Don't let your display sleep too soon and avoid turning it off and on all the time. The backlighting will live longer (i.e. keep its brightness longer) when not turned off and on every few minutes. So I guess at least 15 mins is better. (And don't think that a screen saver will actually "save" the screen from anything. The black and white CRT period is long over...)
Setting the computer to sleep automatically is a personal preference. Do it to save energy and do something good for the environment, but also here, set it to sleep after 30 mins or better after 1 hour. My experience is that I need my computers most when I have just turned them off one minute ago... But you could also make it sleep manually, which is what I do every night and whenever I leave the house.
Hard disk sleep: same thing as backlighting. Although hard drives are built to be turned on and off in a notebook all the time, in my opinion, constant operation at - more important - constant temperature, proper cooling provided, is better than turning it off (which OS X never does for the startup disk anyway, particularly when you have any applications open). So I would turn the "putting the hard disk to sleep" setting off when you use it at home (and not on battery).
I have just recently set our iMac G5 never to sleep except manually, with display sleep after 15min. The reason - the HD died after 11 months... Previously it was set up much like my iBook - to sleep after 15min. Now, as someone who has worked with computers a long time, I agree with gwoodpecker, and was always sceptical that continually stop-starting the HD is good for it. I have a series 1 TiVo - that has been running 24/7 for 4 years.
Our experience with our iMac may just be bad luck of course, but I'm not taking any chances, despite the environmental costs. Plus, leaving the iMac on overnight allows OSX to do some housekeeping it might not otherwise get to do.
I have just recently set our iMac G5 never to sleep except manually, with display sleep after 15min. The reason - the HD died after 11 months... Previously it was set up much like my iBook - to sleep after 15min. Now, as someone who has worked with computers a long time, I agree with gwoodpecker, and was always sceptical that continually stop-starting the HD is good for it. I have a series 1 TiVo - that has been running 24/7 for 4 years.
Our experience with our iMac may just be bad luck of course, but I'm not taking any chances, despite the environmental costs. Plus, leaving the iMac on overnight allows OSX to do some housekeeping it might not otherwise get to do.
Except it doesn't do the maintenance tasks when it's a sleep. I think the system is supposed to do any scheduled tasks when it's next awake but you can easily miss weekly and monthly taks. D/L something like Macjanitor or Onyx (they're free) to do them. But yeah, unless you won't be using it for a few days or more, it's generally recommended to put it sleep rather than shut down (eg. overnight).
Except it doesn't do the maintenance tasks when it's a sleep. I think the system is supposed to do any scheduled tasks when it's next awake but you can easily miss weekly and monthly taks. D/L something like Macjanitor or Onyx (they're free) to do them. But yeah, unless you won't be using it for a few days or more, it's generally recommended to put it sleep rather than shut down (eg. overnight).
Leaving a computer on 24/7 when it's not doing anything is just plain silly. The maintenance tasks (that you can start manually every month or so) are absolutely no reason to leave on your computer all night. That's just a huge waste of energy. There is NO real harm in missing them, not even if you don't do it for a year or so!
I only sleep my computer if I have work open I don't want to have to re-open in the morning (lazy I know). I have efficient settings on my laptop but my screen does dim after a few minutes of no-use. I leave my computer on once a week without sleep in order to automatically back up.
And what Apple recommends. I didn't say the computer was doing nothing.
Read before you reply.
Sure. I was solely responding to your post, to your response that had no connection whatsoever to zapod's and all the other people's posts, and I wrote something that was soo way out of context from the thread's content that I should get more reading skills to read your responses... What happened to people and their ability to read in context?!?
Back to the topic: Some people in this thread seem to be obsessed with the importance of those magical maintenance tasks and a lot of people's main argument to leaving on a computer 24/7 is that it otherwise can't run those maintenance tasks, and therefore their computer would go crazy over time. That is plain silly because the maintenance tasks have no effect whatsoever on a average person's Mac in day-to-day use. Sure, some cache files could grow a bit over time, but for the rest of the operating system's performance on John or Jane Doe's well-functioning computer, it has - I must repeat myself here - no practical relevance at all. It may be recommended to run them manually from time to time, but running them is not mandatory.
The result of that all: millions of computers all over the world are never switched off or put to sleep, idling all night and doing absolutely nothing (except at 2am or so when the cron jobs are run). What a waste of energy! If you were downloading something over night, that's a complete different story: your computer is then actually doing some work. So the main argument by a lot of people to never switch off their computer is plain wrong. That's what I meant in context of all the other posts, including the one you wrote.
But you seem to know better than me what Apple recommends, so now I would like to know where exactly Apple publicly states that it is recommended to leave a computer on all day, all week, all year. I'm really curious because recommending this would directly contradict their effort to build computers that use and waste as little energy as possible by using the most power efficient processors and technologies (not even the Mac Pro with its 750W+ power supply is an exception here) and it also directly contradicts their effort to make people know that there are ways to save energy by using the sleep feature!
Not even http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107388 is a real argument for leaving the computer on all night because it only says "If the tasks do not run, it is possible that certain log files (such as system.log) may become very large.".
Sure. I was solely responding to your post, to your response that had no connection whatsoever to zapod's and all the other people's posts, and I wrote something that was soo way out of context from the thread's content that I should get more reading skills to read your responses... What happened to people and their ability to read in context?!?
Get a grip on yourself and stop being a fucking wanker.
I just looked back at your reply. You got so worked up, you wrote 5 paras and were so tweaked by my response you still couldn't help but refer to it in the fourth paragraph.
That is so sad and pathetic. My advice is get yourself a life and get over it.
Get a grip on yourself and stop being a fucking wanker.
