How to disable the 'breathing' light on my PB?

[Bruce Lee, PhD]

Hi,

I keep my powerbook on my desk when I work. When it goes to sleep, the LED on the front of the case starts doing its 'breathing' thing. I find this distracting, since I'm usually working on a piece of paper right in front of the powerbook. Is there a way I can disable the light entirely, or at least stop it from oscillating when the machine goes to sleep? Currently I need to put something in front of the case or turn it around when it goes to sleep.

Thanks.

[d_p]

http://www.3m.com/intl/CA/english/centres/home_leisure/duct_tape/images/products/all_weather.jpg

[yellow]

There's no way to turn this off via software..

[Elan0204]

Good one d_p. Short of opening up your powerbook and disconnecting the light, there is no way to stop it from going on when you put you powerbook to sleep. Of course this method is pretty difficult, and will void your warranty, so I wouldn't recommend it.

[Koodauw]

I would say that the "Breathing light" is a very cool feature on the Apple. Why do you want to stop your computer from breathing?

I recemend learning to love the breathing light. I know I sure do. It really is a cool feature.

[yellow]

I would say that the "Breathing light" is a very cool feature on the Apple. Why do you want to stop your computer from breathing?

I recemend learning to love the breathing light. I know I sure do. It really is a cool feature.

In this I will side with The good Doctor. It's annoying when I'm trying to sleep. Flashing on and off, like some neon sign in a cheap hotel. As an insomniac, I must have crypt-like darkness to sleep. That and Ambien.

[monkeydo_jb]

I've always thought of it as a snoring light.

You know, your computer is sleeping after all, and it doesn't do it when it's awake.


Anywho, I enjoy that little touch as well.



-jeff

[Mord]

when i left my ibook on charge in my bedroom that light really pissed me off to so i did open it up and dissonnect the blighter i pluged it back in because now it really annoys me that it's not there as other people think my ibook is broken :mad:

[jsw]

http://www.3m.com/intl/CA/english/centres/home_leisure/duct_tape/images/products/all_weather.jpg
Really - in all seriousness - a color-matched piece of electrical tape will do the trick. It can be cut extremely small, will stick forever, and can be removed with no permanent residue.

[musicpyrite]

Yea, with my G4 iMac, when it goes to sleep, the light in the lower right part of the screen comes on, and in a pitch black room (my bed room) it puts out a ton of light. Really gets me mad sometimes.

[Kingsnapped]

Um.. can you turn it around, so the light isn't on your paper?
I sleep with it on top of my headboard, and if the light it bothering me, I turn it to face the wall.

[Jalexster]

I find it relaxing, it means that I know it's ok. I know that my love is ok. Wait, I mean I know that my iBook is ok.
I love you iBook...

Ahem, anyway, yeah some tape over the light would be your best bet.

[mikeyredk]

shove it under your bed thats what i do. that way you will piss of the boogy monster aswell :D

[yippy]

Do you have the lid open or closed? I found that the light is much brighter and more annoying (at night trying to sleep myself) with the lid closed, if you sleep the computer with the lic open the light breathes much less brightly.

[Bruce Lee, PhD]

http://www.3m.com/intl/CA/english/centres/home_leisure/duct_tape/images/products/all_weather.jpg

haha, this is the best response i've gotten to a post here yet. :-) i like it. and as others have pointed out, it seems to be the best (and perhaps the only) option. i can probably find some chrome tape either at an auto parts store or at a crafts shop. thanks to everyone for all the suggestions.

btw i just tried sleeping it with the case open and you might be right about it breathing a bit less brightly -- it's bright daytime light here so it's tough to tell.

[rueyeet]

I've always thought of it as a snoring light.That was my first impression too--I'd never seen anything snore visually before.
It's annoying when I'm trying to sleep. Flashing on and off, like some neon sign in a cheap hotel. As an insomniac, I must have crypt-like darkness to sleep. That and Ambien.Hear, hear!....well, except for the Ambien. Not yet, anyway.

I usually drape some sort of fabric over the Powerbook's entire back, since it doesn't need to vent while sleeping and the charging light is too bright for me as well. A t-shirt from the laundry pile, a towel, whatever's handy.

[Elan0204]

Wow, I never realized so many people find the sleep light annoying. I wonder if this is something Apple could address by software. Could something be added to System Preferences that could control the light? Perhaps people should send feedback on this to Apple and see what happens.

[MoparShaha]

At the end of each night, instead of throwing my shirt into the hamper, I toss it onto my PowerBook. Works quite well.

