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rMB stays connected to wifi when lid is closed?

J

Jades

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 15, 2012
317
51
I travel a lot and use my iPad personal hotspot while on the road. I noticed that when I shut the lid of my MacBook, it stays connected to wifi. On my iPad i see that there's still a device connected to personal hotspot

I'm back hoe now, and my laptop lid has been shut for the last 12 hours and I'm still able to ping the IP address of my MacBook

Powernap is only turned on "while plugged in"

Also noticed in the energy saver settings that there are no options on deciding when the laptop should go to sleep

I find this very strange and am concerned about battery life at this point. Wanted to know if anyone else is able to duplicate this issue
 
Mine also stays connected to the hotspot when it should be sleeping. I also have powernap disabled for on battery. I've noticed it but I haven't been too concerned about it.
 
I noticed this yesterday, too. I hooked rMB up to my iPhone hotspot to do some work while at a restaurant. I finished, packed the laptop in a carry bag, left, drove around doing errands, and came home a couple of hrs later. Looked at my phone and discovered hat hotspot was still engaged. Opened the rMB and sure enough, it was still connected.

After I opened it though, new emails came through, so I don't think it was collecting them while it was sleeping. Seems like it was just maintaining the connection so that I didn't have to reconnect later. If so, I like it! Wonder if there's a time limit though? Will it eventually disconnect, or stay connected indefinitely so long as both devices are on and near each other?

I'm traveling out of state for work in a few weeks, so I'll connect it up when I leave and see what happens.
 
Theophil1971 said:
I noticed this yesterday, too. I hooked rMB up to my iPhone hotspot to do some work while at a restaurant. I finished, packed the laptop in a carry bag, left, drove around doing errands, and came home a couple of hrs later. Looked at my phone and discovered hat hotspot was still engaged. Opened the rMB and sure enough, it was still connected.

After I opened it though, new emails came through, so I don't think it was collecting them while it was sleeping. Seems like it was just maintaining the connection so that I didn't have to reconnect later. If so, I like it! Wonder if there's a time limit though? Will it eventually disconnect, or stay connected indefinitely so long as both devices are on and near each other?

I'm traveling out of state for work in a few weeks, so I'll connect it up when I leave and see what happens.
Click to expand...
Did your Laptop use any data or just keep the WiFi link on? I wonder if the behavior would be the same with non Apple devices?
 
burgman said:
Did your Laptop use any data or just keep the WiFi link on? I wonder if the behavior would be the same with non Apple devices?
Click to expand...

I don't believe it used any data. It definitely waited to download incoming emails until I opened it back up and entered my lock screen password. But I didn't need to reconnect the hotspot. It appeared -from the phone and the laptop - that it held the connection for about 4 hrs. I also didn't see any noticeable battery loss because off this, but I'd have to test more to see for sure.
 
I don't know tech details but I wonder if it's working like the iPhone/iPad. They [iPhone/iPad] are not really "connected 24/7" but seem to still process different background tasks when WiFi network is available, or updating apps automatically when needed even with screen off/locked.
 
It's been this way since Mountsin Lion. Emails, Tine Machine and a few other functions continue to work with the lid closed. It's a feature not a bug!
 
I would probably want this disabled

I tested today - closed the lid of my macbook at 89% battery. Left for 3 hours, just opened now and it's at 87%. This can be a significant drop if I don't touch or charge the laptop for a few days - and because I have an iPad - there are days or even weeks at a time that I don't even look at my laptop.

Especially if the laptop is not transmitting any data, there should be no reason that there are functions turned on when the lid is closed and supposedly the device is in sleep mode
 
sjinsjca said:
It's been this way since Mountsin Lion. Emails, Tine Machine and a few other functions continue to work with the lid closed. It's a feature not a bug!
Click to expand...

It's called Power Sleep, and is disabled by default when the machine runs on battery.

My MB is also connected to the network when sleeping (Power Sleep is disabled), and is also losing battery during that time. My MBA doesn't do that.
 
Jades said:
I would probably want this disabled

I tested today - closed the lid of my macbook at 89% battery. Left for 3 hours, just opened now and it's at 87%. This can be a significant drop if I don't touch or charge the laptop for a few days - and because I have an iPad - there are days or even weeks at a time that I don't even look at my laptop.

