[frankthetank966]

My friend who has been a long time Mac OS X user ays it is not good to restart the computer unless you have to. Like if it freezes or if you download something and it tells you to. I personally htink this is the biggest load of s### Ive ever heard. I use the energy saver and it turns off my mac everday and turns it back on. Is this also a bad tool to use?

[abbaZaba]

I've heard bigger loads of **** before

[Chuckit]

I too have heard bigger loads of ****, but it still isn't bad to restart.

[stravinsky1911]

The reason your friend has told you this is:

Every time you turn off your computer completely, you are removing most of the electricity from the circuit boards and their components. This cools the components as well. When the computer restarts from this state, it is a tiny jolt to bring all of the components back online and functioning, as well as heating them up again. So theoretically, all of this heating/cooling/jolting should be kept to a minimum, thus the reasoning that it is bad to shut down and restart unless you have to.

However - with normal use I think you have have to do this for years and years before it would actually be the cause of a failure - probably past the useful life of the computer. BUT - your friend is right that it is better to keep it running. You can of course put your mac to sleep to save energy, but even then the components are cooling to almost neutral temp (besides the ram/sleep light/networking circuits).

[ghporter]

In 1987, power-cycling a computer was not the best thing for the hardware. The materials and components were not as robust as they are today, and thermal management was in its infancy. The same could be said for power supplies and disk drives-THEN.

This is the twenty-first freakin' century! Hardware is BUILT for having power cycles and extremes in temperature. Further, hardware is "smarter" today, too. When you turn stuff on, it comes on in stages so that the components don't all get "shocked" by the application of power all at once; this is particularly true of desktop power supplies, but it applies to just about everything in one way or another. My CAR even starts in stages-its computer turns off everything except the start up equipment when it starts, and does not turn them back on until the engine is running properly.

Avoiding restarts because "they're hard on the equipment" went out with believing that there was some poor kid who would stay on dialysis unless you sent in a ton of cigarette packages and forwarded that email to as many people as possible.

[Chuckit]

It wasn't even that bad back in the '80s. My family used to always turn on and off our 512K Macintosh whenever we wanted to use it, and it lasted us until we got a better computer seven years later. It might still work for all I know.

[frankthetank966]

I use energy saver "schedule" to turn off my comp. at 12 am and turn it on at 7 am. Is this a bad thing to use?

[besson3c]

I think the main risk of restarting your computer is in encountering disk problems you didn't realize you had that prevent it from booting.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I think the main risk of restarting your computer is in encountering disk problems you didn't realize you had that prevent it from booting.

Which is a bit like saying "The risk of going to the doctor is that you might find out you have a horrible disease and get hospitalized."

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Which is a bit like saying "The risk of going to the doctor is that you might find out you have a horrible disease and get hospitalized."

Kind of... but if you didn't reboot, there wouldn't have been a problem.

I agree with you. If your computer is hosed, and working fine (with a critical error hiding in the background) it's living on borrowed time.

IMHO, rebooting isn't bad for the system. In fact, it's a nice way to refresh the OS.

[Madrag]

I think the only *bad* thing of a day-to-day shutdown/reboot is having to open the apps and documents you were working on, compared to putting the mac to sleep, where you don't need to re-open the apps

As for the hardware, before the sleep option, I never had any problem with any of my macs, and that's years before the sleep was available.

[CheesePuff]

Originally Posted by frankthetank966 

I use energy saver "schedule" to turn off my comp. at 12 am and turn it on at 7 am. Is this a bad thing to use?

Of course not. It would not be a built-in option to Mac OS X if it was not good.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Which is a bit like saying "The risk of going to the doctor is that you might find out you have a horrible disease and get hospitalized."

I obviously agree that keeping your disks healthy is a good thing, I was just pointing out that it might force you to deal with the problem at a particular time that you don't want to (e.g. 5 minutes before an important presentation or something).

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by CheesePuff 

Of course not. It would not be a built-in option to Mac OS X if it was not good.

Well, I don't know if that's a strong argument.

Sleep is built-in, too, for a reason.

I don't see the advantage of powering your computer down everyday except to save a few pennies on electricity.

