Toshiba Satellite L505

I purchased my computer , (Toshiba Satellite L505 64 bit system ) two years ago , and I have been told they are good for approximately 50,000 hours before trouble may start .

First is there any truth to this ?

Secondly , is there a way I can check the number of hours on my computer .?

I have Chrome as a browser .

I use " CCleaner ", and " Defraggler " on a daily basis and have Kaspersky virus protection.

Thanks to all that helped me with my previous question !!

Originally Posted by nitemover69

I purchased my computer , (Toshiba Satellite L505 64 bit system ) two years ago , and I have been told they are good for approximately 50,000 hours before trouble may start .

First is there any truth to this ?

Secondly , is there a way I can check the number of hours on my computer .?

I have Chrome as a browser .

I use " CCleaner ", and " Defraggler " on a daily basis and have Kaspersky virus protection.

Thanks to all that helped me with my previous question !!

I don't know if there is a way to check the hours used on it. I know I have had my L505 for about three years and have used it every day from the time I got up till I went to bed. I should say it was on all day. I have no complaints with it and just recently sold it to my neighbor who said she has had no problems with it. Another friend have had theirs for about three years and says it is the best laptop that they owned. I would not worry to much about the 50,000 hours. I think they might be talking about the CMOS battery. Not sure however.

Thank you for the quick response and your input !

There is no way now to go back and see the "runtime", unless you had a runtime monitoring program running since day 1. Windows does not have one built in, though it can tell you when it was installed, or how long it has been since the last boot (system "uptime"). You might find some runtime monitoring software to install to keep track from now on, but not sure that will serve any purpose, except appease curiosty. If you have a PC and it is on an UPS (as EVERY PC should be, IMO), the UPS monitoring software (if not using Windows' own) might be somewhat informative. Mine tells me I have used 131.98kWh and at $.12 per kWh has cost me $13.20 to run over the last 30 days, generated 160lbs of CO₂, take 64.9 trees to absorb that CO₂, run a light bulb for 274 days, and equals the came CO₂ as driving a car 168.0 miles. Again, informative but is it useful information for me? Not really.

Also, some RAID and SMART monitoring tool may give some information on how long drives have been spinning. And programs like Speedfan can provide extensive SMART information.

That said, I own a Toshiba, A505-6009 and I have never heard of any expected lifespan being expressed in hours. In fact, I have never heard of that for any computer. It really just makes no sense to express them that way. Do you remember who said that or where you read it? Got a link?

That equates to 5.7 years, BTW, way more than any computer warranty that I am aware of too.

Oh, and running CCleaner on a daily basis is probably overkill. But also, it should be noted that running any good cleaner slows down performance - at first. Why? Because the cleaner deletes all the temporary files your programs created for the purpose of speeding up operations. These include all your good cookies (as most are), prefetch and superfetch settings, and other temp files. It takes a couple "user sessions" for Windows to learn "you" again, and your computing habits - things Windows uses to set those fetch settings, for example to make your computing day go faster.

Also, many files like index.dat files cannot be deleted while Windows is running. So programs like CCleaner (my favorite, btw) will tag those files for deletion early during the next boot cycle (before Windows opens them). This can significantly increase the boot time the first time the system is booted after running CCleaner.

So regularly running CCleaner is a good thing, but every day is not needed. I run it every couple weeks at most.

Also, running Defragger on a daily is way WAY overkill. I MIGHT defrag my drives once every 6 months. If you need to defrag more often, you need to buy a bigger hard drive to ensure you have lots of free space. And for certain, ALWAYS run CCleaner BEFORE defragging. It is counter-productive to defrag with potentially 1000s of tiny temporary files on your drive.

Also, defragging should ALWAYS be done in Safe Mode, not Normal Mode. When Windows is running in Normal mode, there will be MANY open, and therefore unmovable files scattered over the drive(s) that result in inefficient defragging!

The best case scenario when running a defragger every day subjects the drives to unnecessary wear and tear, decreasing the lifespan of the drives needlessly. Something to ponder.

Thanks for the quick response and very informative response !