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Shut down vs. Sleep?

A

AceC

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 10, 2013
98
1
I have a 2010 MacBook Pro. I often use it in the mornings and then again in the evenings, shutting it down in the time I'm not using it. I know that you can leave MacBooks on for days at a time on sleep, but it is better to do that or shut it down? Since I've had this MBP for a few years and I have regularly shut it down, would it make much of a problem to let it sleep instead?

My only concern for it being left in sleep mode for hours/days is the chance of it overheating or having an issue.

Which is recommended?
 
I rarely shut my rMBP down, I either leave it running or put it in sleep mode and I've never had any issues.
 
Two schools of thought.

1. Turning it off will limit the heat exposure on your components, which will make them last longer.

2. Leaving it on will limit the wear and tear of starting up and shutting down.

A hard drive is made to spin a certain amount of time, or start up and shut down a certain amount of time. For me, I leave it on, since I believe the parts wear down less than it would if I were to start up and shut down daily.
 
Why should it overheat?
It can stay cool enough while drawing 60-100W and at standby the only piece that is powered is the RAM which is never actively cooled even when active. Idle power consumption is 0.4W or something around that number. Most household appliances consume more when shut off yet still plugged in.

You can let it sleep for months without issues. Sometimes it needs to restart for updates and such but that is all. It is no different than with a smartphone, you don't shut that down either and the power consumption in sleep is fairly similar.
 
I try and shut it down once a week or so, and I will shut down when I know I'm not going to use the computer for a few days at least. Otherwise, it's just sleep.
 
AceC said:
My only concern for it being left in sleep mode for hours/days is the chance of it overheating or having an issue.
Click to expand...

Nah.... you will be fine. The Macbook has circuitry inside that it will shut itself off if for some reason it overheated.

On every Macbook I have ever owned I never ever shut them off and only restart for required updates. Other than that I just shut the lid to put it to sleep. Never had a problem.
 
There are dozens of "sleep or shutdown" threads where you'll find many Mac users run months at a time without shutting down. Either is perfectly fine. One thing to consider is that there are maintenance scripts that run on a daily, weekly and monthly schedule. If your Mac is in sleep mode at the scheduled time, the scripts will run the next time your Mac is awake. If your Mac is shut down at the scheduled time, the scripts won't run until the next scheduled time. If your Mac is always shut down at those times, the scripts will never run, unless you manually run them or change the default schedule. You can manually run the scripts using the Maintidgit widget.
 
AceC said:
My only concern for it being left in sleep mode for hours/days is the chance of it overheating or having an issue.

Which is recommended?
Click to expand...

Sleep consumes barely any power at all, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever for your computer to overheat while sleeping, since the only thing powered is RAM which consumes less than 1W.

I've had a Mac since 2008 and have only ever shut it down for updates or bootcamp.
 
snaky69 said:
I've had a Mac since 2008 and have only ever shut it down for updates or bootcamp.
Click to expand...

Same here, as I mentioned I always leave it running, once in a while I'll put it in sleep mode and almost never shut it down.
 
Maybe someone knows if it causes heat problems to put a macbook for longer periods in a sleeve while it is in sleep mode?
 
Quattro7 said:
Maybe someone knows if it causes heat problems to put a macbook for longer periods in a sleeve while it is in sleep mode?
Click to expand...

Unless it wakes up or decides to spontaneously burst into flames, no, it does not cause heat problems to have a mac in a sleeve while it is sleeping, that is just silly.
 
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