-t

[Salty]

I've seen the opposite, people who shut down their laptops, including brand new MacBooks if they're not using them because they either way to save power, or because they think it's better for the system. I typically ask them... you realize if you just shut the lid I'll use almost no power and restart much quicker?

[steve626]

Restarting can counter some effects of software that has memory leaks, and it also restarts with one minimal virtual memory file, which if the computer is never restarted will multiply and grow with time. Not earthshattering reasons to restart, but still worth it once in a while.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Salty 

I've seen the opposite, people who shut down their laptops, including brand new MacBooks if they're not using them because they either way to save power, or because they think it's better for the system. I typically ask them... you realize if you just shut the lid I'll use almost no power and restart much quicker?

I could not have predicted this Friday evening when I finished with my MBP, but I did NOT even touch it all Saturday. So my turning it off was a better choice than just putting it to sleep from an energy standpoint.

And I timed it this morning: from the push of the power button to a full desktop with full functionality was LESS THAN 25 seconds. It takes me at least that long to get settled at my desk and to get my chair pulled in correctly... So the "it starts much quicker" issue is true - it typically takes about 5 seconds to wake my MBP - but the difference is trivial to most people. It isn't WORSE for the system, and even though the savings is minimal, it DOES save power. So why are so many people so adamantly against turning off their Macs?

As for the memory leaks steve 626 mentioned above, I expect much better from commercial software-I got BIG points taken off in school if my projects weren't good about housekeeping, and I expect commercial software to be at least as well made as my school projects. But with that said, it's still possible to encounter leaks, lost allocations and other memory issues, and restarting clears that sort of thing up very thoroughly.

[red rocket]

Originally Posted by turtle777

I don't see the advantage of powering your computer down everyday except to save a few pennies on electricity.

You're doing something good for the environment, that's the advantage.

[chabig]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

You're doing something good for the environment, that's the advantage.

I don't think you're saving anything. The computer will use more power starting up than it ever would have used while sleeping.

Chris

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by chabig 

I don't think you're saving anything. The computer will use more power starting up than it ever would have used while sleeping.

Chris

Respectfully, I have seen this argument a number of times, but no data to go with it. Can you prove that ALL Macs use more power starting up than they use sleeping overnight? Any idea where one might find objective data about this?

[chabig]

All you have to do it download any of the battery monitoring apps. Note the battery charge in mAh. Restart the machine and note the batter charge. Subtract to find the cost of a restart. Then do the same comparison, letting the machine sleep overnight.

I'll try it and let you know my results.

Chris

[frankthetank966]

Originally Posted by chabig 

All you have to do it download any of the battery monitoring apps. Note the battery charge in mAh. Restart the machine and note the batter charge. Subtract to find the cost of a restart. Then do the same comparison, letting the machine sleep overnight.

I'll try it and let you know my results.

Chris

rhanks i will just see your results... nice

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by chabig 

All you have to do it download any of the battery monitoring apps. Note the battery charge in mAh. Restart the machine and note the batter charge. Subtract to find the cost of a restart. Then do the same comparison, letting the machine sleep overnight.

I'll try it and let you know my results.

Chris

That is really brilliant. So simple and yet so extremely effective. If I get a second or two I'll try it with my MBP.

[CharlesS]

Did you really laugh your ass off when you posted this topic?

[frankthetank966]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Did you really laugh your ass off when you posted this topic?

yea, it was painfull luckily i had a friend who took me to the hospital quickly

[chabig]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

That is really brilliant. So simple and yet so extremely effective. If I get a second or two I'll try it with my MBP.

OK. Here are the results of my test. I have a 12" Powerbook G4, 1.5GHz:

Restarting used 20 mAh.
Sleeping used 3 mAh per hour. (this was tested over 5 hours)

So the break even point for my machine is between 6-7 hours. Less than that and sleeping consumes less power. More than that and shutting it down consumes less. Your mileage may vary. I'm anxious to here other results.

Chris

[frankthetank966]

Originally Posted by chabig 

OK. Here are the results of my test. I have a 12" Powerbook G4, 1.5GHz:

Restarting used 20 mAh.
Sleeping used 3 mAh per hour. (this was tested over 5 hours)

So the break even point for my machine is between 6-7 hours. Less than that and sleeping consumes less power. More than that and shutting it down consumes less. Your mileage may vary. I'm anxious to here other results.

