I'm going out of town for 6 days. Should I leave my macbook sleeping or should I turn it off? And if I do turn it off, does it need to be at 50% discharge?
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Letting macbook sleep or shut off for 6 days?
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It is up to you, but the MBP (this is the MBP sub-forum) will not sleep for six days when not connected to a charger, as the MBP or MB will use 1 % battery charge per sleeping hour.
I would just shut it down, and no need to worry about the percentage, as six days is not long term storage as Apple advises you, if you want to discharge to 50 %.
I would just shut it down, and no need to worry about the percentage, as six days is not long term storage as Apple advises you, if you want to discharge to 50 %.
No, it doesn't need to be at 50% for only 6 days. That only applies to storing for 5+ months. Sleeping will consume about 1% battery per hour. Shut it off. This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:
Sleeping consumes the battery when it's not plugged in to the wall? Or when it's plugged in as well? Thank you.
Anything is fine. Do whatever you do for all other electronic devices in your house, e.g. I tend to unplug everything when I go away for more than a few days.
That doesn't matter, if you shut it off, it will not consume power from the battery or the charger. So if you leave the charger off, it will not consume any power from the battery.
Edit: GGJ beat me again lol
If you shut it off to save power you should also cut the power. I.e. hit the switch if you got one or pull the cable.
The thing is a power supply just plugged in but otherwise off does consume a bit of power and the difference between that power draw and standby mode power draw of a modern notebook is so small that if you care about standby power draw you should also kill it entirely.
But it is so little power that just leaving it in standby hurts less than probably a lot of other unplugged power sucking devices in your home, as notebook power supplies are much more efficient. Bad ones from some cheap kitchen stuff can take almost the amount of power when off that your notebook needs turned on. Some TVs and Displays are also really bad in that department. Especially older ones.
What is the reasoning for even being concerned about this "dilemma"? It's obviously causing somebody some angst so were it me... I'd just shut the damn thing off.
How are you not taking it with you??? I'd just sleep it. It uses .5% per hour, so in ~4 days it would die.
EDIT: WRONG math. 8 days it would die. Still, it might die sooner, so just leave it plugged in. If it's impractical for some reason, shut it down and don't worry about it.
EDIT: WRONG math. 8 days it would die. Still, it might die sooner, so just leave it plugged in. If it's impractical for some reason, shut it down and don't worry about it.
I honestly left mine turned off for 7 days and it was fine when I came back. Although it was brand new but I don't think that has anything to do with it.
I'd leave it on and remote access it.
But in all seriousness, I shut mine down every night and I disconnect the MagSafe. If I know that I won't use an item for 3+ months, then I try to store at 60% (although I know that 50% is better). Most of the time, I have no idea that I won't be using something for a while, like a digital camera or video camera, and it either sits charging 24 hours a day always ready for me to shoot or sits unplugged at full charge also ready for action.
Hmm, except for my Nikon DSLR battery, they all turned to crap. So maybe I am too lax.
But in all seriousness, I shut mine down every night and I disconnect the MagSafe. If I know that I won't use an item for 3+ months, then I try to store at 60% (although I know that 50% is better). Most of the time, I have no idea that I won't be using something for a while, like a digital camera or video camera, and it either sits charging 24 hours a day always ready for me to shoot or sits unplugged at full charge also ready for action.
Hmm, except for my Nikon DSLR battery, they all turned to crap. So maybe I am too lax.
I have found that when switched off, my mid-2010 15" MBP loses almost 1% of battery charge per 24 hour period. I would assume that this normal, as the battery is always connected, and some circuitry is always powered, such as the ON switch sensing. Even if the battery goes to 0%, its internal protection will disconect it from the load, and it will still have a significant hidden charge level. I don't know about MBP batteries, but some lithium ion batteries shut off at as much as 50% of full discharge, so the actual capacity is much higher than the useable capacity. This loss of useable discharge time is a trade-off, in favor of a greater number of charge/discharge cycles, and a longer battery life.
Long term storage without significant discharge, is one advantage of a removable battery.
Long term storage without significant discharge, is one advantage of a removable battery.
Last year I turn off my old macbook pro 2009 for three months and the battery life never degraded.
What is the reasoning for even being concerned about this "dilemma"? It's obviously causing somebody some angst so were it me... I'd just shut the damn thing off.
I was concerned because I heard somewhere that it degrades the life if you reboot the computer a lot. And by rebooting I think that means turning it off and turning it on? I don't know.. I'm not very tech savvy. And I read that it's bad if you turn it off when it's fully charged, but I guess that's only when you're storing it long term.
You were misled. It's not bad for it to turn it off/on whenever you need to, and it's fine to turn it off fully charged, unless you're storing it for over 5 months.
It loses battery if it's just powered off? i'm not too concerned about that. But I thought that it didn't use up or lose any power while it was off. Technology is baffling. Just sayin.
It won't hurt if you keep it on sleep, but for 6 days you may as well turn it off.
The last time I rebooted my MacBook was to restart for updates a week or so ago.
The last time I rebooted my MacBook was to restart for updates a week or so ago.
It will lose the battery very slowly. You can just shut it down, since you do not use it for that long time.
"I'm going out of town for 6 days. Should I leave my macbook sleeping or should I turn it off? And if I do turn it off, does it need to be at 50% discharge?"
Shut it down, and DON'T leave the charger plugged in while you're away.
There have been reports of chargers randomly overheating, shorting, etc. The odds of this happening to you are very, very small, but when I'm away from home for any length of time, ALL electronic devices are shut down and unplugged (and isolated from the mains with surge protectors in the OFF position).
I may be out-of-touch with the mainstream here, but I believe it's better to completely shut down my Macs when I'm not going to be using them overnight, or even for a few hours. The shutdown/restart results in a "freshly-booted" machine, no "hangovers"...
Shut it down, and DON'T leave the charger plugged in while you're away.
There have been reports of chargers randomly overheating, shorting, etc. The odds of this happening to you are very, very small, but when I'm away from home for any length of time, ALL electronic devices are shut down and unplugged (and isolated from the mains with surge protectors in the OFF position).
I may be out-of-touch with the mainstream here, but I believe it's better to completely shut down my Macs when I'm not going to be using them overnight, or even for a few hours. The shutdown/restart results in a "freshly-booted" machine, no "hangovers"...
I'm trying to shake those old-school habits and just use sleep when I can but it's hard. Probably a holdover from my Windows days when all the days quirks and bugs needed to get flushed out of memory. That and Leopard didn't always "sleep" when one closed the lid.The shutdown/restart results in a "freshly-booted" machine, no "hangovers"...
There's still just something comforting about a fresh and clean reboot.