I used to use the tape method back when I had my Power Mac. That worked well too.

[aswitcher]

Clearly you need to get a sleeping mask for your powerbook with extra long elastic to go around it ;)

[zv470]

I wish I could turn off the green light around the powerplug on my powerbook, it's too bright, much brighter than the pulsating sleep light.

Whats worse though is my SonyEricsson T68i... it puts out a bright yellow flash every second, drives me crazy like Chinese Water Torture, I always have to hide it under some books next to my bed cos the flash is so powerful. I can see it with my eye lids closed, hehe :o

Why don't you get a hack to stop your laptop from going to sleep when you close it? Also set your screen to turn off after 5mins of inactivity. I run my PowerBook closed all the time with an external screen with no problems like warping and overheating.

[yellow]

I run my PowerBook closed all the time with an external screen with no problems like warping and overheating.

Just so you know, you're playing with fire there.. a lot of heat is leeched out of powerbooks via the keyboard. Does your fan run a lot? And by a lot I mean, more then once in a great while?

[zv470]

Just so you know, you're playing with fire there.. a lot of heat is leeched out of powerbooks via the keyboard. Does your fan run a lot? And by a lot I mean, more then once in a great while?
hmm, yeah most of the time, hmm. The fan's running now. I just opened my powerbook to see how hot the keyboard is and it's just warm, should I be worried? I've just finished dragging files from 23 CDs onto my hdd so it should be really hot right? I've got the 1GHz 12" Rev.B model.

[yellow]

I'm not saying you could hard boil an egg on your keyboard. The chassis gets much hotter. But allowing heat to leech out between the keys as a kind of convection action (heat rises blah blah) is part of the intended design. Running with the top down completely defeats that. PLUS your LCD get get warm, and with the PB running closed, it's like a little oven. Bad for both. So your fan gets more work then it was intended to, and eventually it burns out and you don't notice. Suddenly your PB goes into convulsions. Poor PB. I'm not saying that you can't do it once in a while, I just recommend not doing it all the time. You're risking the longevity of the PB. Plus, Apple isn't going to do any warranty work on it if they determine that you've been running it with the lid closed and burned up your CPU.

[jxyama]

hmm, yeah most of the time, hmm. The fan's running now. I just opened my powerbook to see how hot the keyboard is and it's just warm, should I be worried? I've just finished dragging files from 23 CDs onto my hdd so it should be really hot right? I've got the 1GHz 12" Rev.B model.

running PB closed via external monitor/kb/mouse is an apple supported feature. so don't worry about it.

[sebisworld]

You'll be able to run the PowerBook with the lid closed just fine, as Apple officially supports it (not for the iBook, though):

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86286

[yellow]

Well, I'll be.. great for the 12"! But this doesn't apply to 15 or 17 then?
Ah, it does in other kbase docs. Welp, I stand corrected!

[titaniumducky]

running PB closed via external monitor/kb/mouse is an apple supported feature. so don't worry about it.

True, but Apple doesn't expect you to do this ALL the time (instead of sleeping).

[_pb_boi]

Whats worse though is my SonyEricsson T68i... it puts out a bright yellow flash every second, drives me crazy like Chinese Water Torture, I always have to hide it under some books next to my bed cos the flash is so powerful. I can see it with my eye lids closed, hehe

I had that phone a wee while ago, and what's worse than the signal (yellow) light is the Bluetooth light. I kept it on the table beside my bed, and even with my eyes closed, it was like a big ol' strobe light. That got annoying really quickly.

The solution? Get a Z600 - it has no BT light :)

I'm not saying you could hard boil an egg on your keyboard.

True - in reality, it's a comparitively infitismal amount of heat that exits through the keyboard, probably due to the thermal insulation properties of the materials beneath it. There was a post on macrumors a while back about this, and someone quoted a percentage figure. It was tiny, whatever the actual value was.

andy.

[FriarCrazy]

I always thought that it would be cool to be able to have user control over all of the lights on the PB case (I.E. the apple, the power cord, the breathing/snoring pulsating thing). There have been times where I wanted to have my case closed but my apple still lit up for the sheer "coolness" factor of it. How sweet would it be to walk into a near pitch black room where the only thing you can see is a glowing white apple? Maybe that would hurt the screen or something (because the backlight would have to be on for it), but it would be awesome.

P.S. Commas inside or outside of parentheses? I can never remember.

[MacCoaster]

This is indeed a software problem. The Linux kernel has a feature where you could use the PowerBook's sleep LED to indicate harddrive activity. If this is controllable through the kernel, I'm pretty sure Apple could add a preference panel for this.

