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Sleeping a MBP instead of shutting it down shortens it's life - Myth or Fact?

mrsir2009

mrsir2009

macrumors 604
Original poster
Sep 17, 2009
7,505
156
Melbourne, Australia
Hey there!,

So many people say that leaving a MacBook Pro (or any other computer for that matter) on sleep when your not using it instead of turning it off wears it out and shortens it's life :rolleyes:

What are your thoughts on this? Do you sleep or shut down your MBP?
 
How would it wear it out? the only thing that is powered is the light and the RAM. Nothing moving or anything. I sleep mine during the day, shut down at night though, just because it's what I have been doing with my computers for the past 13 years or so
 
alust2013 said:
How would it wear it out? the only thing that is powered is the light and the RAM. Nothing moving or anything. I sleep mine during the day, shut down at night though, just because it's what I have been doing with my computers for the past 13 years or so
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Same here. On school days I shut it down when I go to school and at night, and on non-school days I only shut it down at night :D
 
I had a 17" iMac G4 (the googly headed one - some people call it the "lamp shade") that I rarely ever turned off. I bought it in late 2004 or early 2005 I think. I only ever powered it down to move it, or if we were going out of town for a couple of days or more.

I just sold that computer about six months ago for 500 bucks. It was running perfectly. I never noticed any kind of slow down on it. I would say that it spent about 85% of its life in my house in the on or sleep modes. It was a good computer... I was sad to see it go. It was a fun design.
 
I get annoyed when I have to shut it down or restart it.

I keep it running or sleeping whenever possible. Screw Steve Ballmer.
 
MauriceMoss said:
I had a 17" iMac G4 (the googly headed one - some people call it the "lamp shade") that I rarely ever turned off. I bought it in late 2004 or early 2005 I think. I only ever powered it down to move it, or if we were going out of town for a couple of days or more.

I just sold that computer about six months ago for 500 bucks. It was running perfectly. I never noticed any kind of slow down on it. I would say that it spent about 85% of its life in my house in the on or sleep modes. It was a good computer... I was sad to see it go. It was a fun design.
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Yeah, they were neat computers :D BTW, if you still use pre-intel macs, i have a forum on classic macs, if your interested: classicmac.freeforums.org
 
MrCheeto said:
I get annoyed when I have to shut it down or restart it.
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I only shutdown our MacBook when I have to due to slow down. Otherwise it's a lot more convenient to sleep it all the time. It's just so easy to slap the lid shut, then open it to use it.

MrCheeto said:
I keep it running or sleeping whenever possible. Screw Steve Ballmer.
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LOL! I'm not completely sure what you're referring too but it reminds me of one of the reasons I hate Windows. Unless 7 changed this Microsoft don't know how to get Windows to sleep properly. Sleeping Windows on a laptop is a pain in the neck.
 
QuarterSwede said:
I only shutdown our MacBook when I have to due to slow down. Otherwise it's a lot more convenient to sleep it all the time. It's just so easy to slap the lid shut, then open it to use it.
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Yeh, and I leave programs like Blender and Firefox open too, so I can come back to what I was doing ;)
 
I believe it's true...lol. I sleep my MBP a lot...and my battery health is freaking horrible...91%. I don't plug and unplug it, I allow it to fully charge before disconnecting. I calibrate the battery once or twice a month. What am I doing wrong...?
 
elpmas said:
I believe it's true...lol. I sleep my MBP a lot...and my battery health is freaking horrible...91%. I don't plug and unplug it, I allow it to fully charge before disconnecting. I calibrate the battery once or twice a month. What am I doing wrong...?
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Well I reckon you should at least turn it off at night... Do you?
 
Shutting down shortens life

I never shut mine down. When not in use it sleeps.

The truth of the matter is what harms electronic parts is the constant temperature rise and fall of the part. Energizing and de-energizing a component constantly is what caused circuitry to fail. These macs drop down in voltage when they go to sleep therefore creating a gradual decrease in temperature.

