My laptop has recently decided to take a million years to boot up. I’m sure there’s a logical reason for it but I’m too tired to look.
Is it safe to just leave the laptop on and plugged in (of course) when not in use? I know there are two schools of thought for desktops but I’ve never seen a discussion about laptops.
Sure, you can even leave it on and unplugged. It’ll just go to sleep; you can leave it like that for a long time. That’s what they’re designed to do.
Leave it on a hard surface - table, desk etc so it can breath.
Vietnamese guy set his bed on fire leaving it on the bedclothes for too long.
Otherwise no problems, mine is almost always on.
At one point I was using a laptop as my main computer and kept it on nearly 24/7 for about 3 years. As the others have said, make sure it’s well ventilated.
They’re not necessarily configured to do so though. Also, you can configure it so that it goes to sleep after some time even if it’s plugged in. It’s all under Control Panel -> Power Options.
Also you can just put it into sleep mode (standby mode) manually; It should be one of the choices when you go to Start menu -> Turn Off Computer.
Thanks. The machine normally sits on a lap desk so it has proper ventilation. I will save countless minutes every year if I don’t turn it off. 
One other warning about leaving it in the permanent ON state - you will clog your heatsink with dust somewhat sooner than usual. I’d recommend shutting it down every so often and cleaning it out.
You might also consider hibernate or standby mode, which allow you to power down without having to boot to get going again.
It’s probably woth figuring out what is slowing down the boot though. Among other things it might be Malware trying to phone home.
I’ve ran Malwarebyres, Ad-Aware, and Spybot and all say I’m clean. Not to hijack my own thread but any other suggestions?
Usually if there is no malware and your computer runs fine everywhere but at start, what is happening is that you have too many things set up to start up automatically.
You have to look at what you have set to run immediately when you start and stop all but the most necessary. Then put them back one by one by one, to see.
My recommendation is just get rid of everything that runs at start but the minimum then see.
If it’s still slow, check that all your drivers are up to date and that none of your programs is in conflict with your virus protectors or malware protectors. One thing I found was my AVG somehow had the link checker turned on. That grinds my computer to a halt.
Disable things like auto check for updates etc… Then put things back one by one.
This, as I said, assumes the computer runs fine after start up.
Is the AVG link checker something that runs when the computer first boots? My XP laptop takes forever to boot up as well. I have all ready tried everything suggested. After I used msconfig to stop a lot of startup programs, and I made sure I had no malware, I got lazy and gave up.
My laptop never gets turned off unless I am packing it up to take with me someone. And then it usually ends up turned back on in the car or at least at the destination. Basically it is always on. The only time I’ve had dust issues was in Iraq. I would blow it out with Dust Off everyday and when I finally got home, I disassymbled the whole thing and cleaned every little part. Actually there was less dust left in it than I thought.
I’ve had this little guy since September 2006. No sign of him gettting any slower or breaking.