Poll: At the end of the day... Do you Sleep or Shutdown?

[MacRumors]

Vote: Poll: At the end of the day... Do you Sleep or Shutdown? (http://www.macpolls.com/?poll_id=141&ref=forums.macrumors.com)

[ivtrk]

.

[Xero]

ahh the breathing LED, so soothing... thats what puts ME to sleep.:)

[alset]

I don't see any point in shutting down, anymore. My Macs hardly consume any juice in sleep mode. Keeping the iBook in sleep without a connection to AC verifies this.

When I wake up and want to check something on my Mac, let's go! I don't want to wait around while it boots up.

Perhaps I would change my ways if Apple incorporated a system to maintain my environment each time I log in after shutting down.

Dan

[trebblekicked]

aside from power outages and repairs, i have never shut my quicksilver down. it once was up (this was running os9, mind you) for three and a half months in a row. since jaguar, there seems to be no reason to shut down.

[Hemingray]

Neither. When I go to bed, I merely turn off the monitor and leave my G4 awake to fold. Keeps my room warm... cheap alternative to heating. :D (and I've got one of the PCI G4s that doesn't even have deep sleep anyway...)

[timbloom]

Somebody please put an option there to say it always stays on. My mac is always doing somethine.. It is rare that it isnt. But if it isn't, it will just get turned off (maybe once every couple months.

[yamadataro]

I wonder how much power does sleep mode consumes?

I always keep my TiBook in the sleep mode bacause it's my main email machine. I shut down all of my desktop machines when I don't use them for a while. I am under the impression that desktop machines consumes a lot more power than the notebooks.

BTW, I'm more concerned about the cost to the planet earth than my own selfish convinience. A major part of the reason we need nuclear power plants and tons of oil is that we use soooo much power.

And of course we save some money by shutting computers down :D

I love Mac's sleep mode though. There's nothing like impressing my PC friends by opening my TiBook and the OS is running in no time!

[Dont Hurt Me]

i shut down, anyway you look at it the monitor is still on, the hard drive is still spinning and power is being consumed.

[robMaurizi]

a bit of both ;-)

depends on my mood, actually, and what I'm going to be doing the next day...

-Rob

[eyelikeart]

it depends on the machine...

my TiBook always gets shutdown...
my iMac gets put to sleep...

at work...though...we leave them on 24/7...just the displays sleep...hard drives stay up constantly... ;)

[Centris 650]

My iBook is only shutdown when I'm going on a trip and want to conserve the battery.

[Hawthorne]

I leave it on to run folding at home (http://folding.stanford.edu) , you insensitive clod! :D

[phillymjs]

I like the sleep mode, but the G4 is in my bedroom. The "breathing" light on my Quicksilver lights the whole room while at maximum brightness, and it's perceptible to me even with my eyes closed. It's kind of eerie trying to sleep with that going on.

Even covering the button doesn't take care of the problem, because the light diffuses through almost the entire front panel of the Quicksilver.

It came down to shutting down nightly, or constructing some sort of cover for the entire front of the computer. Since I'm not an uptime freak about my workstation (my servers are another story (http://www.spymac.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=16683&papass=&sort=1&thecat=998)), I chose to shut down. It has a much faster boot time in the morning than I do :D, so it's not like I'm sitting there impatiently waiting for it-- though that's the one thing about my old beige G3 that I miss, I had it set to power on by itself every morning at 6:30.

~Philly

[Mr. Anderson]

Neither on my G4 PowerMacs - they're on 25/7 crunching away at folding@home when I'm not working on the machine myself.

I usually close the lid to my TiPB and it goes to sleep when I carry it around.

I don't shut my systems down that often.

D

[medea]

I only put my monitor to sleep so my mac can fold continously, though every once in a while I will restart it or shut it down for a bit.

[FredAkbar]

I put my iMac to sleep. When I started folding, I wanted to leave it awake at night, with just the monitor "asleep," but my computer is right next to my bed, so it was hard to sleep with that noice (I think it was the hard drive...it goes away when I put the computer to sleep). Anyways, I never turn the computer off, and I only restart once or twice a week.

--Fred

[deejemon]

G4 tower in my office: stays on all the time. I've setup cron to start the command-line version of SETI@home after I go home, and to stop it just before I get in (except weekends when it keeps running). I connect into it remotely from time to time as well.

G4 laptop: sleep, not shutdown.

PowerMac 8600 at home: haven't turned on in 2 months. :)

[deejemon]

Originally posted by phillymjs
The "breathing" light on my Quicksilver lights the whole room while at maximum brightness, and it's perceptible to me even with my eyes closed.

