Closing the Laptop Puts it to Sleep - BAD? But How to Change???

[800Degrees]

I feel like an idiot - where the *#$& does one change this setting? Right now, if I close the laptop, it goes to sleep. This is bad - for presentations, running iTunes at home... But I can not find where to change this - I've been through every section of Pref's... nothing.

HELP!!!

thanks.

 

[robbieduncan]

There is no preference to control this. You can wake it up from sleep (in clamshell mode) using an external keyboard or mouse.

 

[bigdaddyp]

Google insomnix. Nifty little helper program and its free. Just remember that if you do some heavy lifting, such as encoding a movie with handbrake, you will not want the lid closed.

 

[MacModMachine]

open terminal

use this to stop it from sleeping when closed

sudo pmset -a lidwake 0


this will bring it back to the original stock sleep when lid closed

sudo pmset -a lidwake 1

 

[snaky69]

I feel like an idiot - where the *#$& does one change this setting? Right now, if I close the laptop, it goes to sleep. This is bad - for presentations, running iTunes at home... But I can not find where to change this - I've been through every section of Pref's... nothing.

HELP!!!

thanks.

Why do you even want to close the lid while using itunes or doing presentations? It doesn't matter if it's open or closed in those situations.

You can have it awake when hooked up to an external monitor/tv by waking it up with an external keyboard/mouse or both.

 

[ayeying]

open terminal

use this to stop it from sleeping when closed

sudo pmset -a lidwake 0


this will bring it back to the original stock sleep when lid closed

sudo pmset -a lidwake 1

I thought that only works on PowerPC systems, and they're for when you open the lid, you have to press a key before the system wakes up?

 

[fleshman03]

Why do you even want to close the lid while using itunes or doing presentations? It doesn't matter if it's open or closed in those situations.

You can have it awake when hooked up to an external monitor/tv by waking it up with an external keyboard/mouse or both.

I actually really like using keynote with the lid open. It will show you the next slide, time spend on current slide and overall time of presentation. Quite helpful, if you ask me.

See:

Source and More Info: TUAW

 

[snaky69]

I actually really like using keynote with the lid open. It will show you the next slide, time spend on current slide and overall time of presentation. Quite helpful, if you ask me.

See:

Source and More Info: TUAW

Yes I do know about that, and it is useful, which is why I don't understand why one would want to have the mbp closed, apart from making it run hotter there is no advantage.

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

I feel like an idiot - where the *#$& does one change this setting? Right now, if I close the laptop, it goes to sleep. This is bad - for presentations, running iTunes at home... But I can not find where to change this - I've been through every section of Pref's... nothing.

HELP!!!

thanks.

Assuming you have it hooked up to an external display...plug the display in after you close the lid or use a mouse/keyboard to wake it back up after you've closed it and it will operate as normal.

 

[EndlessMac]

I don't understand why one would want to have the mbp closed, apart from making it run hotter there is no advantage.

I'm curious too and the person didn't give us too much detail to the full reason why it has to be only with the lid closed. Running the laptop with the monitor closed does increase the heat and does run the risk of frying the computer.

If a person just wants the monitor off then there are ways to do it when connected to an external monitor, or a quick and simple way without an external monitor is to just turn down the brightness and the monitor will look like it's off. There really is no need to close the lid unless a person just wants their laptop to be flat, but I personally wouldn't do that because of the heat increase with the lid close.

 

[ThirteenXIII]

I thought that only works on PowerPC systems, and they're for when you open the lid, you have to press a key before the system wakes up?

Yep, it worked on a unibody running snow leopard and now when ever trying to open the lid when it is in sleep you have press a key.

the command to revert back to the original way didnt seem to work either.
edit nevermind, seems to work after logging out a couple times...weird. my mistake.

i like to have my liud closed so i can use it when i connect it to my audio input on my car when driving long distances or storing it when wanting to play more music than what my ipod is capable of handling, there are many reasons and i dont know why its such a huge deal?

my system has never been heated to the point of instability or excessive het with the lid closed either using a external display or otherwise.
it has pretty good ventilation

 

[McGilli]

I am surprised that people are getting on the OP's case about why he wants his lid closed. After using Apple products for 2 years - this is the only issue that i have to say - I actually hate about my MBA and MBP. (these are my only negatives towards these notebooks)

Not being able to close the lid for me is a huge pain is the ass.

