Newbie question about sleep vs. off

[itimgtd]

I just bought a macbook air 13 inch, and have a question:

If I'm using my macbook air and just let it sit open then it turns black (gone to sleep?). when I hit any key the screen comes back almost instantly.

If I'm using my macbook air and close it, then open it later again, it takes 3~4 seconds to come back to life, which seems about as long as it takes for the computer to boot up after I completely shut it down.

Is the computer shutting down instead of going to sleep when I close the lid? Is there a way I can get it to just go to sleep like when it sits idle, so that when I open the lid it just comes back to life immediately instead of 3~4 seconds?

I realize this might be a really dumb question but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[franmatt80]

Hi there,

It sounds to me like the difference between the display going to sleep (when the lid is open) and the hard drive going to sleep when shut. You can check your preferences for this in Systems --> energy saver.

 

[KPOM]

What's happening in the first scenario is that the display is turning off, but the system isn't going to sleep. When you close the lid, it goes to sleep. I don't think there is a way to prevent that without using third party software.