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zolagol · Nov 28, 2004, 11:42 AM

i usually turn off my PBook every night before going to bed, and power it up every morning...
is it better to just keep in on (and maybe put in 'sleep mode', rather than routinely powering on and off?
any additional 'wear' on the power elements?
thanks.

G4 PBook, 1.3, 256, combo

iPoder · Nov 28, 2004, 12:28 PM

Power-on will cause electricity spike in the circuitry, which adds wear-and-tear to the hardware.

It is better to keep the notebook in the sleep mode. Besides, it takes Mac OS X no time to wake up.

Additionally, you probably want to add more memory (256 MB is too little). Without enough memory, Mac OS X will constantly use disk-caching, which produces more heat and reduces your hardware lifetime.

tooki · Nov 28, 2004, 12:36 PM

The power on surge of electricity is urban legend.

In a laptop, sleep and shutting down both shut down pretty much everything (in sleep mode, the CPU is barely turned on, and just the RAM keeps running).

You're not gonna hurt anything by shutting down every night, but it's also not help. Since it's the same, basically, I suggest just sleeping, since it's more convenient.

tooki

iPoder · Nov 28, 2004, 01:05 PM

I remember that there are terms "cold-start" and "warm-start" in circuitry theories. But maybe technologies have advanced that it no longer matters that much.

However, check out the article as in the link

http://www.help2go.com/article92.html,

and another

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives...9238.Cs.r.html

Basically, the links tell you that it is still better to leave it on if you plan to use it often enough, and shut it off if you plan to leave it off for a long time.

d.fine · Nov 28, 2004, 03:12 PM

Sleep it, I've been doing it for months without problems ...

Besides it takes about 3 seconds to wake up, no wait !

chabig · Nov 29, 2004, 12:38 AM

I haven't shut down a Mac laptop in three years. Sleep is so much nicer. It's one of the Mac advantages that always impresses my Windows friends.

Randman · Nov 29, 2004, 03:07 AM

Hence the reason Apple put the power button in the back of the new iMacs. So people would put the computer to sleep rather than shutting it down and starting it up all of the time.

tooki · Nov 29, 2004, 10:52 AM

Originally posted by iPoder:
I remember that there are terms "cold-start" and "warm-start" in circuitry theories. But maybe technologies have advanced that it no longer matters that much.

However, check out the article as in the link

http://www.help2go.com/article92.html,

and another

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives...9238.Cs.r.html

Basically, the links tell you that it is still better to leave it on if you plan to use it often enough, and shut it off if you plan to leave it off for a long time.

But most of the reasons don't even apply to laptops, where components are shut off even when the computer is turned on. There's very little practical difference between sleep mode and powering off; most of the components ARE off in sleep mode, and some of the components keep running when powered off. I still don't believe that it's a big deal the way those sites make it out to be.

tooki

paularizer · Nov 29, 2004, 12:07 PM

How could you keep your PB on for months? I mean doesn't it need to be refreshed every now and again? What happens with my PB when I haven't turned it off for a while is the icons for certain file types get mixed up. For example, the icon for say a zip file will be that of a pdf file or something, it picks it at random, and that's like a sign to me that it's time to refresh. I have a G4 AlBook OSX 10.3.5 by the way.

So yeah, does anybody ever encounter what I'm talking about? And is there something I can do about?

zolagol · Nov 30, 2004, 12:27 AM

well, thanks for all your feedback...
although it's still a debate...i think all i'll 'sleep' it....and power off at least once a week...

webcookie · Nov 30, 2004, 07:58 AM

I have been keeping my iBook on sleep since I got it, but I had a little hiccup the other day and Apple Care recommended I reboot once a week. I'd never really heard that before about Apples, much less the notebooks. But it won't hurt to reboot every week, I guess.

Randman · Nov 30, 2004, 08:05 AM

Honestly, a logoff or clearing of the cache, reparing permissions, running cron jobs, qutting and restarting an application, making sure you have enough ram, relaunching the Finder, etc., should accomplish everything that a restart does, as far as maintaining your Mac.

The easiest thing to do, however, is experiment. Leave it on for a week or two and see how it performs, see if gets sluggish. Then try it and do the stuff I mentioned above. Then try it with a restart. See what works best for you and your computer that way.

For the record, I only shut down when going away for more than a few days or doing a major system install/upgrade. Been doing that on every Mac I've owned for OSX (clamshell iBook, IceBook G3 and G4 and a PB17).

chris v · Nov 30, 2004, 08:58 AM

I just close the lid on mine whan it's time to move it. If it's plugged in, I'll leave it running. My Powerbook is by far the most stable machine out of the six I own right now-- recently had 81 days uptime, and now it's back over 20.

If it starts behaving weirdly, or crashing, sometimes a restart will fix things up, but otherwise, there's no need.

typoon · Dec 1, 2004, 01:22 PM

I usually put my powerbook to sleep (closing the lid) when I'm on the move. I know at work they did something so I have to restart it but it's pretty minor. Other than that Sleep is the most convient way. Open lid and go. If you have a password then open lid, enter password and go.

cambro · Dec 1, 2004, 04:52 PM

Originally posted by chabig:
I haven't shut down a Mac laptop in three years. Sleep is so much nicer. It's one of the Mac advantages that always impresses my Windows friends.

Yup, I agree. The only reason I restart is for software updates...which happen about once a month.

As mentioned, there is no real reason to shutdown your laptop unless you will not be using it for a long time.

tooki · Dec 1, 2004, 05:24 PM

Originally posted by paularizer:
How could you keep your PB on for months? I mean doesn't it need to be refreshed every now and again?

No need to shut down. Just restart if that needs to be done.

I doubt that the people above meant that their computer hadn't been restarted in months or years, just that it's never shut down. They likely just restart as needed, and keep it in sleep when not in use. That is what I do.

tooki