MBP Sleep v. Shutdown

Personally I'd shut it off when I'm not using it for a long time, but it should work fine either way.

The hard drive gets shut off either way, so it's life won't be affected regardless.

Kan-O-Z said:

Questions:
1. I know a small bit of power is still used even when the computer is 'sleeping'. Will this cause the MBP to stay warm? Will this decrease the life of the MBP?

2. Is it bad for the MBP to go to sleep and wake up several times a day? I was thinking if I could set it up so if it's idle for 30 min or more, it could go to sleep?

3. Please list other drawbacks to running the MBP like this.

Click to expand...

I do this. Except once i wake my MBP up from sleep in the morning, I leave it awake until I go to sleep at night. When I know I won't be using it for more than a day, I shut it off.

Answers:
1. In my experience, sleeping it produces the same heat as given off when asleep; i.e., none. I suppose a little heat is escaping seeing as how there is still power being used, but it's hardly noticeable.
I've heard people say that shutting down the computer and turning it on again all the time is worse for it than sleeping it because it wears out the parts more quickly. I don't know if that's a valid point but you shouldn't have any significant decrease in life either way. The computer should last years, regardless of whether you sleep it or shut it down.

2. I don't think it's bad. I don't see why you wouldn't leave it on all day if you're going to be using it throughout the day but it's not bad.

3. Having it on means you're using power. There's less of a chance of something going wrong if it's completely off than if it's sleeping.

pianoman said:

I do this. Except once i wake my MBP up from sleep in the morning, I leave it awake until I go to sleep at night. When I know I won't be using it for more than a day, I shut it off.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I'd do

I've heard people say that shutting down the computer and turning it on again all the time is worse for it than sleeping it because it wears out the parts more quickly.

Click to expand...

I don't know how that would be possible. Sleep shuts down all the parts that could potentially wear out faster, so it really should be the same either way.

If you do have it on all the time...run Folding @ Home on it!
http://folding.stanford.edu/

Wolfpup said:

I don't know how that would be possible. Sleep shuts down all the parts that could potentially wear out faster, so it really should be the same either way.

Click to expand...

Maybe. But there's definitely something that's not being shut completely off or there would be no difference between sleeping and shutting down. Like I said, I don't know how valid that claim is, but either way should be ok. I just think sleeping is easier than shutting down because you don't have to wait for your computer to start up and you can leave applications open.

Wolfpup said:

Yeah, that's what I'd do me either way.

If you do have it on all the time...run Folding @ Home on it!
http://folding.stanford.edu/

Click to expand...

what is that?

i tried f@h once on my mbp. within 5 min my comp was at 85c with fans at 6000rpm. i was afraid my comp's life would be heavily compromised over time, so I uninstalled it. Maybe on a desktop but a laptop is to much i think.

Kan-O-Z said:

Questions:
1. I know a small bit of power is still used even when the computer is 'sleeping'. Will this cause the MBP to stay warm? Will this decrease the life of the MBP?

2. Is it bad for the MBP to go to sleep and wake up several times a day? I was thinking if I could set it up so if it's idle for 30 min or more, it could go to sleep?

3. Please list other drawbacks to running the MBP like this.

Kan-O-Z

Click to expand...

1. No, mine is getting cold.
I've had several Apple laptops over the ten last years and I have never shut anyone of those down, unless I'm going on vacation, never been an issue for me.

2. I don't think so, mine goes to sleep severel times a day, never been an issue, unless i have been in Win XP which sometimes doesn't wake up properly.

3. No I can't.

pianoman said:

Maybe. But there's definitely something that's not being shut completely off or there would be no difference between sleeping and shutting down. Like I said, I don't know how valid that claim is, but either way should be ok. I just think sleeping is easier than shutting down because you don't have to wait for your computer to start up and you can leave applications open.

Click to expand...

It can't be valid, because like I said, the only parts that would care much about being turned on and off are shut off when the system goes to sleep.

Freyqq said:

i tried f@h once on my mbp. within 5 min my comp was at 85c with fans at 6000rpm. i was afraid my comp's life would be heavily compromised over time, so I uninstalled it. Maybe on a desktop but a laptop is to much i think.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. That rules out me getting a MBP, as there's no way I'm buying a system that can't run it whenever the system is on. (I actually asked in another thread a while back but didn't really get any responses.)

techlover828 said:

what is that?

Click to expand...

Folding @ Home is a distributed computing project to understand some biological processes involved with diseases like cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, etc. There have already been many scientific papers published based on work done by F@H.

MacRumors has a team (I'm on the Macaddict team.)

1) The MBP will not put off any significant amount of heat more than when it's off. The RAM doesn't get hot, it's the processor and the things on the logic board. I doubt it would affect the MBP at all in any negative manner.

2) I personally don't turn my MBP off (I have an up time of 4 days, longer if I didn't have to restart). I've read that it can also be good to just leave it on so that the unix part of OS X can perform it's tasks such as defragmenting the HD, clearing logs, and just generally cleaning stuff up.

3) No drawbacks I can think of.

iToaster said:

2) I personally don't turn my MBP off (I have an up time of 4 days, longer if I didn't have to restart). I've read that it can also be good to just leave it on so that the unix part of OS X can perform it's tasks such as defragmenting the HD, clearing logs, and just generally cleaning stuff up.

Click to expand...

You mean you leave it on all the time? Or let it go to sleep? If it's asleep, it won't run any of the Unix stuff (or anything else).

Kan-O-Z said:

Is it easy to sleep and wake up the MBP from a BT Keyboard? If so, this would be real nice. I have heard you have to set some option to do this.

Click to expand...

it is very easy to do this. see this Apple support article.