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kevs · Sep 21, 2004, 06:48 PM

I always put computer to sleep when I done and touch keyboard when I'm back. There seems to be school of thought that you actually put less wear and tear on computer by leaving it on all time. What do others think?

Same question with monitors. thanks

jmiddel · Sep 21, 2004, 09:18 PM

I have my energy saver set to never sleep, spin down HD in 7 minutes, same time to blacken the monitor. My reasoning is that a) sleep can cause weird problems in some cases, and b) OS X runs housekeeping (chron) jobs daily, monthly and weekly at some very late night time when most people would not be working.
The spin down times eliminate the wear and tear on HD and monitor, regarding the CPU and other chips, resistors etc. some people think that turning solid state gear on and off is more stressful then letting it run continuously, I would generally agree.

That said, if you do sleep it, be sure to get a program like macaroni (search www.versiontracker.com for chron jobs) and set it to automatically run the chron jobs at startup, they only take seconds, but they do keep things from getting effed up.

kevs · Sep 22, 2004, 01:01 AM

thanks jm
I run my scripts manually once a month so that is not a big issue for me.

Isn't what you are doing similar to sleep in that your hd is spinning down? That's like a semi sleep? Maybe I need a definition of sleep.

Your monitor go black without you having to turn them off?

Does everything pop back on with touch of keyboard or do you have to boot up?

Big Mac · Sep 22, 2004, 04:06 AM

The previous poster means he sets the display to sleep after seven minutes, just as he allows the drives to spin down after seven minutes. We already covered this subject briefly over on the Power Mac forum: See this thread.

Maflynn · Sep 22, 2004, 06:20 AM

Originally posted by jmiddel:
I have my energy saver set to never sleep, spin down HD in 7 minutes, same time to blacken the monitor.

I've found that even with the setting to spin the HD down, OSX does its vm thing so they spin up and down thus eliminating that benefit.
Also your computer is consuming more electricty that your wasting. You don't leave all your lights on because turning them on and off causes wear and tear.

The cron jobs are vastly over-rated, they archive logs, so if your not running out space, or doing heavy duty work which generates large logs, then you are not receiving any performance benefit from running this nightly. These jobs were part of Unix and were needed since a large base of Unix machines are servers that generate large logs.

Overall leaving the computer on is a waste of resourses, it still reduces the life of the hard drives (as I mentioned osx spins them up) and you do not maintain or gain performance from leaving it on.

Mike

kevs · Sep 22, 2004, 12:07 PM

That's what I think common sense would dictate. You don't leave your lights, or your car, or your tv, or your electrical kitchen appliances on... although you could.

I had to ask because I talk to Apple product specialist ie some senior level techs who are even in that school who keeps the computer running all time.

SSharon · Sep 22, 2004, 03:35 PM

There are other reasons to put the computer to sleep. I have the MDD and if I want to sleep with the room quite the computer has to be sleeping as well. Sleep, also disables everything running, it saves the ram contents and powers them but nothing else so it wakes up quickly, but no background applications, no internet connection, etc.
Because of this I like to leave my computer running, so my web/ftp servers are up and so I can remotely login etc from my ibook. The one other consideration is heat. When the computer is sleeping much less heat is produced and all the fans spin down whereas if the hard drives have just spin down the power supply is still going.

Powaqqatsi · Sep 22, 2004, 03:47 PM

Just put it to sleep, leaving it on wastes energy and thus natural resources.

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 22, 2004, 03:54 PM

I leave it on because I leave iChat on...and you can't get an iChat message if the computer is sleeping.

Do you guys turn your telephones off? Oh wait...you can't...but whatever...you get the point.

drive-thru · Sep 22, 2004, 07:31 PM

But you can't read your iChat messages if you're asleep. If people want to send you a message and you're not online they can always send you an email. Then you can check your email when you get back to your mac.

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 22, 2004, 08:06 PM

Originally posted by drive-thru:
But you can't read your iChat messages if you're asleep. If people want to send you a message and you're not online they can always send you an email. Then you can check your email when you get back to your mac.

Interesting point...but not everyone knows my e-mail. And I prefer to wake up in the morning and read the iChat messages.

Lancer409 · Sep 22, 2004, 08:44 PM

i sleep my powerbook all the time .. i dunno if it causes any harm but i've been doing it for quite some time now

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 22, 2004, 09:29 PM

Anyways, sleep shouldn't be any problem. It certainly doesn't 'wear and tear' like shut downs and restarts since in sleep mode you haven't turned anything off...there is still a trickle of electricity to keep the RAM and CPU alive.

Sleep is actually the preferred method over shutting down or keeping the computer on (unless you really need to stay online.)

Brass · Sep 22, 2004, 11:00 PM

Originally posted by drive-thru:
But you can't read your iChat messages if you're asleep. If people want to send you a message and you're not online they can always send you an email. Then you can check your email when you get back to your mac.

and you can't answer your telephone in your sleep. But both iChat and your phone can wake you up so that you can answer.

Maflynn · Sep 23, 2004, 06:26 AM

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
I leave it on because I leave iChat on...and you can't get an iChat message if the computer is sleeping.

Do you guys turn your telephones off? Oh wait...you can't...but whatever...you get the point.

No but telephones consumes low voltage, very minor electical comsumption. Computers especially the G5s consumes large ammounts, needlessly uses up our natural resources.

You wouldn't leave your car running at night because you might want to run and get a snack.

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 23, 2004, 07:31 AM

Originally posted by Maflynn:
No but telephones consumes low voltage, very minor electical comsumption. Computers especially the G5s consumes large ammounts, needlessly uses up our natural resources.

You wouldn't leave your car running at night because you might want to run and get a snack.

The electricity man makes is not a natural ressource.

Unless of course you're talking about natural ressources used in making this electricity...in my case it's a combination of flowing water and wind. And these are available in unlimited quantities if you ask me.

If you've got solar panels on your house...you're all set.

leperkuhn · Sep 23, 2004, 10:59 AM

funny you mention this becase i just tried to put my MDD g4 to sleep (which worked) and then wake it up, and it won't wake from deep sleep. It has never worked, and i've added a bunch of stuff since i bought it, (new hd, doubled ram, replaced power supply&fan, usb2 card) so testing it with original hardware is a huge pain.

It won't even respond to pressing the power button to wake it up. Kind of annoying.