Chris

i do not really understand what you are saying.

[chabig]

When the computer is shut down, let's just assume that the battery charge remains unchanged. And it takes 20mAh to restart it. So if the machine is shut down for 10 hours, it'll take 20mAh of battery charge to restart it.

Now, if I just put the machine to sleep instead, it will use 3mAh or charge per hour of sleep. So over a 10 hours sleep period, the machine will wake up with 30mAh of batter charge used up.

Therefore, if saving the battery is the only concern (ignoring startup time, open documents, etc.) then it makes more sense to shut down the Powerbook for 10 hours instead of letting it sleep.

I never shut down my computer, but I performed this exercise for ghporter.

Chris

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by frankthetank966 

i do not really understand what you are saying.

For that particular model of computer at least, it uses less power to leave the computer asleep for up to seven hours. After seven hours, the amount of power consumed by sleep mode becomes greater than the amount of power it takes to start the computer up.

[l008com]

You could also plug your computer into one of those kill-a-watt devices to test it that way. The only computer I shut down is my old blue G3, because those machines tend to crash when they sleep, plus all the fans stay on while sleeping so its very very noisy.

[frankthetank966]

Ahh thanks great responses guys!!! I guess the best thing for the Macbook is to let it sleep

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by l008com 

The only computer I shut down is my old blue G3, because those machines tend to crash when they sleep, plus all the fans stay on while sleeping so its very very noisy.

Yeah, I hated that about my old G3 iMac's fans.

[l008com]

I'm DYING to replace this machine with a Mac Mini.

[frankthetank966]

Originally Posted by l008com 

I'm DYING to replace this machine with a Mac Mini.

what machine are you using?

[Coxswain Bahls]

http://forums.macnn.com/images/smilies/bang.gif

Apple Engineers recommend that your Mac be left on 24/7.

Why then are the default Energy Saver prefs out of the box have it set to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity? Because most users who don't know, or understand, or care would complain about the electricity being wasted by leaving it on 24/7.

Most Mac users (apparently including veteran member FrankTheTank) are unaware of the daily, weekly and monthly Periodics (UNIX tasks) that are scheduled to run between 1 & 5 am? Unless you have taken some steps to reschedule these tasks (i.e. Lingon) to run at a time when your Mac is on & not sleeping, you are not letting these necessary jobs run!

Over the last 10 years, I have had my hands on thousands (yes, thousands) of Mac systems.
There is a noticable a difference in the behavior of the OS X systems that are left on all night (without letting the system sleep), and with those that are turned off each night (or let go to sleep) before the Periodics have ran.

Unless there will be several days, or weeks, of not using your Mac, keep it on all the time. Even if there may be 4+ days of not using your Mac. Set the Energy Saver prefs to Never let the system sleep. (sure, let your display sleep - but not the system). Your Mac can be left running for months at a time without a reboot or shut down & it will run just fine. Or better as is my experience.

It isn't the random reboots that are bad for your Mac, but the cooling and reheating of the circuitry as mentioned by Stravinsky1911. (this is accurate). This does not apply only to older computers, but more so of newer electronics. In the 20th century, (the 60's, 70's) soldering was applied thicker and was able to withstand more of the up & down temp changes. (hence the reason my older audio receivers and such are still running well, while my 3 year old Sony receiver is a pile of techno-waste & no longer works. - guess why? bad solder connections.) The solder on the logic boards of today is applied by machines very thinly and is actually very delicate. Ask a hardware repair technician.

The pennies saved on your electricity bill by letting your computer sleep, or shut down each night, will never add up to the cost of a logic board replacement on any Mac.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Coxswain Bahls 

http://forums.macnn.com/images/smilies/bang.gif

My thoughts exactly.

Apple Engineers recommend that your Mac be left on 24/7.

Link, please.