[Counterfit]

Is there a reason why you need it to sleep? Why not fold or run SETI during the night?

[Bruce Lee, PhD]

Is there a reason why you need it to sleep? Why not fold or run SETI during the night?

for me the problem is when i'm working at my desk and i've got the machine with me. i don't use it much when i'm working, but occasionally i need to google something, draw a graph, whatever. so i open it up, do what i need, and then put it back to sleep. it's nice and convenient to do this by opening/shutting the case (i don't need to press any buttons), and if i sleep it when i'm not using it, i can work an entire day without needing to plug it in. except for the light, the whole thing is super-convenient.

[Bruce Lee, PhD]

This is indeed a software problem. The Linux kernel has a feature where you could use the PowerBook's sleep LED to indicate harddrive activity. If this is controllable through the kernel, I'm pretty sure Apple could add a preference panel for this.

interesting... i would certainly feel manly if i tweaked some code and recompiled my kernel to solve this problem. :-) is that even possible when running mac os? i don't know enough about all the mach/darwin/mac os world.

[yellow]

I wonder what "/System/Library/Extensions/AppleLED.kext" has to do wtih it...

[phonic pol]

http://www.3m.com/intl/CA/english/centres/home_leisure/duct_tape/images/products/all_weather.jpg
HA HAHA HHHAAA HA!!!

[MacCoaster]

interesting... i would certainly feel manly if i tweaked some code and recompiled my kernel to solve this problem. :-) is that even possible when running mac os? i don't know enough about all the mach/darwin/mac os world.
Maybe if you took a look into the XNU (Mach) or Darwin's source code, it'd be there. I bet it's a kernel extension. Maybe even make one. I'd take a look at the Linux code first.

[yellow]

I wonder what "/System/Library/Extensions/AppleLED.kext" has to do wtih it...

Looks like a kernel extension to me.

[mouchoir]

In this I will side with The good Doctor. It's annoying when I'm trying to sleep. Flashing on and off, like some neon sign in a cheap hotel. As an insomniac, I must have crypt-like darkness to sleep. That and Ambien.

I just chuck a sock or whatever randon piece of clothing I have laying around over it.

Works like a dream and at no extra cost.

[Garry]

I remember one of the MacOS X updates apparently changing the "brightness" of the LED on the iBooks, so obviously this is something that can be changed through software. I just don't know how. :)

Maybe it's a firmware thing?

[yellow]

I find it odd that there's no notes/info/entries on "AppleLED.kext" in the Developer's documentation.

[rainman::|:|]

i'm surprised that so many people have issues with the lights. At my desk, between printers and drives and cell phones and power adapters, there are probably 15 different LEDs that blink or light up... looks like a damn christmas tree. I've rarely if ever noticed my iMac's pulsing light among these other ones... Of course, it helps that I have a home office separate from my bedroom.

As to the light being annoying at work... weird. PHd, man, you should scoff at such inconsequential things! hehe...

That said, i suppose it would be nice if someone came up with a 3rd party hack to change the lights... I just don't see Apple doing it, because they don't like to burden down preference panes with too many extra features. Plus they most likely want uniformity of the products that are being carried around the real world... The "breathing" light is starting to become symbolic of Apple, but it would seem more haphazardly if people could choose whether or not to see it.

Of course, if people are putting tape over the lights, it looks much more haphazard...

paul

[MacCoaster]

Maybe it's a firmware thing?
No, it's purely software as I demonstrated a point to prove this earlier in this thread with the Linux kernel.

[Bruce Lee, PhD]

I wonder what "/System/Library/Extensions/AppleLED.kext" has to do wtih it...

quick update: i played with this a little just now but had no luck. kextstat shows that it isn't normally loaded, at least on my system. i loaded it, slept, but it made no difference -- the powerbook continued to breath. in the Info.plist, there's a key named "Intensity" which seemed promising, but if I set the value to anything other than 5, the default, kextload would start to load it, then just stop without reporting any error, then kextstat would show it clearly wasn't loaded. anyway, thanks for the find. if anyone has better luck, please report back, though i admit that messing with unknown kernel extensions is probably a Bad Idea (i.e. don't yell if your machine stops booting). :-)

i'll try to find the linux source code, though since i have zero familiarity with the linux source tree it may take some time.

[zv470]

running PB closed via external monitor/kb/mouse is an apple supported feature. so don't worry about it.

Thanks, :)