Same experience with my TiBook's "breathing" light. I just toss a piece of clothing or my Newton 2100's leather case over it. :)

[jimjiminyjim]

Originally posted by Hawthorne
I leave it on to run folding at home (http://folding.stanford.edu) , you insensitive clod! :D

My sentiments exactly.

[shadowfax]

I definitely go for the sleep function on my TiBook; shutting down takes so long :rolleyes:

[Shadowfax:~] mithrandir% uptime
10:00AM up 9 days, 14:32, 2 users, load averages: 0.30, 0.29, 0.42

[howard]

and mine is also running folding all the time. only shut down for updates or restarts in os 9 or if it is generally just feeling slow, like if i had been running lots of big apps.

[Kodex]

Neither really, computer and montior stay on because i either watch Mpg TV shows on my comp or put itunes up, and go to sleep like that. I only turn my montior off when i go out of the house.

[Flickta]

PB sleeps well, while Umax doesn't. I shut it down. Fan is a bit loud, you know... And shutdown sound is nice :)

[pimentoLoaf]

I neither sleep nor shut-down, as I keep Folding@Home running due to the importance of the science.

[DreaminDirector]

I used to keep shutting down every night, but I just got the new 1.25ghz and the time is screwed up (damn, 10.2.4 update....). So I keep it on. Any other benefit to keeping it on other than Folding and Start-up time? I wouldn't suspect that there is more wear-and-tear on the machine because nothing is moving or spinning in sleep mode....


Now that I think about it, what the hell is sleep mode anyway? What stays on inside the computer during sleep so that it can have a quick wake up time?

And who's had the longest uptime?

[eric_n_dfw]

I leave my B&W with a G4/400 on 24/7 running dnetc

(Much of the time she's rendering FCP sequences or iDVD movies too)

The monitors go to sleep mode after 10 min's though.

I never let the drives sleep (2 IBM 75GB & 2 WD 18GB on a Sonnet ATA/100 PCI card) as I've heard that spinning up a drive multiple times a day is a lot harder on them than letting them run all of the time.)

[Eniregnat]

There are problems with binary thinking.

Why is there not a third option, YES. I do both. I put it to sleep most of the time, but I shut it down at night. I also shut it down every time I change batteries, as with the revB iBooks, hot swapping is not possible.

[CountZero]

My TiBook and my wife's iBook always sleep. We only shut them down when we travel by air. I've found that the x-ray machine at airport seems to confuse the PROM and our machines need rebooting even if they were in sleep mode.

I use my work PC for folding 24/7 instead :D

[Rower_CPU]

TiBook - sleep
PowerMac - log out (Folding@Home needs to keep running :))

[yzedf]

Originally posted by Hawthorne
I leave it on to run folding at home (http://folding.stanford.edu) , you insensitive clod! :D

Ahh... a fellow /. reader! ;)

--

Sleep for me. Close the iBook... open it when I need it. Too bad it takes 8sec or so for the Airport card to re-initialize :(

[eric_n_dfw]

Although some-what unrelated, I have a serious feature request for OS X (I'll have to email this one to Apple too).

My wife uses the machine during the day and I use it in the evenings - we have separate user acounts so that she doesn't have to see all the crap I keep in my dock, she can have her own desktop image and she likes to run at a lower resolution than me.

It would be nice if you could log out without shutting down the applications you are running - just susspend the user's display and, when you log back in, you could bring that display right back up.

I thought I ahd heard that Windows XP was going to provide this, do they?

-Eric

[SlowX]

i was told by me mum that if i sleeep instead of shutting down, i'll grow hair on the palms of my hand.

Well, that, and i'll go blind.

;)

[donshank]

Neither! I just leave it on and turn the monitor off.

[Freg3000]

Originally posted by phillymjs
I like the sleep mode, but the G4 is in my bedroom. The "breathing" light on my Quicksilver lights the whole room while at maximum brightness, and it's perceptible to me even with my eyes closed. It's kind of eerie trying to sleep with that going on.

I know what you mean. In my small room the light at its maximum brightness lights up the whole room. I think it's cool though. :)

[Mosco]

http://homepage.mac.com/themosco/.Pictures/Uptime.jpg

put it to sleep.

it would have been over 20 but i had to restart because of the stupid powermate drivers and now i have to install some more ram.

[D0ct0rteeth]

Like most everyone here she never sleeps and never shuts down.

Just have the display sleep after 20 minutes.

-Doc

[MacFan25]

I usually shut down my iMac every night.

