when my i5 MBP battery runs out it hibernates!

[prism]

I dont get it, is this an isolated incident or does every 2010 core i5/7 MBP suffer from this exact issue? So far I have not come across anyone who owns a core i5/7 MBP that skips sleep mode completely and goes directly into hibernation when the batteries are drained! So, unless someone who has a core i5/i7 MBP that goes to sleep instead of hibernation when the batteries are drained, I am going to consider this strange behavior as a feature that for some strange reason is not documented by Apple. I guess they just have other priorities these days!
Anyone else with a 2010 core i5/i7 MBP care to comment or share their experience?

 

[nippyjun]

Seems normal. Hibernate will save what you are doing before shutting down. You can disable hibernate if you want but i think its a good thing.

 

[alust2013]

That's exactly what it's supposed to do. When the battery runs out, it's dead, so it can't go to sleep, as that uses power. It's not suffering from any issue, that's just the design so it can save your work rather than just shut down.

 

[reebzor]

I'm pretty sure all of Apple's laptops have always done this. Not just MBP's.

What did you expect it to do?

 

[AlphaDogg]

I'm pretty sure all of Apple's laptops have always done this. Not just MBP's.

What did you expect it to do?

Both my C2D 13" MBP and my 2007 MB does this. Or at least it was supposed to. There was an issue that came up for no apparent reason that when the battery died, it would just cut power instead of go into sleep mode.

 

[prism]

ok, from the looks of it I dont think I was very clear describing my problem. Maybe what I should have said was: when the battery almost runs out completely, instead of going to sleep mode (with the pulsating light in front), it instead goes directly into hibernation which is what it should do when the battery is completely out of juice.
The sleep to hibernation sequence is what I had observed with every other MBP I owned before this latest one so this is why I am asking if this behavior is normal and therefore specific to the 2010 i5/i7 MBP or not?
TIA

 

[prism]

Err anyone with an i5/i7 MBP care to chip in???

 

[Sankersizzle]

I have a 17" i5, it hibernates when the battery dies or is ~1%. So do my friends with similar computers. What exactly do you expect it to do?

 

[prism]

I have a 17" i5, it hibernates when the battery dies or is ~1%. So do my friends with similar computers. What exactly do you expect it to do?

Like I stated above, all the previous MBP I had went into sleep mode (pulsating light) before hibernation (which is saving memory onto HD before shutting off completely). I am just wondering if all the i5/i7 MBPros skip the sleep part altogether?

 

[LinkMx]

My 15" i5 does this too, but I have sleep disabled, maybe it has something to do with that.

 

[Dalton63841]

@OP Have you ever installed the Smartsleep prefpane? That prefpane has an option to make it do exactly what you are describing.

If you have not perhaps you might install it just long enough to choose the default setting and see if that fixes it?

 

[vipergts2207]

Like I stated above, all the previous MBP I had went into sleep mode (pulsating light) before hibernation (which is saving memory onto HD before shutting off completely). I am just wondering if all the i5/i7 MBPros skip the sleep part altogether?

I completely understand what you're saying and that is exactly what your computer is supposed to do. My MBP from 2007 does this. Apparently you've previously never run the computer down far enough to make it go into hibernate rather than sleep. If you're computer had gone to sleep instead of hibernate, your computer would have shut down by running out of battery and would not have saved your work.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/10328.html

 

[tjb1]

Have you calibrated the battery? It could be incorrectly telling the computer its level and actually running out of battery before the computer thinks it should be.

Also, go into terminal and type

pmset -g

and copy that here

There is NO NEED to download a preference pane...

If hibernatemode is 0, you have safesleep disabled. Kept in ram, powerloss loses ram.

If hibernatemode is 3, safesleep is on. Save to ram and hdd, restore from ram unless power loss then restore from hdd.

If hibernatemode is 25, hibernate is on. Save to hdd, power off ram.

If you need 3 turned back on, go into terminal and type

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3

 

[Blu101]

I've only let mine drain a couple of times for calibration, and basically it hybernates (no sleep blinking light). After the recommended 5 hours in this state before a re-charge, I have to turn it back on via the power button, even after it's plugged in for the re-charge (I'm guessing the 5 hours drain it completely and shuts down?). Everything works fine and saves all my work.

 

[prism]

Ok, this is what mine says:

Currently in use:
halfdim 1
sms 1
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
gpuswitch 2
disksleep 10
sleep 15
hibernatemode 3
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 10
acwake 0
lidwake 1

So safesleep should be on, what gives?

Have you calibrated the battery? It could be incorrectly telling the computer its level and actually running out of battery before the computer thinks it should be.

Also, go into terminal and type

pmset -g

and copy that here

There is NO NEED to download a preference pane...

If hibernatemode is 0, you have safesleep disabled. Kept in ram, powerloss loses ram.

If hibernatemode is 3, safesleep is on. Save to ram and hdd, restore from ram unless power loss then restore from hdd.

If hibernatemode is 25, hibernate is on. Save to hdd, power off ram.

If you need 3 turned back on, go into terminal and type

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3

 

[prism]

Also tjb1, I noticed that you have an i7. Did you actually see it go to pulsating light sleep mode when you drained it?

 

[vipergts2207]

Ok, this is what mine says:

Currently in use:
halfdim 1
sms 1
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
gpuswitch 2
disksleep 10
sleep 15
hibernatemode 3
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 10
acwake 0
lidwake 1

So safesleep should be on, what gives?