Especially if the laptop is not transmitting any data, there should be no reason that there are functions turned on when the lid is closed and supposedly the device is in sleep mode
Click to expand...
2% for 3 hours is roughly 16% per day. Worst case that means that it will last about 6 days.

That's assuming the numbers are accurate, which they probably aren't (I doubt the numbers were exactly 89% and 87%, nor that it was precisely 3 hours, so the margin of error here is huge).

But even if it only lasts a week between charges, that's not bad. But someone should do a more rigid test before jumping to conclusions. Charge to 100%, unplug, then time it precisely. Bonus points for using absolute battery charge values instead of the more granular percentages.

And more bonus points for repeating it with WiFi turned on and off.
 
Maybe Apple's assumption is who leaves the mobile WiFi hotspot feature on when not being used?? With the fast boot times I never leave my SSD Laptops on when using battery power if I will not use them for 8 hours or more, Why would I?
 
xPad said:
2% for 3 hours is roughly 16% per day. Worst case that means that it will last about 6 days.

That's assuming the numbers are accurate, which they probably aren't (I doubt the numbers were exactly 89% and 87%, nor that it was precisely 3 hours, so the margin of error here is huge).

But even if it only lasts a week between charges, that's not bad. But someone should do a more rigid test before jumping to conclusions. Charge to 100%, unplug, then time it precisely. Bonus points for using absolute battery charge values instead of the more granular percentages.

And more bonus points for repeating it with WiFi turned on and off.
Click to expand...

Point is it's doing this when it shouldn't be since Power Nap is turned off. It could even be draining your phone if you're connected to hotspot. I don't know if maintaining a connection without transmitting data would but it's a possibility.
 
burgman said:
Maybe Apple's assumption is who leaves the mobile WiFi hotspot feature on when not being used??
Click to expand...
My wifi hotspot is always on. It will sleep after 5min of no connections and no longer drain your iPhone battery. You have to open the hotspot settings screen on your iPhone for it to start broadcasting again.
 
brand said:
I like how you think, I will spare you when I take over the world. :D
Click to expand...


That would be much appreciated as I have grown to like living. (although no benchmarks have been provided for the alternative as of yet).
 
brand said:
Whats the point of letting the rest of the world know that you are following a thread?

The rest of us should consider ourselves lucky that not everyone does that.
Click to expand...

Again, from the last thread you posted in where I replied, and where your input made no contribution whatsoever, I will reiterate the same thing.

Jog on.
 
legioxi said:
My wifi hotspot is always on. It will sleep after 5min of no connections and no longer drain your iPhone battery. You have to open the hotspot settings screen on your iPhone for it to start broadcasting again.
Click to expand...

When paired with my iPad Mini Retina, it seems to hold the connection even when the macbook is close and "sleeping". I turned off the Power Nap on both battery and powered. My iPad will continue to show that there is a connection to the personal hotspot until I either manually turn off the iPad personal hotspot in the settings or turn off Wifi on the rMB or turn the rMB completely off.
 
blulegend said:
When paired with my iPad Mini Retina, it seems to hold the connection even when the macbook is close and "sleeping". I turned off the Power Nap on both battery and powered. My iPad will continue to show that there is a connection to the personal hotspot until I either manually turn off the iPad personal hotspot in the settings or turn off Wifi on the rMB or turn the rMB completely off.
Click to expand...

I was speaking about why I leave my hotspot on. Not about the rMB connecting to it. Check the post I quoted. My old MacBooks would disconnect when sleeping, then my iPhone hotspot would sleep after 5min of no connection from the MacBook. This behavior is for any device OTHER than the rMB and what I would expect for the rMB but am not seeing (same as you and others).
 
legioxi said:
I was speaking about why I leave my hotspot on. Not about the rMB connecting to it. Check the post I quoted. My old MacBooks would disconnect when sleeping, then my iPhone hotspot would sleep after 5min of no connection from the MacBook. This behavior is for any device OTHER than the rMB and what I would expect for the rMB but am not seeing (same as you and others).
Click to expand...

I was corroborating with you as an additional supportive example.
 
Tried a few things like manually setting the MacBook to sleep, shutting off wifi and then sleeping the Mac, but there is still a battery drain. I am coming from a 2012 MacBook Air and a 2008 MacBook and never had the battery issue this bad. The wifi issue never existed to begin with

I guess the only thing I can try is to deal with apple, but could be spending hours of time getting nowhere. "Seems like the issue is with your router and your equipment" is the typical responses we get
 
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