Leaving computer on

[BIG RED]

The other day I tried to down load 5 movies while I slept. I knew it would take awhile and that it slows everything down if I do work while doing it. Well, computer shut down while I was asleep.
I went to controls > power options and checked never on settings, on both monitor & hard drives, for desk top/home, and tried that. Woke this a.m. and it stopped again. It was on, but stopped downloading sometime during the night?
Have one more night to try and get this done, going to burn a bunch for a friends grandchildren this weekend.

What should I do to be able to download throughtout the night with no movement on computer, while I get my precious sleep?

WXP / FF

[JustRalph]

Some ISP's have a timer on their servers/routers that won't allow you to suck down the bandwidth for multiple hours. Try doing them one at a time. Also, I don't know who you are downloading from, but if you are getting all five off of the same server, they could be shutting you down

[njcurveball]

You will have to consider that you are letting your hard drive spin all night as well.

We have many hard drives fail here at work due to people leaving them on all the time.

Probably a smart thing to make some back-ups

[Gibbon]

http://ask-leo.com/should_i_turn_my_computer_off_at_night.html



The hard drive question is a complex one. How often do you open up your box {Desktop and Laptop} and clean the accumulation of dust inside? Dust retains heat and humidity both are HD killers. I do all my machines every 6 months. NO EXEPTION.

Do you have a motherboard and HD and CPU temperature monitors. If not you should. On any system critical machine knowing how hot things get inside is essential to longevity of system components.

I'm assuming you HD's are those commercially bought at you local retail giant. Have you considered industrial strength hard drives? http://www.computergiants.com/
Of course they are considerably more expensive but worth every penny.

Are you aware of Google's massive HD study? This study rewrote the book on everything we thought we knew on hard drives. here (http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/18/massive-google-hard-drive-survey-turns-up-very-interesting-thing/), here (http://www.webmasterworld.com/goog/3257036.htm) and here (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131168-page,1/article.html).
...Both studies were based on observations of approximately 100,000 drives, with Google looking at its own farm of consumer-grade disks and Carnegie Mellon examining both consumer-grade drives and the ostensibly more reliable enterprise variety...

...desktop PCs typically operate at temperatures well over the maximum of 125 degrees reported in the Google study...

[KYJACK]

Big Red

Since you're under the gun time-wise for this weekend, I'll throw out my hints all at once and hope somethings sticks! <g>

I'm assuming you've got a Windows 2000/XP class operating system and you've got broadband (Cable or DSL) Internet Access. Dial-up access is of course slower, and usually has some form of 'inactivity detection' and shutdown timeout/logoff. If this is the case, you're either have to manually be there, i.e. using the computer for other stuff, or find some sort of utility that defeats the timeout. Try a Google search if this is the case.

My Internet Computer usually runs 24/7, and at times I've done overnight downloads. Here are some system settings that work for me:

Control Panel
Power Options
Power Schemes Tab
Power Schemes: ALLWAYS ON
Turn off Monitor: NEVER
Turn off hard disks: AFTER 1 HOUR
System Standby: NEVER
Hibernate Tab
Don't Enable! Make sure unchecked!
Display
Screen Saver Tab
Screen Saver: NONE
Administrator Tools
Event Viewer
(Check these logs for anything usual that might have happened over the night)
Application
System
Security (May be blank if no audits were enabled)
You can also perform a search of your "C" drive for all files for the last 2 days (to get a listing of new files created during the last night). By looking at the list, you might also get a clue of what else was running that might have interfered with the download. Also look for recent ".log" files that might be present.

During the overnight, various system stuff could be happening, which might affect the download. For example, the Automatic Update feature of Microsoft could download a critical update which could force an automatic reboot, without even asking you for permission.

Got enough free memory available for the download? Also you need additional memory equivalent to about the size of your largest movie. When WIndows downloads a file, it downloads first to a temporary file and when completed, it then copies it to your requested location. During the copy process, twice as much free memory is required (assuming you're copying to the "C" drive). After the copy has completed, the temporary download is deleted, freeing up memory.

The website that you're trying to download from just may be having problems. Some servers may go down sometime during the night to do system stuff, and housekeeping maintenance.

Also, have you actually tried to use your computer while you're downloading? Usually the download speed is so slow compared to the processing speed of most PCs, that other stuff can be done while downloading. i.e. try downloading while your're still awake.

You mention that you're trying to download 5 movies during the night. Did you get the first one OK and not the others? Are you using some sort of automatic download manager to get more than one file at a time? (or 'FTP" copy?). If, so maybe it's setup is not correct. My download experience is only in manually downloading a single file at a time. (I set the alarm clock to wake up for the other files!)

As mention in the above posts, your system could be overheating, RAM memory flaky, or other hardware problems.

Hope one of these "Idea Darts" sticks!

Good luck!

Jack

BTW: it's always good to have a firewall running expecially when running for an extended timeperiod.

[Hammerhead]

Hey BR could have been a lot of shaking and jiggilin going on pulling the plug out of the wall socket :lol
Whoops didn't see the grandkid thing, whom I am sure it was for as a overnight thing. :sleeping:

[JustRalph]

The other day I tried to down load 5 movies while I slept. I knew it would take awhile and that it slows everything down if I do work while doing it. Well, computer shut down while I was asleep.
I went to controls > power options and checked never on settings, on both monitor & hard drives, for desk top/home, and tried that. Woke this a.m. and it stopped again. It was on, but stopped downloading sometime during the night?
Have one more night to try and get this done, going to burn a bunch for a friends grandchildren this weekend.

What should I do to be able to download throughtout the night with no movement on computer, while I get my precious sleep?

WXP / FF

have you considered a power failure?

[Hammerhead]

Also staying out of Clancy's tell all hours might help :lol:

[BIG RED]

Thanks guys. I stayed up and did shite while they DLoaded, 11 movies now!!! It's 5:30 am, time for ....

Great response on what I thought was a simple question.

Curve: It's a machine, why would the HD fail if it is being used a lot?

Ralph: Did 6 the other day, the ISP/server didn't shut me down, and no failure. Power is fine

Gibbon: Brand new computer, but do open and clean like yourself, every 3 months, real dust problem here ;) As far as I know, no temp problems here, always cool, even after 24hrs. Nice system I guess.

KyJack: You hit the nail on the head. Will try tonight, and see if they will flow continiously to my drive.

Hammer: You can type? :lol: