Sleep. Occasional restart. Rarely shut it down now. Used to when I first migrated from Windows/PC.
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Sleep or shut down
- Thread starter krazykleo
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I agree completely. When I switched to a MacBook Air late 2011, I was astounded on how efficient its sleep functionality. I would only lose 2 % of charge overnight and that efficiency is untouchable by any Windows laptops on the wild. Thus I only restart the machine when there's an update. Actually, that 2% charge loss overnight is even better than many windows laptops that are completely turned off where they lose 5% - 10% charge! I love the way you can just open the lid and start working just like a phone!
Wow and here I was thinking that I had asked such a dumb question, lol!!
Interesting information nonetheless
keep it comin' guys!!!
Interesting information nonetheless
keep it comin' guys!!!So that's you.
I use my laptop like my phone. I may use it the next minute, I may not. Something pop into my head I want to check it out right away before I forget, so obviously I want instant-on, as instant as possible. My mind wonders a lot, so if I have to wait it to boot, I may forget what I had intended to open up the laptop for. I am not kidding.
So I am not going to give u any dissertation how this is better for the battery blah - blah, NO. It's solely for my convenience. I am the boss. Everything else don't matter.
Please don't get emotional about it. I am just trying to seek to understand what perspectives people have with the Air, especially people that have been using the machine for a long time.
@Saturn- So you don't have heat issues with years of putting an Air on sleep? No fan issues, and no glitches or where the Macbook Air is overworked from lack of shutdown?
That's actually really impressive. 2% loss on a night's worth of sleep is amazing. I'm going to note how much power it actually loses on sleep tonight.
Cheers.
@Saturn- So you don't have heat issues with years of putting an Air on sleep? No fan issues, and no glitches or where the Macbook Air is overworked from lack of shutdown?
That's actually really impressive. 2% loss on a night's worth of sleep is amazing. I'm going to note how much power it actually loses on sleep tonight.
Cheers.
i have to throw my hat in with the people that just use sleep. maybe your laptop use is different than the majority of people on this forum but i have to wonder how many times you are shutting down/powering up in a given day?
the energy efficiency argument you most often see is whether you should be shutting your computer down at NIGHT when you leave the office...not whether you should be shutting it down every time you leave your desk.
the EPA still recommends turning them off AND unplugging them at night. the idea is that while sleep/hibernate on the computer has come a long long way, there are still scores of peripheral items we plug in that haven't.
if it were just the computer.
"If it were just computers, leaving them in sleep mode wouldn't be a problem," says Katherine Kaplan who leads the EPA team that develops Energy Star requirements, "But people have so many devices these days that it really starts to add up."
keep in mind this is less applicable to laptops or at least easier to monitor and even then they are talking about night time inactivity when the computer will theoretically be going as much as 16 hours without being used.
I think if you are going to be away for a few hours then yeah, it's probably more efficient to shut it down - but a few minutes seems a bit nuts to me.
to be clear, these machines are designed to power cycle tens of thousands of times in their life, so no i don't think powering it on and off 2-3 times a day is going to kill it. but it's definitely not necessary either. Yes, it boots up in 10-15 seconds and the programs open fairly quickly, but you are still talking a good 30 seconds of wait time.
now maybe if your schedule is so booked up that you cant afford to wait 30 seconds you need to back off on the calendar a bit but me personally i like being able to open the screen and get going immediately.
yes it boots up in less than 30 seconds, but it wakes up in less then a second. hell sometimes the wifi hasn't even had time to connect when i'm already typing away.
so all of those benefits of the SSD you are talking about on boot up apply ten fold to wake up so maybe it's you not actually making full use of the technology?
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but that's the issue - "lack of shutdown" does not overwork the macbook air.
check out this energy report (this is the 11" MBA)
http://www.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/11inch_MacBookAir_Product_Environmental_Report.pdf
"The 11-inch MacBook Air outperforms the stringent requirements of the ENERGY STAR
Program Requirements for Computers Version 5.0. Using only 8.4W in idle with the display
on, it consumes less power than any Mac, and consumes 27 percent less than the original
MacBook Air. The following table details the power consumed in different use modes."
it uses .84W in sleep mode. not bad considering it draws .24W when off.
I just close the lid during the day, usually shut it down at night, more out of habit, also not wanting to lose 2-3% battery unnecessarily.
I just close the lid on MBA and never shut it down. My Mini and iMac run Boinc applications when I'm not using them, so they're essentially working 24-7 and haven't been put to sleep nor shutdown for several years straight.
Thanks for the kind feedback guys.
I am going to do the same now. Keep the lid closed during the day, and shut down only at night. Admittedly, I was shutting down a more than a couple times a day. Always during lunch break, and always at night... and most commonly when I go play sports or hit the gym.
But yea, it's true - once I went to get some beers from 7-11 and shut it down just so it would cool down. I guess letting it sleep should do the trick with this technological masterpiece.
I guess it makes sense. I'm still shocked that some people almost never power off their laptop. I'm still curious to know if it harms your device to keep it running for a month, or from what I'm reading in this thread - years without shutting down.
Cheers.
I am going to do the same now. Keep the lid closed during the day, and shut down only at night. Admittedly, I was shutting down a more than a couple times a day. Always during lunch break, and always at night... and most commonly when I go play sports or hit the gym.
But yea, it's true - once I went to get some beers from 7-11 and shut it down just so it would cool down. I guess letting it sleep should do the trick with this technological masterpiece.
I guess it makes sense. I'm still shocked that some people almost never power off their laptop. I'm still curious to know if it harms your device to keep it running for a month, or from what I'm reading in this thread - years without shutting down.
