• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

Vintage Hardware Health?

WakelessFoil

Well-known member
So I recently got my Macintosh plus working with my Asante EN/SC network adapter and I’ve noticed that it does not have a power switch. As these cards are pretty rare should I just leave it on when not in use? I have it plugged into a surge protector and it’s in a clean well ventilated environment so I am taking good care of it but I’m not sure if the intention of the designer was to have it run 24/7. Opinions?

image.jpg

 

Scott Baret

Well-known member
It could have been designed to have been always-on, and while I'm not familiar with that exact peripheral, I do have one without a power switch, a LaserWriter 4/600 PS, which was intentionally designed to be left on in low-power mode 24/7.

However, given the age of the printer, I decided it should only be on when it's in use to minimize wear and tear on the electronics, especially since it's getting harder to find printers for parts/people willing to ship these old printers. As such, I bought a run-of-the-mill power strip (the kind sold for $5 nearly anywhere--I think I got this one at Walgreens) and flip the switch as though it's a power switch whenever I want to print from it.

It's not the prettiest solution, but it's cheap, practical, and gets the job done.

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
I meant to post this at lunch, and pair it with a "the fastest way to get the right answer is to post a wrong one" joke, but since I missed that opportunity I'll just say the thing I was going to say:

This was almost certainly designed with intent to run 24/7. Network and conversion appliances like this tend to be. (Though in the '80s and '90s those individual power control centers were more common, so, like, take that for what you will.)

The problem is that it was designed in the '80s or '90s to run 24/7 for probably a service life of optimistically five to seven years.

I still think it'll be fine, but it can't hurt to give it a good once-over. Check the caps in the unit and the power supply and make sure the power supply is putting out the right voltage. If it's not, see if you can replace it with one that is, just to be on the safe side.

Re a laser printer specifically: would it not be less wear to let it idle on its own? Does it have a periodic warm-up that puts undue stress compared to if you let it cycle on its own? (Or: what wattage does a 4/600 or similar pull when idling? I would think that'd be a better reason to switch it than anything else, especially if you're printing less than, say, 1x/week. It's an HP laserjet under the hood, it'll probably outlive you if you maintain it reasonably well, and this was one that does match another laserjet model (unlike the LWS360) so there is a pool of spares.)

 
Top