[beez7777]

i put the computer to sleep and run SETi overnight. the glowing blue of my powermate and the breathing of the display, along with the glowing red of the pro mouse provides for quite a serene desktop. :)

[boobers]

Its good to keep a unix system running as it runs scheduled HD processes that organize and repair the system, making it run optimally.

boobers ( . Y . )

[Xero]

Originally posted by phillymjs
I like the sleep mode, but the G4 is in my bedroom. The "breathing" light on my Quicksilver lights the whole room while at maximum brightness, and it's perceptible to me even with my eyes closed. It's kind of eerie trying to sleep with that going on.


i think besides my Tibook being in my bedroom, ive got 2 optical mice [one has noticable light coming from it], lighted audio controls [if i play some tunes at night] LEDs from my PC [and noise! but sometimes this thing gets shut off cause its too noisy], PC keyboard LEDs, gamepad LEDs, router, printer, and cable modem LEDs, oh yeah and alarm clock LEDs... whew! i guess ive just gotten used to falling asleep to the little LED city in my room. :)

[edenwaith]

I forgot to shut down my iBook (original 12" ice iBook) for nearly a week (woke it up last night, it momentarily said it was still Monday), and the battery still had 54% of its power left. So it was draining about 0.27% of the battery per hour. None too shabby in my opinion.

However, I normally turn all of my machines off when I'm done with them. Including disconnecting my iBook from the ethernet, otherwise there is still some current going through. I like to save a little bit of energy, and until I get some alternative form of energy to power my house, it is most likely going to stay that way.

About the best reason I can think of keeping a machine up is if you are traveling, and starting up and shutting down the machine constantly probably wastes more power than just letting it sleep.

Perhaps I've been spoiled with my iBook, but do PC laptops have a difficult time waking up from a sleep/stand-by mode?

[Steradian]

I put my PowerMac to sleep and turn off my PowerBook, cause i fear thouse heat issues...er yeah. I would have the powermac's my family has join the folding team but the noise from thier fans would keeps my parents up all night, the 'puter's are next to the computer room.

[centauratlas]

I just let energy saver kick in for the monitor...that way all the servers keep running (e.g. web server, mail server, name server, SETI searching, or whatever etc).

You gotta think about more choices on these polls.... ;-)

[jaesk8er]

I leave my laptop on all the time

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by Hawthorne
I leave it on to run folding at home (http://folding.stanford.edu) , you insensitive clod! :D
Right on it.
Monitor shuts off CPU still kicks in. :p

BTW, why am I still seeing people runing SETI. If your on SETI work for a real goal, FOLDING@Home. :cool:

[Jeff Lotspeich]

Honestly, this is my first day with a Mac period. But, I plan on leaving my iBook on sleep. It gets its beauty rest, too. Not that it needs it.

Remember, and Apple a day keeps PC Doctors away.

[AllenPSU]

I normally leave the computer on and allow it to go to sleep on its own. There are times when it decides to stay awake all night but those times are rare. (I think it is an AOL process.)

I do restart the computer about every four or five days. (The computer seems to work better if it gets a restart every now and then.)

[Performfreak]

I go to sleep at the end of the day, and then I dream all night...

Oh wait, we're talking about my computer? It never sleeps, it searches for aliens!

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by Jeff Lotspeich
Honestly, this is my first day with a Mac period.

That's awesome, man! that first day is so memorable. i myself was up all night setting things up and exploring, running the battery to nill so i could calibrate it. the experience was so full of beauty, lol. wonderful!
welcome to macintosh.
have fun on the forums; they are highly addictive.

once again, sleeping rocks!
[Shadowfax:~] mithrandir% uptime
2:06AM up 10 days, 6:37, 2 users, load averages: 0.35, 0.31, 0.25

[Chimaera]

Originally posted by eric_n_dfw
Although some-what unrelated, I have a serious feature request for OS X (I'll have to email this one to Apple too).

My wife uses the machine during the day and I use it in the evenings - we have separate user acounts so that she doesn't have to see all the crap I keep in my dock, she can have her own desktop image and she likes to run at a lower resolution than me.

It would be nice if you could log out without shutting down the applications you are running - just susspend the user's display and, when you log back in, you could bring that display right back up.

I thought I ahd heard that Windows XP was going to provide this, do they?

-Eric

Yep, XP does that - it can be useful, sometimes - especially at work where the users don;t have admin access, theres a lot less messing about when I can log in at the same time and get things done :)

[mac15]

I keep mine running now, sleep it actually or I leave it on with ichat running or something.

