iMac G5 Newbie: Maintenance & On/Sleep vs. On/Off

[Frank (Atlanta)]

In reading various posts & "the manual", it appears Apple recommends to leave my iMac G5 on/in-sleep unless I'll not use it for a few days.

I'm not asking about the "turn it off/on - vs. - leave it on" debate & potential damage to the electronics. Rather, I understand OS X underpinnings rely on certain utilities to keep the machine clean/maintained, which are dependent upon the machine remaining "on".

Therefore, my questions are:

1. If I put the machine into sleep when I'm not using it, will these utilities run anyway (i.e.: do they run in sleep mode)?

2. If I use MacJanitor, does it matter whether I put the machine into sleep or if I shut it down (i.e.: I'll run the utilities separately)?

3. Is MacJanitor a good clean-up utility to use?

4. Are there any good reasons to leave the machine "on/sleep" or to shut down regularly if I use MacJanitor?

Thanks in advance,
Frank

PS: I'm a "switcher" - PC user for ~20 yrs and this is my first Apple. Everything from the customer experience to the capabilities of this machine to the sheer elegance is night-and-day different from the PC world (in a good way!). I still use a PC laptop for work purposes, but I'm a convert...

 

[jsw]

Hi Frank - welcome to the club! I'll try to answer your questions for you.

First, the utilities will not run if your system is asleep. However, this isn't a huge deal, as the utilities are useful but not essential, and there's no harm in shutting you system off - as long as you let them run every once in a while. Which leads to:

MacJanitor is a great GUI on top of these utilities. Use it, and it doesn't matter if your system is ever on at night. The cleanup routines are intended to run daily, weekly, and monthly, and, as long as, for the most part, they run roughly that often, you'll be fine.

Finally, I personally think it's best to typically 'sleep' the system just because it comes back to life so much faster. However, there's no real reason to go either way - it's up to your personal preference.

Enjoy your Mac!

Joe

 

[Josh]

I have an iMac G5 too, and I leave the computer on all night (I usually have it D/L'ing something) while I sleep, and then when I leave for work, I put the iMac to sleep.

So typically, my iMac is on for 10 hours, then sleeping for 14.

Not saying that you should do that, just letting you know what I do with mine

 

[cluthz]

MacJanitor only launches MacOSX built-in clean up functions.
(cleaning some caches, rebuilding some databases, etc..)

So If you run MacJanitor once a week and repair permissions about once a month (or when you have installed some thing) you'll be fine.

I have a G4 tower which is on 24/7 (i reboots maybe every 30 days)
I only run repair permissions on it.
I have a powerbook, on about 4-8 hours a day, else in sleep. I use MacJanitor once a week and repair permissions about every 30 days.
None of the machines have ever had any problems.
(well maybe a few small problems, but thaty have been easly fixed.)

 

[Frank (Atlanta)]

Thanks!

All,

Thank you for the helpful and quick responses! I really appreciate it.

There is something to this Apple/Mac thing - my experience with "Mac Folks" has been very pleasant!

Thanks,
Frank

 

[Mechcozmo]

Repairing Permissions, BTW, is very important. More so that the built in cron scripts. Just run Disk Utility (Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility), click on the volume in the left column thingy (the one below the drive) and choose First Aid. Then choose Verify Permissions. That will keep your Mac running for quite a while, depending on how much stuff you have on the hard drive. If it finds stuff, then choose Repair Permissions. Let it finish.

That is the basics to Mac maintenance. I personally don't run the cron scripts on my PowerBook yet, but the Repair Permissions I do every week. Maybe. I just remember to do a Permissions Repair on my iMac, which hadn't been done in months. Macs are quite good at taking damage in and still working, BTW. Don't freak out if you forget because it really will not matter more than a day or two. Unless you are going to install new software, then you should check the permissions, but that is the only real exception.

 

[Sun Baked]

On a regular basic run fsck when you reboot, just pop into single user mode -- follow directions on the screen and type reboot to get out of there.

If you run into a couple/few freezes, crashes, etc. you may want to run it on reboot.

 

[Mechcozmo]

On a regular basic run fsck when you reboot, just pop into single user mode -- follow directions on the screen and type reboot to get out of there.

If you run into a couple/few freezes, crashes, etc. you may want to run it on reboot.

That is kinda tricky. I've only had to do that once, and a newbie really won't want to play with a UNIX core of a computer until they get the basics down.

Oh, and BTW:

"Welcome to the Light side of the Force."

 

[corywoolf]

Hi Frank - welcome to the club! I'll try to answer your questions for you.

First, the utilities will not run if your system is asleep. However, this isn't a huge deal, as the utilities are useful but not essential, and there's no harm in shutting you system off - as long as you let them run every once in a while. Which leads to:

MacJanitor is a great GUI on top of these utilities. Use it, and it doesn't matter if your system is ever on at night. The cleanup routines are intended to run daily, weekly, and monthly, and, as long as, for the most part, they run roughly that often, you'll be fine.

Finally, I personally think it's best to typically 'sleep' the system just because it comes back to life so much faster. However, there's no real reason to go either way - it's up to your personal preference.

Enjoy your Mac!

Joe

bah!!!!!! i just got an IRS letter and it is addressed from andover MA. bah you must work for them?

 

[jsw]

bah!!!!!! i just got an IRS letter and it is addressed from andover MA. bah you must work for them?

Yeah... right. You think an IRS employee would use Macs?

 

[absolut_mac]

Here are a few more utilities to try out...

Is MacJanitor a good clean-up utility to use?

Here are a few more utilities that you might find useful. Hopefully you won't need the first one, which is to repair your HD.

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/ DiskWarrior

The others are utilities like MacJanitor, but with additional capabilities. Try them and see which you prefer.

http://www.macosxcocktail.com/ Cocktail

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20070 Onyx

http://www.atomicbird.com/ Macaroni

 

[Frank (Atlanta)]

Thanks!

To All -

Thanks again to everybody for the quick responses & great advice!

I really appreciate the help!

Having a ton of fun with this iMac - wonder why I waited so long to give one a try!