I just looked back at your reply. You got so worked up, you wrote 5 paras and were so tweaked by my response you still couldn't help but refer to it in the fourth paragraph.
That is so sad and pathetic. My advice is get yourself a life and get over it.
lol - emotion in posts is always good! I'm quite shocked though.
Comments
Setting the computer to sleep automatically is a personal preference. Do it to save energy and do something good for the environment, but also here, set it to sleep after 30 mins or better after 1 hour. My experience is that I need my computers most when I have just turned them off one minute ago... But you could also make it sleep manually, which is what I do every night and whenever I leave the house.
Hard disk sleep: same thing as backlighting. Although hard drives are built to be turned on and off in a notebook all the time, in my opinion, constant operation at - more important - constant temperature, proper cooling provided, is better than turning it off (which OS X never does for the startup disk anyway, particularly when you have any applications open). So I would turn the "putting the hard disk to sleep" setting off when you use it at home (and not on battery).
Our experience with our iMac may just be bad luck of course, but I'm not taking any chances, despite the environmental costs. Plus, leaving the iMac on overnight allows OSX to do some housekeeping it might not otherwise get to do.
I have just recently set our iMac G5 never to sleep except manually, with display sleep after 15min. The reason - the HD died after 11 months... Previously it was set up much like my iBook - to sleep after 15min. Now, as someone who has worked with computers a long time, I agree with gwoodpecker, and was always sceptical that continually stop-starting the HD is good for it. I have a series 1 TiVo - that has been running 24/7 for 4 years.
Our experience with our iMac may just be bad luck of course, but I'm not taking any chances, despite the environmental costs. Plus, leaving the iMac on overnight allows OSX to do some housekeeping it might not otherwise get to do.
Except it doesn't do the maintenance tasks when it's a sleep. I think the system is supposed to do any scheduled tasks when it's next awake but you can easily miss weekly and monthly taks. D/L something like Macjanitor or Onyx (they're free) to do them. But yeah, unless you won't be using it for a few days or more, it's generally recommended to put it sleep rather than shut down (eg. overnight).
Except it doesn't do the maintenance tasks when it's a sleep. I think the system is supposed to do any scheduled tasks when it's next awake but you can easily miss weekly and monthly taks. D/L something like Macjanitor or Onyx (they're free) to do them. But yeah, unless you won't be using it for a few days or more, it's generally recommended to put it sleep rather than shut down (eg. overnight).
Leaving a computer on 24/7 when it's not doing anything is just plain silly. The maintenance tasks (that you can start manually every month or so) are absolutely no reason to leave on your computer all night. That's just a huge waste of energy. There is NO real harm in missing them, not even if you don't do it for a year or so!
Leaving a computer on 24/7 when it's not doing anything is just plain silly.
And what Apple recommends. I didn't say the computer was doing nothing.
The maintenance tasks (that you can start manually every month or so) are absolutely no reason to leave on your computer all night.!
Read before you reply.
And what Apple recommends. I didn't say the computer was doing nothing.
Read before you reply.
Sure. I was solely responding to your post, to your response that had no connection whatsoever to zapod's and all the other people's posts, and I wrote something that was soo way out of context from the thread's content that I should get more reading skills to read your responses... What happened to people and their ability to read in context?!?
Back to the topic: Some people in this thread seem to be obsessed with the importance of those magical maintenance tasks and a lot of people's main argument to leaving on a computer 24/7 is that it otherwise can't run those maintenance tasks, and therefore their computer would go crazy over time. That is plain silly because the maintenance tasks have no effect whatsoever on a average person's Mac in day-to-day use. Sure, some cache files could grow a bit over time, but for the rest of the operating system's performance on John or Jane Doe's well-functioning computer, it has - I must repeat myself here - no practical relevance at all. It may be recommended to run them manually from time to time, but running them is not mandatory.
The result of that all: millions of computers all over the world are never switched off or put to sleep, idling all night and doing absolutely nothing (except at 2am or so when the cron jobs are run). What a waste of energy! If you were downloading something over night, that's a complete different story: your computer is then actually doing some work. So the main argument by a lot of people to never switch off their computer is plain wrong. That's what I meant in context of all the other posts, including the one you wrote.
But you seem to know better than me what Apple recommends, so now I would like to know where exactly Apple publicly states that it is recommended to leave a computer on all day, all week, all year. I'm really curious because recommending this would directly contradict their effort to build computers that use and waste as little energy as possible by using the most power efficient processors and technologies (not even the Mac Pro with its 750W+ power supply is an exception here) and it also directly contradicts their effort to make people know that there are ways to save energy by using the sleep feature!
Not even http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107388 is a real argument for leaving the computer on all night because it only says "If the tasks do not run, it is possible that certain log files (such as system.log) may become very large.".
So if you would please enlighten all of us...
Sure. I was solely responding to your post, to your response that had no connection whatsoever to zapod's and all the other people's posts, and I wrote something that was soo way out of context from the thread's content that I should get more reading skills to read your responses... What happened to people and their ability to read in context?!?
Get a grip on yourself and stop being a fucking wanker.
I just looked back at your reply. You got so worked up, you wrote 5 paras and were so tweaked by my response you still couldn't help but refer to it in the fourth paragraph.
That is so sad and pathetic. My advice is get yourself a life and get over it.
Get a grip on yourself and stop being a fucking wanker.
I just looked back at your reply. You got so worked up, you wrote 5 paras and were so tweaked by my response you still couldn't help but refer to it in the fourth paragraph.
That is so sad and pathetic. My advice is get yourself a life and get over it.
lol - emotion in posts is always good! I'm quite shocked though.