What uptime do you expect from your Mac?

Question

What uptime do you expect from your Mac?

Hey everyone... I was having an issue with kernel panics, usually after about a week of uptime. My MBP (2010) would slow up and about an hour or two later, it'd panic and I'd have to restart. After troubleshooting the RAM and my external devices, I did a reinstall of Snow Leopard and I've been up and running for almost 11 days now with no noticeable slowdowns or issues.

Which brings me to my original question: How long do you expect your Mac to run almost flawlessly before you need to restart? Would you mind checking how long your macs have been up by going into Terminal and typing "uptime"? I'd love to get some perspective on this.

MacBook Pro 15" 2010, 2.4gHz, Mac OS X (10.6.6), 8 GB RAM

Posted on Mar 17, 2011 1:22 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 17, 2011 1:32 PM in response to Girl.luvzer.Mac

Uptime depends on the uses, as do kernel panics. My MacBook Pro's current uptime is 6 days and 16 hours, but before that it had been a few months. I only restarted to install an update or two. My OS X server has been up for 98 days, and likewise was only restarted to apply a few updates.

If you are having kernel panics, you should check your hardware for troubles using the included hardware diagnostics on the grey restore DVDs, and also check for any odd kernel extensions you may be using. Have you done any upgrades to your system (new RAM, HD, etc)?

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Answer 2

ajduguid

Level 3

650 points

Mar 17, 2011 2:08 PM in response to Girl.luvzer.Mac

I have a mac mini I use as a server (but not OS X Server). System updates that require a restart are pretty much the only reason the machine gets rebooted so my current uptime of only 45 days will be from the 10.6.6 update.

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Answer 3

Mar 17, 2011 2:19 PM in response to Topher Kessler

I ran the AHT on the disc, and also checked my upgraded RAM using the extended AHT and the memtest included with AppleJack and everything passed. I also eliminated my external hard drives as well (popped them onto my AirPort instead). I reinstalled at this point because I think it was probably an errant .kext as you said.

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Answer 4

Király

Level 6

10,025 points

Mar 17, 2011 2:37 PM in response to Girl.luvzer.Mac

I have been rebooting frequently lately because I have been switching between different OSes, so my uptime command won't help you.

Before I started using the other OS I would only reboot when asked to, after installing a system update. That could be two months or more. I never had any problem.

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Answer 5

NullUnit

Level 1

114 points

Mar 17, 2011 3:19 PM in response to Girl.luvzer.Mac

I expect any Mac I have to remain running until I, the user, tell it to restart or shut down. So far, they do. My MBP has been up for 68 days at the moment. My MacPro for 6 days (because I shut down to install an SSD last week).

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Answer 6

Feb 26, 2016 12:26 AM in response to Girl.luvzer.Mac

My MBP Retina's uptime so far is 29 days.

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