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Is it bad if my iMac stay on all day long???

B

ByteTheBooty

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 8, 2015
133
0
Today a post-it fell behind my iMac and I noticed that I iMac was really hot. In fact, I realized that I never give my iMAc a break, I study for really long period of times, sometimes 8-9 hours straight where my iMac is in front of me with its screen always turned on. Is that bad for the computer? A lot of the times, Im not touching the computer, but I just like keeping the screen turned on...

Also, I rarely shut down the iMac, how many times do I need to shut down the iMac? Once a day? Once a week? (currently, i shut it down less than once a month...)

(ALSO: I dont own anything to clean my iMac, I usually use eye-glasses cleaning liquid to clean the glass, is that bad? Should I use windex instead lol?)

Thanks in Advance
 
No, it's not bad for it. Many run Macs for several months at a time without ever shutting down.
 
ByteTheBooty said:
Today a post-it fell behind my iMac and I noticed that I iMac was really hot. In fact, I realized that I never give my iMAc a break, I study for really long period of times, sometimes 8-9 hours straight where my iMac is in front of me with its screen always turned on. Is that bad for the computer? A lot of the times, Im not touching the computer, but I just like keeping the screen turned on...

Also, I rarely shut down the iMac, how many times do I need to shut down the iMac? Once a day? Once a week? (currently, i shut it down less than once a month...)

(ALSO: I dont own anything to clean my iMac, I usually use eye-glasses cleaning liquid to clean the glass, is that bad? Should I use windex instead lol?)

Thanks in Advance
Click to expand...

Well, the screen does get slightly worse the more it's on. All screens do. The other components, unless you leave endless loops running, won't really take any damage from it. If it doesn't go to sleep, the fan endlessly spinning at 1200rpm could in the long run lead to fan problems, but we're talking many years. Overall, it's not a problem, and I do the same. Hurts the electricity bill more than the iMac.
 
matreya said:
I don't sleep my Retina iMac, but I do sleep the display...
Click to expand...

The display is also what takes the most harm from staying awake (although still not much), and on idle,, is also what draws the most power. The only other component that could really benefit from full sleep is the main fan.
 
I can not say it is bad. But it is better if you use the energy-saver. It will automatically close the screen after some time, then sleep the computer if you do not touch the computer after some long time.
 
Never an issue. I have 2 iMacs which only ever get turned off if I have to reboot to install software updates. Have never had an issue with either iMac.
 
It will be more energy efficient to use an LED lamp to study than using the iMac screen as a light source.
 
ByteTheBooty said:
(I dont own anything to clean my iMac, I usually use eye-glasses cleaning liquid to clean the glass, is that bad? Should I use windex instead lol?)

Thanks in Advance
Click to expand...

Don't use cleaning solutions or other cleaning liquids for other products as these can damage the coating on the screen.

What I use on my iMac's screen is:

I get two micro fibre cloths. I moisten one with tap water, wring out as much water as possible.

I use this to wipe and clean the screen.

I then use the other micro fibre cloth to dry the screen. After doing this, the screen is gleaming.

In my opinion, screen cleaning liquids are a waste of money and do no better job than the method I've described above.
 
My iMac G4 has probably been shut down only about two or three times in its entire life. Still going strong.
 
By the time it will harm anything it will be obsolete so I wouldn't worry about it.

If I'm not using my iMac I generally have handbrake running so the CPU is at 100% load. Or I'll be using it like right now with handbrake running in the background. Unless I run out of media to encode which is rare I stop handbrake to play a game so the GPU will be running at 100% load.

Basically my iMac is always maxed for the most part. Been doing this for years across a couple iMacs and its yet to be a problem. I generally replace my iMac every 3 years and they've always been working 100% perfectly when I sell them.

Point is if I can run an iMac like this with no problems you or anyone just leaving it on won't be an issue.

I can't speak for current 5k iMacs since they seem to run a bit warmer then my late 2013 iMac.
 
Just let the display sleep after several minutes of inactivity. From what I'm told, if you leave the display on for a long period of time without changing what's displayed on the screen, it can harm the display.

That being said, don't worry about leaving your iMac on too much. I use my iMac for 12+ hours per day occasionally, and there is no sign of wear or damage. After I'm done using it, I put the computer to sleep. I just shut down my iMac if I won't be using it for at least 2 days.
 
I pretty much only reboot my iMac (and my MacBook Pro for that matter) when I'm installing OS X updates. Other than that I just turn the screen off. There's really no need to turn your computer off.
 
I believe the new iMacs draw 0.9 watts when on standby or when the screen goes off and it goes into low power mode? Maybe someone can clarify if it has to be on sleep mode or knows what the power draw is on low power mode?

"iMac is designed to be more energy efficient than ever, using just 0.9 watt of electricity in sleep mode. That’s 97 percent less than the first iMac."

Edit: Found it.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201918
 
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