Downloading

[chiangrai]

I just got my first computer and discovered torrent downloading.

I left it on day and night continuasly downloading.

Eventually we got a power cut,the battery ran out and i lost everything on disc C.

It's a laptop and the Thai guy who helps me says I shouldn't have had a laptop on for that long anyway because it will overheat.

Does anywone know what the story is.All the things I like aren't popular so there slow to download.

Some big filles take 2 weeks.

I live in a cool part of Thailand(north and high in the mountains)and have the laptop on a laptop fan.

Can i leave it on 24/7 will it burn out and what if there is a power cut,the battery runs flat and it doesn't getto turn itself off properly.

I would really apreachiate some advise.

Thanks in advance

[CMSteve]

I leave my laptop on 24hrs a day. It's almost 4 yrs old now without any problems. I've been using a laptop fan for about a year now as it is getting a bit older.

There is no reason for you to lose that much info. Even if the power runs out, and battery runs dry, the majority of the info you've downloaded should still be on your system. The only pieces you may lose are the very very small amounts in memory that have not been written to the disk.

Not much to do about files with few seeders. Maybe you can search for the same content again and hopefully find another torrent with the same file and better seed.

[selftaopath]

I too have a laptop which is on 24x7. I also have it seated on a fan. Sometimes my pc room gets so hot I put a standing fan on too - even if I'm not there :-) I agree with CMSteve, but I don't agree with the Thai guy a/b turning it off etc.

And speed of torrent downloads very much vary according to the number of seeds provided your internet service is adequate. Doing anything with an air-card is almost impossible.

[RKASA]

I have no problem leaving the laptop on 24/7 it is my mail center and I download with it because it is on all the time. Just keep the fan port clean and I place a small block under the back edge to rise it off the table a bit makes the air flow. If your downloading and poping mail now and then it should not get hot even on a hot day it is not that much load at all. If it is over heating during torrents check the CPU load - some java based torrent programs can run wild and max it out. Try another version of the p2p or torrent lots to choose from.

[beano2274]

Mine is on 24/7 with a fan. Why did C drive lose everything? That is the question.

[Wavefloater]

I've always though that a laptop wasn't practical for bit torrents due to the fact that people would often take it with them when they go somewhere (why else would anybody buy one unless they need the main feature of portability.) Of course, that means that your downloads are being interrupted fairly often. But the previous posts seem to contradict my idea of laptops and bit torrents, so obviously many people are using them this way. Even though, you might want to make a small investment in a cheap desktop system if you'll be doing a lot of torrents.

As for speed, there are too many variables that are out of our control to predict what speeds we'll get. The only places I get almost constantly high speeds are with private trackers. These are sites where you must register and maintain a good share ratio - at least 1 to 1. (They'd also appreciate a donation occasionally, but it's not necessary.) I have a couple of very reliable private tracker sites for TV shows and sports. The TV torrent site I use usually allows me to download a 30-minute TV show (which is actually 22 minutes due to all the commercials being removed) in about 15 minutes (at 2.5 Mb/s). BTW -- that's a pretty slow speed these days but TOT has never got around to upgrading the lines where I live.

Utorrent seems to be the most popular (and probably the best) bit torrent client software available, and there's lots of support and forum discussions available online to help you configure it to get the most speed.

Keep persevering! It's worth it. UBC (or I think its something like TrueVision now) has never appealed to me as it's definitely overpriced for what you get, and the programming they offer doesn't appeal to me. On the other hand, using bit torrents offers me. in essence, the best and cheapest TV provider I've ever had.

[WhizBang]

 I don't like to leave my laptop on 24/7, but I do sometimes.  As many have said, use a laptop fan cooler to reduce the heat load on the laptop.

The Thai guys answer is typical of Thai's when they don't know what's wrong.  I even had a True service guy tell me I should not leave my DSL router on 24/7!!!

It really gets interesting when you know more than the service guy and he starts feeding you utter BS to justify his position.  I encounter it all the time.  Thai's will simply not say that they do not know.

It's like when you go into a store and ask for something specific.  I often get the startled deer in the headlight look for a few seconds, before I get the standard 'No Have' reply.  TIT

[sulasno]

my laptop was on 24/7 for almost 6 years except when it had to be rebooted for updates;

I went away for 3 days and shut it down; when I return it refuse to power up LOL

[chiangrai]

Wow,great feedback,so fast.

O.k. so don't believe the Thai guy(god bless him)

I don't have to turn off the laptop every 4 hours and let it cool down.

And the powercut was not what caused me to loose everything on disk C.

Maybe it was a virus,I have to turn off my firewall when I'm downloading from Bitcomet.

Most farangs recomend bitorrent but the non english speaking thai guy is the one teaching me computers and he only knows Bitcommet.

I have signed up with them but does anywone know if there is anything else I can do to speed things up.I use the phone line to connect to the net.

Thanks to all who replied.

My only contact with the english speaking world on these matters.

[Heng]

have both desktops and laptops on 24/7 here, but the room is always air conditioned. At the very least you should have cooling fans under them or at least pointed at them to draw heat away from the mainboards.

[MKAsok]

Use a hard drive monitor like CrystalDiskInfo. My laptop HD does okay with the aircon off (for a few hours, there's no way I would leave it on overnight in the kind of heat we have at the moment, but then I don't have any fan system), but my externals would definitely get fried fairly quickly.

You might want to consider a seedbox if you want to download/seed around the clock.

[chiangrai]

As i said,there is no real heat up here in the mountains

even Chaing Rai city is twice as hot as here.t's hot for a few hours a day a few months a year

but morning ,evening and night are cool.

I think I will chance leaving a laptop fan on underneath.

So what happens in a powercut after the battery has run out,it shuts off without shuting down.

How bad is that

[BEENTHEREDONETHAT]

losing power should not cause you any stress. When power returns and you bring it back up, it will continue where it left off. Losing power should not cause you to lose your downloads. I agree with the other utorrent is the way to go. You can find almost anything in movies or TV if you use the right web sites. They can't be mentioned on TV.

ehjoy

[somchai69]

My laptop is on 24 x 7,

on a cooling pad with fans when I am at home.

On the road I carry an old spectacle case and use that

as a prop, to increase the space underneath and the airflow.

The machine is 5 years old.

The time taken to download a torrent, can be slowed down if you

are seeding a lot as well.

It is sometimes best to throttle the speeds a little, via the tool

bar in your client.

[Digitalbanana]

caused me to loose everything on disk C.

Maybe it was a virus,I have to turn off my firewall when I'm downloading ....

does anywone know if there is anything else I can do to speed things up......

First off if you have lost everything on disk C (which is rather time consuming) and "maybe" have a virus and turn off your firewall and have just introduced yourself the the land of torrents I would get your PC secure with the latest operating system updates, install the latest antivirus/malware protection and get that firewall switched back on to allow access to torrent file sharing.