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How to disable the 'breathing' light on my PB?

B

Bruce Lee, PhD

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 10, 2004
79
0
Hi,

I keep my powerbook on my desk when I work. When it goes to sleep, the LED on the front of the case starts doing its 'breathing' thing. I find this distracting, since I'm usually working on a piece of paper right in front of the powerbook. Is there a way I can disable the light entirely, or at least stop it from oscillating when the machine goes to sleep? Currently I need to put something in front of the case or turn it around when it goes to sleep.

Thanks.
 
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Good one d_p. Short of opening up your powerbook and disconnecting the light, there is no way to stop it from going on when you put you powerbook to sleep. Of course this method is pretty difficult, and will void your warranty, so I wouldn't recommend it.
 
I would say that the "Breathing light" is a very cool feature on the Apple. Why do you want to stop your computer from breathing?

I recemend learning to love the breathing light. I know I sure do. It really is a cool feature.
 
Koodauw said:
I would say that the "Breathing light" is a very cool feature on the Apple. Why do you want to stop your computer from breathing?

I recemend learning to love the breathing light. I know I sure do. It really is a cool feature.
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In this I will side with The good Doctor. It's annoying when I'm trying to sleep. Flashing on and off, like some neon sign in a cheap hotel. As an insomniac, I must have crypt-like darkness to sleep. That and Ambien.
 
I've always thought of it as a snoring light.

You know, your computer is sleeping after all, and it doesn't do it when it's awake.


Anywho, I enjoy that little touch as well.



-jeff
 
when i left my ibook on charge in my bedroom that light really pissed me off to so i did open it up and dissonnect the blighter i pluged it back in because now it really annoys me that it's not there as other people think my ibook is broken :mad:
 
d_p said:
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Really - in all seriousness - a color-matched piece of electrical tape will do the trick. It can be cut extremely small, will stick forever, and can be removed with no permanent residue.
 
Yea, with my G4 iMac, when it goes to sleep, the light in the lower right part of the screen comes on, and in a pitch black room (my bed room) it puts out a ton of light. Really gets me mad sometimes.
 
Um.. can you turn it around, so the light isn't on your paper?
I sleep with it on top of my headboard, and if the light it bothering me, I turn it to face the wall.
 
I find it relaxing, it means that I know it's ok. I know that my love is ok. Wait, I mean I know that my iBook is ok.
I love you iBook...

Ahem, anyway, yeah some tape over the light would be your best bet.
 
shove it under your bed thats what i do. that way you will piss of the boogy monster aswell :D
 
Do you have the lid open or closed? I found that the light is much brighter and more annoying (at night trying to sleep myself) with the lid closed, if you sleep the computer with the lic open the light breathes much less brightly.
 
d_p said:
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haha, this is the best response i've gotten to a post here yet. :) i like it. and as others have pointed out, it seems to be the best (and perhaps the only) option. i can probably find some chrome tape either at an auto parts store or at a crafts shop. thanks to everyone for all the suggestions.

btw i just tried sleeping it with the case open and you might be right about it breathing a bit less brightly -- it's bright daytime light here so it's tough to tell.
 
monkeydo_jb said:
I've always thought of it as a snoring light.
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That was my first impression too--I'd never seen anything snore visually before.
yellow said:
It's annoying when I'm trying to sleep. Flashing on and off, like some neon sign in a cheap hotel. As an insomniac, I must have crypt-like darkness to sleep. That and Ambien.
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Hear, hear!....well, except for the Ambien. Not yet, anyway.

I usually drape some sort of fabric over the Powerbook's entire back, since it doesn't need to vent while sleeping and the charging light is too bright for me as well. A t-shirt from the laundry pile, a towel, whatever's handy.
 
Wow, I never realized so many people find the sleep light annoying. I wonder if this is something Apple could address by software. Could something be added to System Preferences that could control the light? Perhaps people should send feedback on this to Apple and see what happens.
 
At the end of each night, instead of throwing my shirt into the hamper, I toss it onto my PowerBook. Works quite well.

I used to use the tape method back when I had my Power Mac. That worked well too.
 
I wish I could turn off the green light around the powerplug on my powerbook, it's too bright, much brighter than the pulsating sleep light.

Whats worse though is my SonyEricsson T68i... it puts out a bright yellow flash every second, drives me crazy like Chinese Water Torture, I always have to hide it under some books next to my bed cos the flash is so powerful. I can see it with my eye lids closed, hehe :eek:

Why don't you get a hack to stop your laptop from going to sleep when you close it? Also set your screen to turn off after 5mins of inactivity. I run my PowerBook closed all the time with an external screen with no problems like warping and overheating.
 
zv470 said:
I run my PowerBook closed all the time with an external screen with no problems like warping and overheating.
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Just so you know, you're playing with fire there.. a lot of heat is leeched out of powerbooks via the keyboard. Does your fan run a lot? And by a lot I mean, more then once in a great while?
 
yellow said:
Just so you know, you're playing with fire there.. a lot of heat is leeched out of powerbooks via the keyboard. Does your fan run a lot? And by a lot I mean, more then once in a great while?
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hmm, yeah most of the time, hmm. The fan's running now. I just opened my powerbook to see how hot the keyboard is and it's just warm, should I be worried? I've just finished dragging files from 23 CDs onto my hdd so it should be really hot right? I've got the 1GHz 12" Rev.B model.
 
I'm not saying you could hard boil an egg on your keyboard. The chassis gets much hotter. But allowing heat to leech out between the keys as a kind of convection action (heat rises blah blah) is part of the intended design. Running with the top down completely defeats that. PLUS your LCD get get warm, and with the PB running closed, it's like a little oven. Bad for both. So your fan gets more work then it was intended to, and eventually it burns out and you don't notice. Suddenly your PB goes into convulsions. Poor PB. I'm not saying that you can't do it once in a while, I just recommend not doing it all the time. You're risking the longevity of the PB. Plus, Apple isn't going to do any warranty work on it if they determine that you've been running it with the lid closed and burned up your CPU.
 
zv470 said:
hmm, yeah most of the time, hmm. The fan's running now. I just opened my powerbook to see how hot the keyboard is and it's just warm, should I be worried? I've just finished dragging files from 23 CDs onto my hdd so it should be really hot right? I've got the 1GHz 12" Rev.B model.
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running PB closed via external monitor/kb/mouse is an apple supported feature. so don't worry about it.
 
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