Cheers.
like i said, i sometimes shut mine down just to watch how fast it boots up
this is my first air so i can't speak to them, but i can tell you that i almost never shut down my 2009 macbook and it's still running like new.
it's not windows where leaving it on is not a matter of whether it will crash but when... PC Load letter err - stack memory overflow...wtf does THAT mean?
i really only shut it down if i am going to go days without using it or if i'm traveling with it or if something starts going wrong...otherwise it's just close the lid, open the lid rinse repeat.
I'm old school too, from the time of spinning disks and MTBF measured in hours. Some said leaving the spinning disks spinning was better. Some said powering them down and spinning them back up was what made them wear and tear more.
In this newfangled age of SSDs, with no moving parts, these laptops don't suffer from the same limitations. Even in "deep sleep" there is some current flowing somewhere for Powernap to work, so is that current constantly flowing for weeks and months damaging? I would suspect no since it is so low of a current, but I admit to being fascinated and guessing.
I also come from a Windows background notorious for memory leaks and the need for regular rebooting. OS X seems much better behaved. You probably won't be able to go years without rebooting unless you decline system updates, which seem to come out every couple of months or so.
I've kept my 5 year old PC running for months at a time with no ill effect, so I am thinking my MBA should handle it. I still shut it down at night though. Old habits die hard.
Sleeping your computer is nothing new.
My first laptop in 1998, was a Sony Windows, already had this sleep feature, and Windows would boot up in 3 whole minutes, more reason to not shut it down for, almost, instant access.
As far as harms, my employer has tons of PC in the computer room, and these are not expensive, MILitary grades, they are cheap clones and are on 24x7. Once a while one breaks down because of a tired power supply but that's it. Am surprised myself spinning hard drives can go and go and go, so now the Air even has solid state memory. Your computer will most likely retires because of obsolescent, accidents, than because u think u used it TOO MUCH.
My first laptop in 1998, was a Sony Windows, already had this sleep feature, and Windows would boot up in 3 whole
minutes, more reason to not shut it down for, almost, instant access.As far as harms, my employer has tons of PC in the computer room, and these are not expensive, MILitary grades, they are cheap clones and are on 24x7. Once a while one breaks down because of a tired power supply but that's it. Am surprised myself spinning hard drives can go and go and go, so now the Air even has solid state memory. Your computer will most likely retires because of obsolescent, accidents, than because u think u used it TOO MUCH.
Sleeping your computer is nothing new.
My first laptop in 1998, was a Sony Windows, already had this sleep feature, and Windows would boot up in 3 whole
As far as harms, my employer has tons of PC in the computer room, and these are not expensive, MILitary grades, they are cheap clones and are on 24x7. Once a while one breaks down because of a tired power supply but that's it. Am surprised myself spinning hard drives can go and go and go, so now the Air even has solid state memory. Your computer will most likely retires because of obsolescent, accidents, than because u think u used it TOO MUCH.
So you're saying my Macbook Air is skynet?
Awesome
...My first laptop in 1998, was a Sony Windows, already had this sleep feature, and Windows would boot up in 3 whole
Three minutes!!? Boy, that was fast! It cracks me up when I hear the young ones complaining about Windows taking a whole 15 seconds to boot nowadays. It's all about perspective....
I remember turning on my PC and going to get a cup of coffee and read the newspaper while it booted up....https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1627594/
Nope no issues. I'm kind of OCD and check my temps religiously so I'd know if things changed. My understanding is besides the power going to ram when your computer is in sleep mode it is very similar to being shut down. No fan going. The computer isn't generating heat etc. But like I said it is completely up to you. I have many idiosyncrasies with how I use my computer that other people disagree with (I like monitoring everything at all times) so if it doesn't bother you to shut down so often I don't think it is bad for the computer or anything.
I tell the story of an Aunt of mine, whom after every use of her desktop, she would completely shut it down, even pulls the modem's adapter from the wall. I roll my eyes because I don't have the patience.
To be fair, she always completely shuts down her cellphone as well after every use. We complain, how can we contact you then? She has no reply, she just read somewhere that the cellphone puts out radiation and that's bad so she keeps it off as much as she can. What Ya Gonna do.
To be fair, she always completely shuts down her cellphone as well after every use. We complain, how can we contact you then? She has no reply, she just read somewhere that the cellphone puts out radiation and that's bad so she keeps it off as much as she can.
What Ya Gonna do.
I am amazed to learn that people regularly shut down their laptops. Truly.
When I'm done using my MBA I close the lid. When I want to use it again, I open the lid. The only time it reboots is when there's an OS update that requires it.
Needlessly shutting down seems like insanity to me. What possible incentive could there be to do that?
When I'm done using my MBA I close the lid. When I want to use it again, I open the lid. The only time it reboots is when there's an OS update that requires it.
Needlessly shutting down seems like insanity to me. What possible incentive could there be to do that?
This.
Shutting down a modern MacBook on a nightly basis is plain silly. It's just a matter of old habits that die hard. No one would think of shutting down their phone every night. Shutting down a Mac has just about as much "benefit".
I'm hearing the "shutting down is insanity/stupid" assertion by the last couple of you guys.
But I'm not seeing any facts or arguments to back up your statement.
Not saying I agree and/or disagree - Just saying that saying someone else is 'silly' or 'wrong'... doesn't automatically make you right....right?
But I'm not seeing any facts or arguments to back up your statement.
Not saying I agree and/or disagree - Just saying that saying someone else is 'silly' or 'wrong'... doesn't automatically make you right....right?
I'm wondering if there is a type of "power surge" when starting up that doesn't occur when awaking from sleep (I would think it HAS to take more power for a cold start than an awake from sleep, right? I mean, just getting thru the POST will take more power than an awake from sleep). If this is true, wouldn't it have at least some impact on battery life and surges to the logic board if you are powering on and off several times a day?