[IndyGopher]

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
i shut down, anyway you look at it the monitor is still on, the hard drive is still spinning and power is being consumed.
Anyway one looks at it, that is, except the right way... Of the three things listed, only the last, Power being consumed, is accurate. And I will bet that the freezer in the average refrigerator being set lower than it needs to be uses twice the electricity per month that a sleeping Mac uses.

It is obviously entirely up to the individual whether they shut down their machine or not, and certainly every little bit helps in the conservation arena, but no one is going to be awarded any greenpeace laurels because they saved the difference between sleep and shutdown on a mac.

[wdlove]

My wife leaves her iBook in sleep mode.

On my Power Mac G4, I alternate. This year odd days I make backup copies of my important documents to a Zip 100. On the even days I put it into the sleep mode!

[iWantAMac]

I'll normally shut down every night.

[scem0]

I just leave it on, where I left off.

[Blancotsw]

I do a little bit of both it really depends on what I'm doing on my Cube. if I work on it alot I give it a break and shut it down if I'm reading articles on the net I'll put it to sleep. What I'm saying is that peolple should consider both options if they want there computers to last long.

[iWantAMac]

Are there any problems inherent in leaving your computer on for extended periods of time? I wouldn't think so, but you never know.
(This may have been mentioned in this thread already... I skimmed over all the replies and didn't see it, so hopefully not.)

Blancotsw said above that if he had been working on his computer alot, then he would "give it a break" and shut it down. Whereas, if he'd only been using his machine for lighter tasks such as surfing the net, he would put it to sleep.
I'm not disagreeing with that method, or logic, but I wouldn't have thought that even after giving your computer some really heavy tasks it would matter whether you shut it down, put it to sleep, or whatever. Does it?

[Flickta]

Originally posted by iWantAMac
Are there any problems inherent in leaving your computer on for extended periods of time?

I don't know any, but my PB 800 refuses to work after waking up from the sleep mode. It shows the desktop and the stuff, but when I click on the HD, it shows only a beach ball... for ages, and then it stucks there...
reboot.

[runningman]

sleep soothing light

[blogo]

Originally posted by Xero
ahh the breathing LED, so soothing... thats what puts ME to sleep.:)

I find it rather scary

[Xero]

Originally posted by Flickta
I don't know any, but my PB 800 refuses to work after waking up from the sleep mode. It shows the desktop and the stuff, but when I click on the HD, it shows only a beach ball... for ages, and then it stucks there...
reboot.

do you have any network drives connected when you put it to sleep? ive found that if i do, then when i wake it, it takes a while for everything to actually respond, but eventually everything does start responding for me.

[Flickta]

Originally posted by Xero
do you have any network drives connected when you put it to sleep? ive found that if i do, then when i wake it, it takes a while for everything to actually respond, but eventually everything does start responding for me.

Thank you, I find it you are right. It was rather silly of me not to think of it... Well, but sometimes the bold and daring beach ball comes up during the work and irrrrritates. May be they should change it to display the blue screen instead... argh.

[bousozoku]

I've never had much luck with sleep mode on Mac OS X. I've noticed with the B&W G3/400 that, when in sleep, the power switch doesn't go amber (deep sleep) but stays green. It's no wonder it wakes almost immediately.

Still, I do folding@home so I find the only good time to shut down is when the power is off.

[samsflagdrummer]

I only sleep, because I base a wireless network off of my iMac so I can use DSL anywhere in the house. Also shutting down really serves no purpose, unless your trying to conserve electricity, or are using a laptop.

[gerror]

I only shut of the monitor cause I always download @ night

[scem0]

Originally posted by Chimaera
Yep, XP does that - it can be useful, sometimes - especially at work where the users don;t have admin access, theres a lot less messing about when I can log in at the same time and get things done :)

I run windows XP, along with my sister, and this feature is
invaluable for us. I can have my crap open, let her send an email,
and then get back on right where I left off. Hopefully this will be
a feature in panther/10.3.

:::prays::: ;)

[Xero]

Originally posted by scem0
I run windows XP, along with my sister, and this feature is
invaluable for us. I can have my crap open, let her send an email,
and then get back on right where I left off. Hopefully this will be
a feature in panther/10.3.

:::prays::: ;)


scemo do you actually ever plan on owning a mac? just wondering.

[NavyIntel007]

I fold.

[GeneR]

I find that resurrection is a rather difficult feat unto itself, so...

Oh. You meant macs! I turn it off. :D ;)

[wdlove]

Originally posted by GeneR
I find that resurrection is a rather difficult feat unto itself, so...

