

  18. 18

    The MacBook Air (the best Mac I have ever used) has been up 66 days. The largest uptime I have personally experienced was a mail server that I ran on a Power Mac G5 that was up for 155 days before there was a long enough power failure that the UPS ran out. It was running OS X 10.4.7.

    Comment By Dave Hagan on November 21st, at 2:34 am

  19. 19

    Hey!

    We have to Macbooks at home (2,4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo), with exactly the same software and evrything.

    One never ever crashed !

    The other crashes sometimes !

    So it depends!

    YES, SOME MACs CRASH!

    YES, SOME MACs DON’T CRASH!

    I have no idea why ????

    But sometimes it seems that computers have an human behavoir, some are good some are bad, no mater where they come from (Macs or Non Macs).

    C’est la vie!

    Bernd! (Montreal)

    Comment By Bernd Felfer on November 21st, at 12:37 pm

  20. 20

    It took more than one hour to boot up after that.. thats one thing to be noted.. i have windows machine at office which i keep runnning for weeks with Servers running ( and its Windows XP ). still when i restart it boots up in less than 2 minutes..

    Macs Suck… ;-)

    Comment By MacPhobia on November 24th, at 6:16 pm

  21. 21

    EARTH KILLER

    Comment By Daniel Nuss on November 26th, at 5:50 am

  22. 22

    Thanks for the tip on the uptime command. I wanted to know how long it had been since my last restart – believe it or not 27 days! Well, it’s time to restart, things are slowly down just a little bit.

    Comment By Christina B on December 2nd, at 3:35 am

  23. 23

    I left my old windows desktop on for a year straight but then decided the update when sp1 came out but it did not get slow. I am pretty sure that was because I had 8gigs of ram and a quad core processor in it though.

    Comment By gamer2502 on December 21st, at 5:49 pm

  24. 24

    MacOSX is a unix system, there’s no need to boot a lot.

    $ uptime
    19:57 up 172 days, 10:49, 10 users, load averages: 1.07 0.97 1.00

    Comment By Henrik on January 2nd, at 7:58 pm

  25. 25

    ive always wondered this, i usually leavee mine on all the time!.. unless i update… but im sure ive gone a month maybe 2 straight on..

    BUT, last year, and this may or may not be related, but the power supply in my imac desktop (06 White edition) died on me out of no where… not sure if it was cause it was on all the time or i think someone accidently turned the sleep mode off, so it only went into screensaver mode… and after a while just pooped… luckily i still had warranty and Mac repaired it for free. but i wouldve cost me around 250$ thats crazy!

    Comment By Joey on January 2nd, at 8:17 pm

  26. 26

    57 days and counting, not getting slow. A MacBook 2.0 Santa Rosa core, 2,5GB DDR2. I love that little white piece of awesome.

    Comment By McD on January 2nd, at 9:21 pm

  27. 27

    62 days for a mini being used as a media server

    Comment By chris on June 30th, at 1:10 am

  28. 28

    hey i go to a school and im in a laptop class and so far this year there have been about 1/5 of people computers out of 4 class’s 25 aprox per class

    YES MACS DO CRASH!!!!

    one of the guys left his going for about 3 days straight (going) then it crashed

    i heard if you have too many apps in your dock it could crash your computer

    ALL ARE MAC’S

    Comment By jarrod farac on November 8th, at 8:41 am

  29. 29

    Hey guys! So i know there’s this whole thing about how macs DON’T crash, but do you think you could tell me HOW to crash one? See, my mac is pretty much broken. It’s six years old and so many things are wrong with it, so I can’t use it, but it’s the family computer and my dad still believes that it is in perfect condition. So, I would like to know how to make it crash so that way we HAVE to get a new one! I know that sounds ridiculous, but this has been going on for about a year now, and I think that is ridiculous. Thanks!!

    Comment By Alice on November 13th, at 3:13 am

  30. 30

    I’m on 13 days without a reboot with a 13″ Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard (I might have done over 14 days at some point…don’t quite remember). Still going strong. I’ve done this while installing software such as the iPhone SDK and Xcode and using it completely normally throughout.

    I will say though for those that claim Mac’s don’t crash….they definitely do, I just find they do so far less often then Windows computer’s generally speaking.

    Lovin’ the Macbook (got it about 9 months ago…first Apple computer ever)!

    Bob

    Comment By Bob on May 8th, at 1:16 am

  31. 31

    obviously I’m sure I’m not the only one who think this way.

    Comment By Hiedi Grant on September 5th, at 6:48 am

  32. 32

    uptime
    Last login: Wed Dec 8 13:19:34 on console
    James-xxxxxxxxx-MacBook-Pro:~ MacBookProHD$ uptime
    14:21 up 27 days, 1:03, 2 users, load averages: 1.19 1.02 0.95
    James-xxxxx-MacBook-Pro:~ MacBookProHD$

    Comment By James plough on January 4th, at 3:24 pm

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