macbook/powerbook sleep

[muffinman]

i have been a PC user all my life. Until now. I always turn off a computer after I am through using it. Then when I need, I turn it on again. Is this bad? Is letting the computer sleep better than rather turning it off? Does it affect battery life in mobile laptops?

What is the main purpose of the sleep? I thought making a computer sleep just wasted battery life, and overheated a computer...

 

[disconap]

It depends on how often you turn it on and off. Sleep has a couple of functions: ease of use (as you can immediately resume work, as opposed to rebooting/reopening software), power conservation (as opposed to just leaving a machine running), and less hard drive wear than shutting down and posering up. I have heard stories that hardware and hard drives are worn down faster by shutting down and booting up (but then, I've heard that sleeping also has this effect on hard drives, though to a lesser extent). The reality is that your hardware will likely outlast your machine's usability, so ultimately unless you're using a very old machine, the effect is probably pretty minimal. I usually don't sleep any of my machines and leave them on constantly, as I have read it's slightly harder on the hard drive to sleep/shut down, but I don't think it matters too much, and the machines that we do shut down often work fine. So I'd say do whatever you're comfortable with.

 

[stridey]

i have been a PC user all my life. Until now. I always turn off a computer after I am through using it. Then when I need, I turn it on again. Is this bad? Is letting the computer sleep better than rather turning it off? Does it affect battery life in mobile laptops?

What is the main purpose of the sleep? I thought making a computer sleep just wasted battery life, and overheated a computer...

If you're running off of battery power, it will drain the battery ever so slightly to have it in sleep mode. The amount of power needed is minimal. It would probably take around 5 days to totally drain a full battery in sleep mode (just guessing. based on no real knowledge). If you're running with the 'book plugged in it won't affect battery life whatsoever.

It certainly won't overheat the computer. When it's in sleep mode the only thing still "on" is a trickle of electricity sent to RAM. Your computer will be just as cold as it would be if it were totally off.

The main purpose of sleep is simply so you don't constantly need to shut down/restart the computer. With recent releases of OS X startup time has improved dramatically, but even up through 10.3 it could take a long time to boot. Also, some geeks (not me, certainly... ) like to brag about their "uptime" (or how long the computer has gone without needing to restart).