Nothing gives. Your computer is doing exactly what safesleep is supposed to do.

If hibernatemode is 3, safesleep is on. Save to ram and hdd, restore from ram unless power loss then restore from hdd.

Your computer obviously lost power and had to restore from the HDD. I don't get how you're not following this.

 

[tjb1]

Also tjb1, I noticed that you have an i7. Did you actually see it go to pulsating light sleep mode when you drained it?

No, my sleep light doesnt pulse when the battery runs out. The computer hibernates for ~5 hours until the battery dies. Stuff is still powered in hibernation so it will use up the rest of the power.

 

[prism]

No, my sleep light doesnt pulse when the battery runs out. The computer hibernates for ~5 hours until the battery dies. Stuff is still powered in hibernation so it will use up the rest of the power.

Are you sure about that? I thought sleep mode saved stuff on RAM and therefore required battery (hence the pulsating light) and hibernation just dumped everything on the HD and therefore didnt require any battery power!
Sleep mode 3 to me describes what my MBP should be doing i.e. when battery power is low enough go to sleep mode (pulsating light) but save ram content on the hd at the same time so that if the battery runs out before you plug it to the mains, your stuff will still be saved.

 

[tjb1]

Are you sure about that? I thought sleep mode saved stuff on RAM and therefore required battery (hence the pulsating light) and hibernation just dumped everything on the HD and therefore didnt require any battery power!
Sleep mode 3 to me describes what my MBP should be doing i.e. when battery power is low enough go to sleep mode (pulsating light) but save ram content on the hd at the same time so that if the battery runs out before you plug it to the mains, your stuff will still be saved.

Your comp is fine, safe sleep is on and depending how much ram you have you can safe a lot of space by switching to hibernatemode 0. The save to HDD isnt really needed in my opinion, I know that if my computer is about to run out of battery that I need to get stuff closed...and I gained 8gb of my hdd back. If you want to know how to do it, let me know.

 

[Fubar1977]

Mid 2010 i5.

Sounds normal, mine will automatically go into hibernate when the battery runs out.
Hibernate writes your current works to disk and shuts down, using no power.

 

[Inconsequential]

Are you sure about that? I thought sleep mode saved stuff on RAM and therefore required battery (hence the pulsating light) and hibernation just dumped everything on the HD and therefore didnt require any battery power!
Sleep mode 3 to me describes what my MBP should be doing i.e. when battery power is low enough go to sleep mode (pulsating light) but save ram content on the hd at the same time so that if the battery runs out before you plug it to the mains, your stuff will still be saved.

Let me get this straight, is it:

1. The MacBook Pro runs completely out of battery --> Turns off completely + No pulsating light straight away.

2. The MacBook Pro runs completely out of battery --> Goes to sleep --> Pulsating light for a while and THEN it stops pulsating?

 

[Menge]

Let me get this straight, is it:

1. The MacBook Pro runs completely out of battery --> Turns off completely + No pulsating light straight away.

2. The MacBook Pro runs completely out of battery --> Goes to sleep --> Pulsating light for a while and THEN it stops pulsating?

My Core2Duo MBP does #1, I believe.
Why does this matter? If you're out of battery to the point where the computer stops you from using it to save your work, why insist it only sleeps and not hibernate?

 

[millerb7]

Prism,

Hibernation still uses power. If you let a machine hibernate for roughly 5 hours the battery will COMPLETELY die. This is part of calibration. Stated so right on apples site & documentation.

Hibernation uses less power. The theory is this:

When a computer idles out, or you shut the lid, it goes to sleep. The image is stored in your ram. Due to this, it requires more power to keep that image.

If the machine then runs out of enough power while sleeping, it will go into hibernate. Hibernate writes the image to the HDD. At this point, the battery DOES still have some power, just not enough to power the machine.

You have your hibernate mode set to 3. In this case, every time you put your machine to sleep you are saving your image to the ram AND the HDD. Under power loss like I stated before, you are restoring from your HDD. This of course, uses up HDD space that is equal to (plus a small amount on top of that) your RAM size. So if you run 8GB ram like me, it'll use up 8GB HDD space with it set to 3. I set mine to 0 (as I have no need for hibernate) and then delete my sleep image file to free up the room.

Anyways, make sure you calibrate your battery as already stated, and If you want to avoid safesleep then change hibernatemode to 0 IMO.

Your computer is fine

 

[Menge]

Hibernation still uses power. If you let a machine hibernate for roughly 5 hours the battery will COMPLETELY die.

Hibernation uses no power. Hibernation completely shuts off the computer. That's why it needs the contents of RAM written to the HD.

When a computer idles out, or you shut the lid, it goes to sleep. The image is stored in your ram. Due to this, it requires more power to keep that image.

This is correct. But on Macs, the contents of RAM are simultaneously written to the HD as you said later on. This is what OS X calls "Safe sleep". Just in case your computer runs out of power while sleeping, it will still resume its state fine from disk.

If the machine then runs out of enough power while sleeping, it will go into hibernate. Hibernate writes the image to the HDD. At this point, the battery DOES still have some power, just not enough to power the machine.

Also kind of correct. When a Mac is sleeping and runs out of power, it just shuts itself off. The RAM image is already written to the HD at this point due to Safe Sleep.