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sleep or shutdown when carrying

B

buckuxc

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 28, 2003
207
0
hey all,

I've been shutting down my powerbook everytime I put it in m backpack and carry it somewhere. Is that necessary? If it's in a laptop sleeve, can it be kept in sleep mode? It's not a big deal either way, but I'm curious what others recommend/do. Thanks.

sps
 
Sleep! There is no need whatsoever to shut down for transport, unless it will be more than a couple days before you use it again. That was always the nice thing about taking my PB to school and now to work. I show up, open my laptop, and I'm ready to work. Whilst others are waiting through a long bootup process, I'm already connected to the projector and ready to show.
 
Well I'm glad I asked. How silly and over-cautions I have been...
 
I use my powerbook in the office, I just close the lid and put it to sleep when I take it to meetings. It is amusing watching the people with windows laptops waiting for the boot sequence to complete. Most windows laptops can sleep as well, but it is oftern not used.
 
Just had a thought, how long does the battery last in the PB. I am waiting for my iBook, and it claims to go for 6 hours working, what about sleeping? a whole day???
 
Originally posted by blvdeast
Just had a thought, how long does the battery last in the PB. I am waiting for my iBook, and it claims to go for 6 hours working, what about sleeping? a whole day???
Click to expand...
I get about 3 hours of normal use from my TiBook on battery. More if I turn off the Airport and dim the screen. Less if I'm watching DVDs or burning/importing music.

My wife's iBook gets over 4 hours of normal use, and as high as 5.5 with the power saving features I mentioned above. Of course she has a slower processor, and a smaller screen to power.
 
My PowerBook can sleep for a few days while sleeping with no problem, it is a really low power mode. Just realize that the longer it sleeps, the lower your battery life with be in the long run since it still does use it up. Sleeping for a few hours won't do much, but when it is sleeping for a day, it can use up a good portion of the battery.
 
sleep and background processes

While this topic is still going, can someone tell me if processes you set in the background effect the computer's sleep. Say I want to set the desktop background to change every 30 minutes or hour. If my PB is asleep when that time hits, does that wake it up? Or does wait til it is woken up to perform that? Thanks.

sps
 
It'd wait until you wake up. The only things I know of that could wake up your PowerBook are if you went into energy saver and check one of those boxes saying "Wake when modem detects ring" or "wake for ethernet" or under bluetooth when there are options to wake when a device is detected. Besides that, once it is in sleep mode, it's there until you open the lid, push a button, or the battery is removed for more than 20 seconds or however long that grace period is that you have to change batteries before it loses power.
 
Battery life

Originally posted by mactastic
I get about 3 hours of normal use from my TiBook on battery. More if I turn off the Airport and dim the screen. Less if I'm watching DVDs or burning/importing music.

My wife's iBook gets over 4 hours of normal use, and as high as 5.5 with the power saving features I mentioned above. Of course she has a slower processor, and a smaller screen to power.
Click to expand...
 
Battery life

Originally posted by mactastic
I get about 3 hours of normal use from my TiBook on battery. More if I turn off the Airport and dim the screen. Less if I'm watching DVDs or burning/importing music.

My wife's iBook gets over 4 hours of normal use, and as high as 5.5 with the power saving features I mentioned above. Of course she has a slower processor, and a smaller screen to power.
Click to expand...

I have one of the older Powerbooks, so I'm not sure how useful this information is, but I've gotten almost 7 hours using the above mentioned power savings features, and my PB has slept for 24 hours without using the entire battery, but I think that's extreme. I carry mine around all day and shut it down at night.
 
IMPORTANT MSG for everyone

I read this somewhere on the net that says the whiter the wallpaper, the less energy it consumses.

therefore, a 100% black wallpaper will drain the battery faster then a 100% white wallpaper.

I tried it and it's true. It is wierd since the whiter the lighter the LCD will be and we usually take lighter as more energy consuming.

it says that white pixels take lets energy to generate.

Thought it will be handy for those who do not know and want to have the longest battery life.
 
extra

if you are not going to use your powerbook for more than 24 hours, turn it off, it less than that, just close it or put it to sleep. PERIOD.
 
My PB uses about 10% of the battery for 24 hours of sleep.

I travel a lot (it's my job), and never turn it off, it's always sleeping.

It is fun to watch the windows world boot their computers while I just open the lid.

It's even more fun to watch them reboot several times during a meeting, or every time they want to connect/disconnect from the network.
 
I typically let my PB sleep when carrying it around. BUT, with these super cold temps and just plain cold Winter weather, I shut down now before going outside. In the past week it's been -11F degrees here in Boston.

The "operating temperature" is 50F - 95F degrees. I don't put my PB to sleep if it will be in temperatures outside that range. "Storage temperatures", however, range from -52F to 117F degrees.

I give my 12" PB lots of protection from the cold (in a sleeve in a bag), and let it warm up before firing up.

Cold weather adversely impacts the battery life, too.
 
My TiBook battery is just about on its way out. In the beginning, I would get about four hours of use out of it, now it's probably down to an hour, but I never disable WiFi, dim the screen, or anything. It used to lose 2% of battery life overnight, now maybe about 5-10%. So it might be time for a new battery as this one is going on three years of hard usage.

cpjakes
 
lol, if you want to know what happens when when you sleep a power and try to wake when it's clearly below 0ºF, here you go...

I left my powerbook out in a car for like 3-4 hours and it was mostly below 0. When leaving I thought I'd move some pictures from my camera to the book to save me from having to do it at home. I opened my powerbook, the LCD came on, and my desktop looked normal. However my cursor wouldn't move and no buttons worked. I listened but couldn't hear the HD... so the powerbook wakes up, but the Harddrive can't.

BTW, it's fine now.
 
And Apple warns that the two biggest dangers of freezing temperatures on a PowerBook are:

1). Frozen hard drive (Going quickly from warm to cold creates condensation which then freezes). Hard drive can be successfully thawed.

2). Frozen LCD screen. Apparently, once that happens you've ruined your screen.

Wooohooo... up to 19F today!
 
The LCD is a positive emission device. Meaning it is continuously backlit. The colored or black pixels are created by turning on a sort of filter that restrices the bandwidth of the light. Sooo, everytimt you turn on a color on a pixel, it takes more energy than just leaving it white.
 
i would honestly have to say that this is the most informative powerbook thread that i have read in a VERY long time. i will be purchasing a 15in PB as soon as the next revision comes out (as in, same-day).

thanks all of you for some GREAT info.
 
Re: IMPORTANT MSG for everyone

Originally posted by cmx08
I read this somewhere on the net that says the whiter the wallpaper, the less energy it consumses.

therefore, a 100% black wallpaper will drain the battery faster then a 100% white wallpaper.

I tried it and it's true. It is wierd since the whiter the lighter the LCD will be and we usually take lighter as more energy consuming.

it says that white pixels take lets energy to generate.

Thought it will be handy for those who do not know and want to have the longest battery life.
Click to expand...

I have a hrd time believing that. Can you back it up? I always have a dark desktop, thinking it will lead to longer LCD life. (plus, I just prefer it) I really dont like light desktops--hard on the ol eyeballs.
 
Originally posted by michaelrjohnson
i will be purchasing a 15in PB as soon as the next revision comes out (as in, same-day).
Click to expand...

Good luck, its probably going to be in a lot of months... Its a great seller as it is right now and doesnt need an power upgrade for a while. My guess is that we wont see it until the G5 PB or 8 months. Which ever come first...

Back to topic:
This is a great thread, I learned a few usefull thing!
 
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