Guys that are encoding video would run into that more thou. I'm sure apple use quality parts too which makes a difference in the parts resistance to temperature changes. Only problem I had in terms of a failure aside from moving components would be the G4 logic board in 2005.
 
I also had an iBook G4 That I sold about three months ago. It was part of the battery recall. I never gave them my old battery back with it so I always had two. I left it plugged into the charger most of the time. (more of a couch surfing computer.)

Obviously, because it was a laptop, I did take it places but it spent a lot of time just plugged in. Even if it was fully charged, I kept it plugged in. When I sold it a while back, both batteries were still getting about 3-4 hours of charge on them. I always thought that was pretty good.

Again, I would say that it spent most of its life around here in the sleep or on position, and most of that time it was always being fed power from the wall.
 
Only ever shutdown when I'm going away for more than 3 or so days. Don't see the point in using shut down every day/night.
 
mrsir2009 said:
...sleep when your not using it instead of turning it off wears it out and shortens it's life...
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Even if this is true, the impact pales in comparison to obsolescence due to the merciless pace of technology. If you buy a brand new, top of the line laptop today I guarantee it'll be embarrassingly slow and a total pain in the ass to use long before you can kill it by sleeping it instead of shutting it down.

Computers become useless a lot sooner than they become dead. Seems like a pointless concern to me.
 
Nugget said:
Even if this is true, the impact pales in comparison to obsolescence due to the merciless pace of technology. If you buy a brand new, top of the line laptop today I guarantee it'll be embarrassingly slow and a total pain in the ass to use long before you can kill it by sleeping it instead of shutting it down.

Computers become useless a lot sooner than they become dead. Seems like a pointless concern to me.
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I have a iMac 4,1 bought in early 2006 and runs like a champ. I don't see it as embarrassingly slow and a total pain in the ass. Use it daily and it's our media Center and hooked up to our theatre system.
 
Ca$hflow said:
I have a iMac 4,1 bought in early 2006 and runs like a champ. I don't see it as embarrassingly slow and a total pain in the ass. Use it daily and it's our media Center and hooked up to our theatre system.
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Has it died yet because you sleep it instead of shutting it off?
 
elpmas said:
I believe it's true...lol. I sleep my MBP a lot...and my battery health is freaking horrible...91%. I don't plug and unplug it, I allow it to fully charge before disconnecting. I calibrate the battery once or twice a month. What am I doing wrong...?
Click to expand...
How much do you run on battery?
GGJstudios said:
AppleCare support recommends that if you leave your Mac plugged in most of the time, unplug it every 2 or 3 days and run on battery down to somewhere around 50%, then plug it back in. That keeps the electrons moving.
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From: Apple Notebook Battery FAQ

mrsir2009 said:
So many people say that leaving a MacBook Pro (or any other computer for that matter) on sleep when your not using it instead of turning it off wears it out and shortens it's life
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Complete fiction.
mrsir2009 said:
Do you sleep or shut down your MBP?
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Searching the forum with MRoogle will usually find answers to most of your questions:

Better to sleep or shutdown?
Shut Down or Sleep???
Do you shut down your Macbook Pro when you are not using it?
 
Sleeping draws up to 3W, so when you do it on battery it will get drained/used and thus worn.

No problem sleeping the W7 laptop of my wife btw, she's doing it all the time.
 
QuarterSwede said:
I only shutdown our MacBook when I have to due to slow down. Otherwise it's a lot more convenient to sleep it all the time. It's just so easy to slap the lid shut, then open it to use it.


LOL! I'm not completely sure what you're referring too but it reminds me of one of the reasons I hate Windows. Unless 7 changed this Microsoft don't know how to get Windows to sleep properly. Sleeping Windows on a laptop is a pain in the neck.
Click to expand...

Do you shutdown/restart after running ram intensive apps? ie. Starcraft 2
 
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