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Jthall502

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 27, 2013
24
0
Louisville, KY
Is it a bad idea to disable the sleep option and leave my Mac screen saver running at all times?? Sorry if this is a dumb question, I just got my Mac yesterday!
 
Is it a bad idea to disable the sleep option and leave my Mac screen saver running at all times?? Sorry if this is a dumb question, I just got my Mac yesterday!

Bad in what way?

It is just a computer doing it's job so it's not 'bad' for it. However depending on your politics it may be considered 'bad' from a waste of energy POV.
 
Ummm I guess in any way... Would it be a better decision to put the computer in sleep mode rather than just leave the screen saver running?...
 
Ummm I guess in any way... Would it be a better decision to put the computer in sleep mode rather than just leave the screen saver running?...

Saves energy, saves wear on the CPU and other components, ...

Nothing to worry about, but if your Mac is in an office on its own with all the lights turned off, why not put it to sleep? Go to System Preferences, Energy Saver, and the rest is automatic.
 
Is it a bad idea to disable the sleep option and leave my Mac screen saver running at all times?? Sorry if this is a dumb question, I just got my Mac yesterday!
If you don't want to sleep the computer because you're leaving something running, you should have the display set to go to sleep after 15 or so minutes of the system being idle. This will be better for the display than the screensaver being on all the time.
 
Bad in what way?

It is just a computer doing it's job so it's not 'bad' for it. However depending on your politics it may be considered 'bad' from a waste of energy POV.

That is debatable. Depending on how often you turn on the computer you might actually use MORE energy from all those startup cycles than if it was on in the first place. Not to mention that either option can lead to more wear and tear than the other which means more e-waste.

Basically, 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. It is sort of like Apollo 13 counting watts. If you are worried use an abacus.
 
That is debatable. Depending on how often you turn on the computer you might actually use MORE energy from all those startup cycles than if it was on in the first place. Not to mention that either option can lead to more wear and tear than the other which means more e-waste.

Basically, 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. It is sort of like Apollo 13 counting watts. If you are worried use an abacus.
Resuming a Mac from sleep doesn't use that much energy. Now if you were talking about shutting it down (to power off) and starting it multiple times a day, that would be bad.
 
An alternative is to set up a hot corner for putting the display to sleep (System Preferences, Mission Control, Hot corners). My computer is always on and sleeps when I do, but when it's on and not being used for more than about 5 minutes, I just zip the cursor to the lower-right corner, and the display will sleep until I hit a key or click the mouse.
 
whatever you do make sure you keep it on and do not shut off every night...OSX does scheduled maintenance overnight (i think its around 2 or 3 am)...if you shut it down it cant perform its maintenance
 
Resuming a Mac from sleep doesn't use that much energy. Now if you were talking about shutting it down (to power off) and starting it multiple times a day, that would be bad.

Yes, I was talking about shutting it down vs sleeping.
 
I would just have the display goto sleep after X time. Limited stress, wear & tear on the display. screensaver helps to prevent burn-in on the display, for the most part but its not as good as just letting the display sleep. the machine can still run and compute things and will be fine that way.
 
Put the display to sleep rather use a screensaver to save energy.

It is also better to leave a screen on rather than use a screensaver. Constantly changing display state is more work for the pixels than leaving it static, so it will wear the display out quicker. Although we are talking about tiny amounts. And screen burn isn't a problem like it was on the CRT displays that screensavers were made for.
 
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