Changing RAM in Deep Sleep?

You have trouble making time to reboot a computer, but no problem making time to open up the bottom of it to replace the RAM? Assuming you have time to open the package the RAM comes in, I'd recommend you also shut down the computer.

 

You should always shut down and unplug any electronics when opening them up and working on them. That includes MBP's and replacing their RAM.

I don't want to try and imagine what would happen if you tried that while turned on [asleep].

Don't forget about electrocution....

Besides that, when a computer is asleep, it keeps the RAM active and stores the state there, so if you did take it out, you'd totally hose your sleep state, and Lord knows what else.

 

Do it! you'll be fine. just make sure that you coat your hands in water too, and stand barefoot on a metal floor. Really? Ask yourself this question. Would you change the oil on your car while it was running? If the answer to this question is also yes, then go for it, and then we can witness natural selection at it's finest.

 

Really? you let me know how that works and i'll believe you.... It's stored electricity..

 

I inadvertently changed my ram and did the optibay mod (including switching boot drive to optibay port), while the computer was in a deep sleep.

Not surprisingly, it crashed when i tried to boot it up. One hard reboot later and it was fine.

I don't think you can avoid the reboot.

 

Just touch your tongue to the leads and see if it tingles!

 

it depends on what sleep mode your machine uses. there is a deep sleep mode that still powers the RAM AND saves its contents to the hdd. pulling it out whilst doing that may cause more harm then good.

ALSO - don't forget that on wake up, the RAM probably wont be checked for upgrades, if you upgrade say, from 4GB to 8GB, the OS will still only have 4GB allocated in the registry.

 

You've already spent that much time with this thread, so you could have done it by now. Besides, there's no way it takes 30 minutes to shut down all apps and documents "in an orderly fashion". Just select Shut Down and your Mac will do that for you, asking you if you want to save changes to any open documents. You can shut down, replace the RAM, reboot and reopen everything and be back to where you were in 30 minutes.

 

Deep sleep = hibernation = it's off.

 

Why is this question being asked? Come on guys...

 

If you've modified any docs, you'll have an opportunity to save changes before shutting down. Also, you can easily open recent files from most apps.

You can always select "Add Bookmark for These xxx Tabs" with a click of the mouse. You can also "Reopen All Windows from Last Session", if desired. There are very quick ways to save where you were and shut down in just a few minutes. 10.7 Lion will make this even easier with its Resume feature. Until then, you can probably find and use an app like Relaunch.

 

I'm guessing he lives in a country where broadband bandwidth limits are low and overage charges high. Australia perhaps?

But yeah, OP, you really should just make the time to do this properly. You may also want to see about organising your workflow a bit more so that a kernel panic won't wreck your day

 

Yes, but the voltage isn't high enough to generally cause a problem. This is why car batteries are 12V (the same as your laptop battery, at least in mbp's), versus a higher voltage. Yes you can still get a "tingle" if you lick the leads, but just touching your skin isn't going to do anything.

 

My guess is that it would cause a kernel panic. I would definitely shut down, replace and reboot. Do it properly OP.

 

Voltage is the least of your worries, it is amperage that kills, and a car battery has more than enough to fry someone many times over, not to mention it is DC which burns more severely and deeper than AC.

 

I wouldn't recommend that anyone so this, but I have changed it out when in deep sleep (wasn't thinking and paying attention to what I was doing, and was terrified that I had shorted something possibly when I realized what I had done). I had properly grounded myself before starting to alleviate static discharge issues and nothing bad happened. I am still using it error free to this day (after several years). Once again, I would NOT recommend doing this to anyone.

 

well, today's the day for you to get organized and save your stuff every now and then...

what are you gonna do if your system unexpectedly crashes? (it happens)

 

Wrong.
You should always have your computer connected to the wall when replacing parts reason is that you may have noticed some wall plugs have 2 prongs but computers always have 3 the reason is the third one is the earth so if you disconnect the earth then the static in the case cant discharge and you can fry your motherboard. That does however cover computers with three prongs most laptops dont have three prong connects (including the MBP) so for the MBP you should touch a piece of steel in the case before doing anything else to make sure you discharge the static, it is also a good idea to leave the computer for say 5 minutes to allow the capacitors to discharge. This of course just a precautionary measure to make sure you dont break your 1K plus laptop.

 

That's probably the strangest thing I've ever heard. You should earth yourself by touching something metal.

 

i have to ask this question..

what all are you running? like i can even imagine running so much stuf that you cant shut your computer down!!

 

don't take it bad but, if you need 30 minutes to close everything, you should reconsider your entire workflow. the key of a well-done (and fast) job is order.