Everybody has different reason for why or why not - here is my reason I need it open.

17" MBP. I have let's say 5 torrents running - and am downloading from some binary newsgroups. The last thing you want is to lose your connections. But -now I want to move my computer to a different area of my house - let's say from the bedroom down to the living room on another floor - this is so I can keep checking my email and any incoming ichat connections.

As it is - I have to keep the lid OPEN - and carry the 17" MBP down 2 flights of stairs, around a cat, and a 5 year old who loves to jump out and try and scare me.

If I could just close the lid and NOT lose all the connections to my torrents and newsgroups - and carry it under my arm safely downstairs or wherever - the chance of me dropping it has been reduced by about 99%.

So there is one scenario.

Then I go to work. to connect to our secure network we using a 60 second cryptographic key fob. Once you enter in your secure information - if you lose your network connection you have to go through the whole login procedure again. Well - we share a key fob in our office - which is on the 4th floor of a building the size of a hospital. If I need to go to a meeting that is a full 5 minutes walk through elevators, busy hallways and people running to help people - it's not the safest way to transport a laptop - wit h the lid open. If I close the lid - the machine sleeps - my authentication gets terminated on our network and I am screwed - having to waste time by phoning up for more authentication info to get back logged in.

So - anyways - some people are happy with the led close/sleep function - some people are not. So coming from regular PC's we are disappointed we can't continue to do this with Macs.

I understand most of the heat from a macbook exits through the keyboard - and closing the lid would impair this - but I would still rather have this function.

 

[tooz]

I use insomniaX when I want to charge my iPod with my macbook in my locker, but that is only in a blue moon. Otherwise I will just turn the screen brightness right down

 

[EndlessMac]

Everybody has different reason for why or why not - here is my reason I need it open.

I can't speak for everyone else but that's why I said I was curious to know why the OP wanted to do so. You obviously have reasons but if the OP's problem can be solved without closing the lid then it's another option.

If you are not doing something CPU intense then you are probably safe but I'm sure Apple didn't provide this feature to prevent people from damaging their computers. My hands can get pretty warm from just using my laptop normally so I can image it would be hotter with the lid close. Just imagine if someone forgot their laptop was on and put it in their laptop case. There will be just about no ventilation in that case.

I'm not saying that it's a guarantee that you will damage your computer with the lid closed because each incidence is different but it does increase the chance of your computer overheating especially if you are negligent about it. If the OP's problem can be solved without closing the lid then all the better IMO but like I said it's not like I'm saying it should never be done.

 

[nufanec]

Otherwise I will just turn the screen brightness right down

As that just turns off the backlight, you could suffer from LCD burn-in if parts of the image remain static. You would be best using [ctrl]+[shift]+[eject] to put just the display to sleep in those scenarios

 

[Mangaroo]

ive been holding off on insomniax (1.3.5?) because a few people have been complaining of kernel panics unless used on x32? any x64 users of snow leopard care to vouch otherwise?

edit:tested it out today and so far no problems apart from those explained in the installation (such as put monitor to sleep not working-but you can just decrease the brightness of the screen beforehand. anyone have a better workaround?).

 

[gorn]

InsomniaX is definitely the way to go.

Also I wouldn't worry so much about heat. Yes the heat is higher, but Apple has taken that into account. It's normal to run them in Clamshell mode when hooked up to a display, using InsomniaX is similar, except without the display.

The PowerBooks used to actually decrease the thermal limit so they would shut down if it got too hot while closed, even though the same temperature while open was fine. But I haven't noticed that effect on the intels.