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Never Shut Down

mcoe19

mcoe19

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 8, 2007
28
0
UK
I have a friend who almost never shuts down his 12" PowerBook. Whenever I tell him that this is stupid he always says its perfectly fine. Apart from constantly using power and not being completely great for the environment (it all adds up) I'm sure this must have some negative effects on his Mac.

So does anyone know of any negative effects constantly sleeping your mac and never shutting it down can yield? Maybe performance would slow or battery life would shrink, I dunno. I just want some facts to fire at him next time it comes up :)

Cheers
 
From the OS point of view, it's probably fine, OS X will just keep going without needing to be **** down, however the hardware will get worn. Hardware has a finite lifespan, and the longer it's on, the quicker that wears down. My Mabook boots in about 20 seconds, so for me it's no biggie to turn it off when I'm going to be away from it for an hour or more.
 
if he never shuts it down that means he is missing some updates that require restart, other than that it is fine for the OS cause thats just software but the hardware is being strained
 
It's not stupid at all. Why would it be? There is no difference between sleep and being turned off except a small power draw to keep the contents of memory.

Power usage during sleep (watts) is in the low-to-mid single digits. Your microwave uses more energy showing the time. There is no effect on the battery nor on performance in any way.

You could even make the argument that leaving the thing on 24/7 and never sleeping it would be even better for it, due to less heat expansion/contraction or whatever. Without reliable statistics and thorough testing, there is no way to know. I can say that my 5 1/2 year old G4 PowerBook is still going strong having rarely been shut down, but that's not a large enough sample size from which to be able to draw a reliable conclusion.
 
TimJim said:
if he never shuts it down that means he is missing some updates that require restart, other than that it is fine for the OS cause thats just software but the hardware is being strained
Click to expand...
Hardware doesn't move. It's not being strained. Disk drives spin down during sleep just like a shutdown.
 
When I tried opening Safari it did take a shocking amount of time but maybe Im just too used to my agile MacBook :)
 
keeping it in sleep mode will probably draw less power overall than constantly booting, which also floods the electronics with power and consumes the most power usually.

that said. i only ever turn off my 'book or iMac if its not going to be used for more than a day or two.

sleeping won't wear the components anymore, other than the sleep LED, and OS X is perfectly fine with it.
 
Super Macho Man said:
Hardware doesn't move. It's not being strained. Disk drives spin down during sleep just like a shutdown.
Click to expand...

heat dude.. heat. i know that processors can suffer from premature aging if you never shut it down.. which is kind of an important component imo.
 
Dustman said:
heat dude.. heat. i know that processors can suffer from premature aging if you never shut it down.. which is kind of an important component imo.
Click to expand...

the processors aren't being used if its asleep.
constantly up and running, yeah thats bad.
 
my 500 MHZ iBook G3 and 500 MHz PBG4 are both about 6 yrs old now and I have only ever restarted them after updates. Sleep is set to start after 30 min and hard drives spin down when not in use. Except for few dead pixels, they run like they are brand new. My PowerMac G3 and G4 servers don't even sleep, and they are likewise fine, though I have upgraded the hard drives.

Anyway, I think it's fine to not shut down.
 
Dustman said:
heat dude.. heat. i know that processors can suffer from premature aging if you never shut it down.. which is kind of an important component imo.
Click to expand...
Properly cooled processors that are not defective will run 24/7 for many many years. There is no known/proven heat/longevity issue with any current or past Mac.
 
Yeah I guess its down to personal preference, just like leaving your TV on standby but thats a whole other story!
 
Dustman said:
heat dude.. heat. i know that processors can suffer from premature aging if you never shut it down.. which is kind of an important component imo.
Click to expand...
Have you ever actually had a processor fail? In all my desktops, laptops and servers I've had many components fail, even cables fail, but never, ever, a processor.

Also, with so little energy being consumed by a laptop that is in sleep I'm guessing there's virtually no heat to speak of.
 
Super Macho Man said:
Properly cooled processors that are not defective will run 24/7 for many many years. There is no known/proven heat/longevity issue with any current or past Mac.
Click to expand...

while that's true, a processor running 10 C over normal will decrease the life of the processor exponentially. for that reason alone i find it worth shutting down the computer when not in use, just in case its running abnormally hot that day..
 
Dustman said:
heat dude.. heat. i know that processors can suffer from premature aging if you never shut it down.. which is kind of an important component imo.
Click to expand...

More important is temperature changes. Constantly cooling down and heating up components can cause stress factures in the materials as they expand and contract. If the component is kept warm most of the time, stress due to flexing is reduced and the component will last longer.
 
I usually only shut my mini down if it's gonna be storming or if I'm gonna be gone a while. The rest of the time, it's either on or sleeping.

I've yet to see any negative effects from it.
 
+'s and -'s, Swings and roundabouts, Pro's and Con's.
:apple: Not sure if its still relevant, but there used to phenomenon known as 'memory leak' where apps would continue to draw on memory, over a period of time this would slow the machine down due to the lack of memory for other uses.
The only way to 'cure' this was a reboot (edit: or if you wanted to, a complete shutdown)
:apple: With journaling, the longer you leave the machine on the better, since the OS now 'journals' your machine -- negating the need for 'defragging' since it is effectively the same thing.
:apple: Can't see how 'if he never shuts it down that means he is missing some updates that require restart' because as soon as he downloads the Update, He will reboot his machine to apply the update, and it not like he can miss the popup window telling him to reboot. Wheres the problem?
:apple: Since its a Powerbook its not he's drawing from the National Grid all the time so hes not having *that* much impact.

So really, each to their own--since your both on Apples, share the love brother. If you really want to argue with him--choose politics :) or date his girlfriend :D
 
When he first got his PowerBook I was skeptical. Two years later and Im on here posting from my MB so we must agree on something :D
 
I'm pretty sure that constant boots and shutdowns will put more strain on the system than keeping it sleeping. Mac laptops are made to sleep.
 
I'd recommend restarting it once a week, if only to delete the accumulated virtual memory swap files. When those build up the Mac slows down. Otherwise sleep mode draws very little power. You can probably extend the useful life of a laptop more by not driving the screen brightness any higher than necessary. The backlighting always seems to be the first to go.
 
My 12" PowerBook gets really really slow if I don't restart it at least once a week. But it is only a 867MHz with 640MB RAM, so it's never exactly fast to begin with. If it has actually not been restarted or shut down for a few months, he should definitely restart it, and he will notice a huge speed increase, if its as old as mine.

I used to have the opposite problem with a friend of mine. He would never put his iMac G5 to sleep, instead he would shut it down, even if it would only be 30 minutes till he would next use it. I eventually convinced him to stop shutting it down so often, and to sleep it instead. Now I just need to get him to increase it's measly 256MB RAM. :eek:
 
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