MacBook Air Energy Saver Settings

[bingefeller]

I have some questions about the Energy Saver settings that I can hopefully get some help with.

When on battery power how can I stop my MBA from going to sleep? I was on battery power and put my computer down while I went out of the room for 10 minutes or so, when I came back the screen was black and I assumed it had just turned itself off. When I hit a key to turn the screen back on I noticed my IRC session had disconnected. Is there anyway I can extend this time limit on battery power?

Should I choose the option "Put hard disks to sleep when possible"? I have a 512GB PCIe-based flash storage and would like the hard drive to last as long as possible.

 

[Weaselboy]

Is there anyway I can extend this time limit on battery power?

Just run this slider all the way to the right to never and it will always stay awake until the battery dies. Or set to an hour or whatever you like.

Should I choose the option "Put hard disks to sleep when possible"? I have a 512GB PCIe-based flash storage and would like the hard drive to last as long as possible.

It does not really matter for your internal flash storage. This is really more for external hard drives you might have attached.

 

[bingefeller]

Just run this slider all the way to the right to never and it will always stay awake until the battery dies. Or set to an hour or whatever you like.

View attachment 682722



It does not really matter for your internal flash storage. This is really more for external hard drives you might have attached.

Thanks

 

[Boyd01]

Just run this slider all the way to the right to never

They changed this control panel awhile ago, it now only allows you to choose the timeout for the display and I think there used to be separate settings for display and computer sleep. This has always confused me… on mine I think only the display sleeps when I choose a lower value. I suppose if the battery gets low, then the whole computer sleeps?

The OP said his computer went to sleep and disconnected him from the internet after 10 minutes. Doesn't seem like that should have happened.

 

[bingefeller]

They changed this control panel awhile ago, it now only allows you to choose the timeout for the display and I think there used to be separate settings for display and computer sleep. This has always confused me… on mine I think only the display sleeps when I choose a lower value. I suppose if the battery gets low, then the whole computer sleeps?

The OP said his computer went to sleep and disconnected him from the internet after 10 minutes. Doesn't seem like that should have happened.

yeah it's still sleeping after a while on power supply.

here are my terminal settings for my energy settings:

Battery Power:
 lidwake              1
 autopoweroff         1
 autopoweroffdelay    28800
 standbydelay         10800
 standby              1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 hibernatemode        3
 powernap             0
 gpuswitch            2
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 displaysleep         60
 sleep                60
 acwake               0
 halfdim              1
 lessbright           0
 disksleep            0
AC Power:
 lidwake              1
 autopoweroff         1
 autopoweroffdelay    28800
 standbydelay         10800
 standby              1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 hibernatemode        3
 powernap             1
 gpuswitch            2
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 displaysleep         30
 womp                 0
 networkoversleep     0
 sleep                30
 acwake               0
 halfdim              1
 disksleep            0

Can anyone help me fix the sleep time on power supply?

 

[Weaselboy]

They changed this control panel awhile ago, it now only allows you to choose the timeout for the display and I think there used to be separate settings for display and computer sleep. This has always confused me… on mine I think only the display sleeps when I choose a lower value. I suppose if the battery gets low, then the whole computer sleeps?

The OP said his computer went to sleep and disconnected him from the internet after 10 minutes. Doesn't seem like that should have happened.

What happened was in 2013 Macs switched to the new Intel Haswell chipset, and those have a new low power state that is used instead of sleeping. So the Mac really never sleeps... rather the screen is shut off and the CPU goes into that low power state. So the separate sleep setting is gone on Macs that came out since this new chipset.

If the battery gets low enough it actually shuts down.
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yeah it's still sleeping after a while on power supply.

here are my terminal settings for my energy settings:

Can anyone help me fix the sleep time on power supply?

What do you have the Power Adaptor sleep settings set to in that System pref panel from my screenshot?

 

[bingefeller]

What happened was in 2013 Macs switched to the new Intel Haswell chipset, and those have a new low power state that is used instead of sleeping. So the Mac really never sleeps... rather the screen is shut off and the CPU goes into that low power state. So the separate sleep setting is gone on Macs that came out since this new chipset.

If the battery gets low enough it actually shuts down.
[doublepost=1484052540][/doublepost]

What do you have the Power Adaptor sleep settings set to in that System pref panel from my screenshot?

Here they are:

 

[Weaselboy]

Here they are:

So does it not sleep after 30 minutes on AC power?

Earlier you were talking about sleep on battery.

 

[bingefeller]

So does it not sleep after 30 minutes on AC power?

Earlier you were talking about sleep on battery.

Sorry I meant to update - it's now sleeping after 30 minutes on AC power, which I don't really want it to do. I would prefer the system didn't sleep on AC power, but I want do want the display to sleep on AC power, if that makes sense.

 

[Weaselboy]

Sorry I meant to update - it's now sleeping after 30 minutes on AC power, which I don't really want it to do. I would prefer the system didn't sleep on AC power, but I want do want the display to sleep on AC power, if that makes sense.

Okay... gotcha. So check that Prevent computer from sleeping... box then set the top slider to whatever time you want. So in say 30 minutes the screen will blank but the computer will not go to sleep.

 

[bingefeller]

Okay... gotcha. So check that Prevent computer from sleeping... box then set the top slider to whatever time you want. So in say 30 minutes the screen will blank but the computer will not go to sleep.

Ahh I'm stupid!! The answer was there in front of me all along!!! Thank you!