Sleep/Inactivity

[mreg376]

OK. I've set the period of "inactivity" in Energy Saver Preferences. But what is inactivity? I already know that Time Machine running is "activity" and interferes with sleep. Is Mail checking for new mail "activity"? Do I have to quit all programs, since many of them periodically check the Internet for updates? Thanks.

 

[Bobbi Flekman]

Time Machine an activity? Not that I noticed. I have the thing set to Screensave after 5 mins, sleep after 15, and to shutdown the harddisc after 1.5 hours and when the computer goes to snoozeville it doesn't wake up for email checking or other things. It will do that when you wake it from its slumber. After all, what is the need to retrieve email when you're not doing anything. Same with Time Machine I guess, if it sleeps for 4 hours, nothing changes for 4 hours. Why make a backup?

 

[zaney]

The period of inactivity refers to YOUR inactivity, therefore your screen will sleep and your mac will sleep after the specified period, with no activity from you, i.e. mouse/keyboard movement.
The HD sleep time, I believe, refers to actual HD activity, so Mail retrieving new mail and saving it to disk, might keep the HD spinning, but it will not affect sleep.

 

[mreg376]

Time Machine an activity? Not that I noticed. I have the thing set to Screensave after 5 mins, sleep after 15, and to shutdown the harddisc after 1.5 hours and when the computer goes to snoozeville it doesn't wake up for email checking or other things. It will do that when you wake it from its slumber. After all, what is the need to retrieve email when you're not doing anything. Same with Time Machine I guess, if it sleeps for 4 hours, nothing changes for 4 hours. Why make a backup?

Time Machine certainly interferes with the ability of the machine to sleep. It doesn't stop the display from sleeping, but it will keep the machine awake. Dozens of posters here have confirmed this. It doesn't happen to you?

 

[mreg376]

The period of inactivity refers to YOUR inactivity, therefore your screen will sleep and your mac will sleep after the specified period, with no activity from you, i.e. mouse/keyboard movement.
The HD sleep time, I believe, refers to actual HD activity, so Mail retrieving new mail and saving it to disk, might keep the HD spinning, but it will not affect sleep.

HD sleep time? My only experience with Macs is Leopard, and there is no sleep interval available specifically for the HD, just "put the hard disks to sleep when possible" or not.

 

[zaney]

HD sleep time? My only experience with Macs is Leopard, and there is no sleep interval available specifically for the HD, just "put the hard disks to sleep when possible" or not.

Sorry, I got carried away with all the other sleep times. I mean that even if that box is ticked, HD activity will keep it awake.

 

[Bobbi Flekman]

Time Machine certainly interferes with the ability of the machine to sleep. It doesn't stop the display from sleeping, but it will keep the machine awake. Dozens of posters here have confirmed this. It doesn't happen to you?

Depends on how you determine sleep. I don't notice anything (new backups, waking screens, network activity), so in my eyes the computer is asleep.

 

[SaSaSushi]

Time Machine certainly interferes with the ability of the machine to sleep. It doesn't stop the display from sleeping, but it will keep the machine awake. Dozens of posters here have confirmed this. It doesn't happen to you?

Time Machine most certainly does NOT stop a Mac from entering sleep mode nor does it cause a Mac to wake from sleep mode.

From Apple's product page for Time Machine:

Working on your schedule.

Say Time Machine is in the middle of a backup and you want to shut down your Mac or put it to sleep. Who wins? Like you have to ask. Time Machine simply stops the backup process and remembers where it is. It automatically resumes when your Mac is active again.

Whoever the dozens of posters you see posting that misinformation are they are mistaken.

 

[SaSaSushi]

Depends on how you determine sleep. I don't notice anything (new backups, waking screens, network activity), so in my eyes the computer is asleep.

Seeing is believing.

Time Machine backups are not executed whilst a Mac is in sleep mode and as I just mentioned above even any ongoing backups in process when a Mac enters sleep mode or a shutdown are simply suspended in place until the machine is awakened.

Sleep mode writes the contents of RAM to hard disk (safe sleep mode on all Intel Macs) and then only powers the RAM itself until awakened.

 

[mreg376]

Time Machine most certainly does NOT stop a Mac from entering sleep mode nor does it cause a Mac to wake from sleep mode.

From Apple's product page for Time Machine:



Whoever the dozens of posters you see posting that misinformation are they are mistaken.

I think you're missing the point. Yes, the Apple's web site is correct. When "you want" to shut down or suspend the Mac Time Machine will get out of the way, such as when you click on the little Apple and select restart or sleep from the main menu. BUT if you set the automatic sleep timer (not the display sleep, but the machine sleep) on, let's say, 2 hours, the hourly automatic Time Machine backup (which will occur if, for example, Mail is running and downloading email regularly) will reset the 2-hour timer every hour and the Mac will never go to sleep. It is a known issue.

 

[SaSaSushi]

I think you're missing the point. Yes, the Apple's web site is correct. When "you want" to shut down or suspend the Mac Time Machine will get out of the way, such as when you click on the little Apple and select restart or sleep from the main menu. BUT if you set the automatic sleep timer (not the display sleep, but the machine sleep) on, let's say, 2 hours, the hourly automatic Time Machine backup (which will occur if, for example, Mail is running and downloading email regularly) will reset the 2-hour timer every hour and the Mac will never go to sleep. It is a known issue.

Well, I wasn't aware of that bug but then again I don't use an auto sleep timer. I only sleep my machine manually every night.

You could try changing the Time Machine backup schedule per the freeware utility I linked for you in the other thread on this topic or perhaps this bug will be quashed in the upcoming 10.5.3 Leopard update. This has been seeded to developers and shouldn't be too long down the road for us end users.

 

[Bobbi Flekman]

BUT if you set the automatic sleep timer (not the display sleep, but the machine sleep) on, let's say, 2 hours, the hourly automatic Time Machine backup (which will occur if, for example, Mail is running and downloading email regularly) will reset the 2-hour timer every hour and the Mac will never go to sleep.

With machine sleep I gather you mean shut down the hard disk. There's logic in this as indeed the "sleep timer" will note hard disc activity once per hour, and thus resets. If you set the disk sleep time to, say, 55 minutes the hourly backup will at most happen jus once, and the disk will go to catch zz's. I have my disk sleep set to 45 minutes, which would explain why I haven't seen any of it.