sleep vs. shut down

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Can it do any harm to the powerbook if I only put it to sleep while I take it with me? Because it's realy practical if I don't have to turn it on all the time.

During the day I just want to put it to sleep when I take it with me. I hope that's not bad for this notebook (for the Hard Drive for example).

I shut it down over night, should it be connected to power?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    vandewaalsvandewaals Posts: 450member
    I actually never shut down. I sleep my powerbook when I'm on the go, and when I plug it in overnight I have my Energy Saver prefs set so that the computer does not sleep, but the display does. Doesn't hurt it at all.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    I never turn of any of my macs... ever.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    you can let it sleep ALL the time... this will actually be better for the machine this way (unless you are storing it for a long period (longer then like 2 days)



    just close the book when you are not using it and all will be well...
  • Reply 4 of 9
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
  • Reply 5 of 9
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    i shut my powerbook off once or twice a month at most.



    it travels with me every day, never hurt it yet.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by future-ex-pc-user

    Can it do any harm to the powerbook if I only put it to sleep while I take it with me? Because it's realy practical if I don't have to turn it on all the time.



    No.



    Quote:



    During the day I just want to put it to sleep when I take it with me. I hope that's not bad for this notebook (for the Hard Drive for example).





    It is no bad as long as you respect the simple rule to not move your powerbook during the few seconds it takes to go to sleep. It is safe to move it when the white light in the latch button begins to glow.



    Quote:



    I shut it down over night, should it be connected to power?




    No. Even if it is sleeping this is not necessary. Note however that in sleep mode, a 12" powerbook draws about 1% of the stored battery energy per hour (at least for the first 10 or 12 hours for 640MB RAM). Thus, leaving it to sleep for 24h on completely charged battery, I would expect to see roughly 75% of energy remaining after waking up.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Heh. PB it's more like 2% an hour for me.



    This is why I wrote Apple about putting "Save and Shutdown..." back in Panther. This saves RAM contents to the drive and thus shuts the computer down so it uses NO battery, yet it wakes up much faster than starting up normally. If this feature makes Panther I will barf in my mouth and swallow it I will be so happy.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    1337_5l4xx0r1337_5l4xx0r Posts: 1,558member
    Quote:

    This is why I wrote Apple about putting "Save and Shutdown..." back in Panther. This saves RAM contents to the drive and thus shuts the computer down so it uses NO battery, yet it wakes up much faster than starting up normally



    In theory. However, if you have (like me) 1 GB ram, a) all that GB has to be written to a file on disc... w/ a 4200rpm HD... clunk clunk clunk...



    and b) it has to be read/loaded into ram again, when the laptop 'wakes' up.



    So **** it. Either put the computer to sleep (like me) or shut it down, and reboot.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Just because you have 1 gig of RAM does not mean it is all used, I think this feature would boost lots of people's laptop's batteries a LOT when they Save and Shutdown overnight. Although OS X pages out a lot and probably has a lot of VM too but maybe if it was smart it would differentiate between that and active RAM and Save the RAM and keep the VM RAM where it is on the page file or whatever.
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