How do I get my MBP to do overnight processing?

[jbrown]

I am currently needing to render so complex CAD files ( vectorworks ) - I have several rendering options, the best being final quality. I understand that this may take overnight, if not a couple of days.

When I begin the job, the CPU monitor indicates they are working hard, the fans come on and the machine gets hot...all indications it's doing the job.

However - if I set it up to do the job overnight, when I come down in the morning the computer is asleep and stone cold, which suggests to me it has ceased processing the file.

If I wake it up - it resumes processing, getting hot again and so on.

So how can I ensure it continues the job overnight? I've tried setting ' Never go to sleep ' in system settings ( screen still set to go to sleep ). That doesn't seem to work. When I set it to ' Never go to sleep ' in system settings, do I need to restart to make the settings active ( if I restart I lose all the work on the CAD file done so far! ).

All suggestions welcome

 

[Hellhammer]

InsomniaX

You may have to restart though

 

[Erasmus]

Make sure you've set it to "never go to sleep" when on power adapter, not just when on battery. The two settings are separate.

It makes no sense that the computer should go to sleep when you tell it not to, and if it does, you have either made an error (ie. above) or you have a problem with your system.

 

[ergdegdeg]

Use Caffeine. It prevents the computer from even turning on the screen saver. No restart needed.

 

[grozz]

Caffeine
http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/

I use it myself, handy Menubar app

 

[sammich]

Perhaps there's a schedule set to make the computer go to sleep?

System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> (bottom right) Schedule...