Oh. You meant macs! I turn it off. :D ;)

Which OS are you using? Mac OS X from what I've heard and read is built to be left in the sleep. It does some routine maintenance work during the sleep mode!

[GeneR]

Originally posted by wdlove
Which OS are you using? Mac OS X from what I've heard and read is built to be left in the sleep. It does some routine maintenance work during the sleep mode!

Hey, wdlove! Thanks for the info. No, I really had no idea that maintenance happened with OSX. I am usually in X, but have never bothered to read a OSX book so I really didn't know.

I'm the sort of stupid idiot who usually buys something expensive and then is so excited he "forgets" to read the manual because his friggin' ego won't let him figure that he doesn't know jack (until much later!) and who figures that he can figure it out on his own.

Wow. What a humbling moment! :D I know I've only made my life more complicated because I don't read enough manuals. Sigh... :D ;)

[Doctor Q]

GeneR, maybe you should review last week's Read the Friendly Manual (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23989) thread.

[GeneR]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
GeneR, maybe you should review last week's Read the Friendly Manual (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23989) thread.

Thanks, Doctor Q. (Does Q stand for Quartermaster? heh. :D) I can't believe I didn't see that thread. It's a good one though. I like the

ID10T error. It's pretty funny. :D

[FelixDerKater]

Originally posted by pimentoLoaf
I neither sleep nor shut-down, as I keep Folding@Home running due to the importance of the science.

Same here. :)

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by FelixDerKater
Same here. :)

*cough*
As should all Macrumors posters
*cough*
:D

I don't sleep, I turn off my screen.

[rainman::|:|]

someone had asked about what Sleep mode really is... when the computer is off, all power inside dissapates, and the RAM blanks out. When it's asleep, just enough power trickles in to keep the RAM alive, thus leaving your OS and software right where you left them :)

it used to be a faulty kind of thing-- some macs were super-sensitive, others refused to sleep for various reasons. anymore it works very well, so it's the best option NEXT TO FOLDING :)

personally i leave folding running, turn off the display and put the HDs to sleep, since it's a fanless iMac there's no noise, it might as well be asleep... all the HD whirring would keep my hedgehogs awake all of the time otherwise...

pnw

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by paulwhannel
it used to be a faulty kind of thing-- some macs were super-sensitive, others refused to sleep for various reasons. anymore it works very well, so it's the best option NEXT TO FOLDING :)

personally i leave folding running, turn off the display and put the HDs to sleep, since it's a fanless iMac there's no noise, it might as well be asleep... all the HD whirring would keep my hedgehogs awake all of the time otherwise...

pnw

Do you noitice a preformance difference when the HD is spinning less? I mean it is small file but it is changing data all the time. If it doesn't slow it down I'll do it that way too. :D

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by GeneR
Hey, wdlove! Thanks for the info. No, I really had no idea that maintenance happened with OSX. I am usually in X, but have never bothered to read a OSX book so I really didn't know.

I'm the sort of stupid idiot who usually buys something expensive and then is so excited he "forgets" to read the manual because his friggin' ego won't let him figure that he doesn't know jack (until much later!) and who figures that he can figure it out on his own.

the manual that came with OS X (nver call it X, that's a linux thing... or were you referring to X11?) frankly sucked. you could, of course, get a bigger, ******-er manual (well come on, that isn't friendly, right?), but that's never fun.

anyways, for the record, OS X does no such thing during sleep. it sleeps. that is, it powers everything down but some basics like your RAM, so that, for the most part, nothing changes between when your lid closes (if you have a laptop) and when you open it up again. it is instant because it doesn't cache the RAM. it keeps it powered, which means it also doesn't have to reload it when you wake, so that's instant too.

if you sleep your computer at night, you need to perform the maintenance yourself. i just wrote a script that goes

sh /etc/daily
sh /etc/monthly
sh /etc/weekly

and run the script as super user whenever i feel like it (which is about once a day), but you can also grab mac janitor of version tracker and it will do the same thing with a pretty carbon/cocoa interface.

OS X was designed, i believe, for 100% uptime, or nearly that. no sleeping, or restarting. if you sleep your box a lot, you need to do the maintenance yourself. hopefully panther will come with a more GUI'ed way to do this from the system preferences, perhaps a chance for the user to automate it on his/her own time. we'll see.

[tazo]

shut down, my comp is in my room and its too loud otherwise

[firewire]

I just got the 17 inch Powerbook, and I live in Baldwin county, Alabama. With all the Lightning storms we have around here, I pull the plug from the wall every night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!