Most Mac users (apparently including veteran member FrankTheTank) are unaware of the daily, weekly and monthly Periodics (UNIX tasks) that are scheduled to run between 1 & 5 am? Unless you have taken some steps to reschedule these tasks (i.e. Lingon) to run at a time when your Mac is on & not sleeping, you are not letting these necessary jobs run!

Yes, you are. In OS X 10.4 and up, launchd is designed to automatically run the periodic tasks that were supposed to go off while the computer is asleep during the next time it's awake. Some people in here were complaining that it sometimes missed a day or so, but considering that all the periodic scripts do is rotate the log files, delete miscellaneous temp files, back up the NetInfo database, and update the locate and whatis databases, it's really not that big a deal.

[frankthetank966]

Originally Posted by Coxswain Bahls 

Most Mac users (apparently including veteran member FrankTheTank)

I realize you are making fun of me since I am a "veteran" and post a lot. I do realize that but this is mainly because I just switched over to Mac OS X after 15+ comfortable years on Windows. I needed some help. But go ahead bash me. I bought a Macbook I am used to **** nowadays!!!

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Some people in here were complaining that it sometimes missed a day or so

I can arrange to sell you 2 Macs (that I know of) which do not run those tasks. Period.

I suppose a full erase and install MIGHT snap them out of their daze... but that would
nullify any possibility of troubleshooting their current condition to determine a cause.

You might want to re-read that thread. Saying some Macs miss "a day" is like saying
the US is involved in a chess tournament in the Middle East. Weekly tasks missed for
two months, and -- in one case -- a monthly task that has never run since the Mac
was turned on. I don't get it: what do you profit by ignoring these facts Charles?

Anyway, let me know if you'd like to purchase these "rare" Macs.
(Actually, they're not that rare... but as long as you think they are).

[CharlesS]

The monthly script does almost nothing of note. The weekly script basically updates the locate database and the whatis database, which will not affect performance at all, and actually won't affect you in any way unless you use the locate command in the Terminal a lot, in which case you probably know how to update the thing yourself. The daily script is the only one that does anything notable, and even that's a stretch.

Please tell me how this is such a grave issue that means everyone needs to leave their Macs running all night without even putting them to sleep, or else these big, nasty, scary consequences will occur.

[Eriamjh]

Using the computer at all is bad for it. It lasts longer if it just sits in the corner, unplugged and covered.

[frankthetank966]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

Using the computer at all is bad for it. It lasts longer if it just sits in the corner, unplugged and covered.

darn i shouldve done that....

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

The monthly script does almost nothing of note. The weekly script basically updates the locate database and the whatis database, which will not affect performance at all, and actually won't affect you in any way unless you use the locate command in the Terminal a lot, in which case you probably know how to update the thing yourself. The daily script is the only one that does anything notable, and even that's a stretch.

All true. No argument there (never was).

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Please tell me how this is such a grave issue that means everyone needs to leave their Macs running all night without even putting them to sleep, or else these big, nasty, scary consequences will occur.

Why should I tell you any such thing? I never have in the past.
As usual, the dispute here has been twisted and spun around.

Here is what we contest: you claim those scripts will always play catch-up within a day or two,
and I assert that ain't always the case. That's it. launchd has bugs in its StartCalendarInterval
code, yet you publicly proclaim its perfection. I never stated that if those Unix periodics don't
run then the computer will explode or anything. But neither would I advocate that anyone rely
upon launchd to manage their own custom periodic scripts in a timely fashion. Simple as that.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis 

All true. No argument there (never was).

Then we don't have anything to argue about.

Why should I tell you any such thing? I never have in the past.
As usual, the dispute here has been twisted and spun around.

You didn't specifically, but that's the thread topic. It's been stated that no one should ever shut down, restart, or sleep their Mac because of the periodic scripts. Just let the display sleep, they say, and nothing else. There's a guy who was claiming there was a noticeable performance difference between Macs that run at night and ones that don't, and claiming 10 years of experience to back it up, which is kind of silly because OS X and its periodic scripts didn't exist 10 years ago, and launchd most certainly didn't. It's this kind of Chicken Little FUD that I object to, along with such crap as "you must repair permissions before and after every installation you do, including both Software Update and drag-and-drop installs, and every time you do something in your home folder that has nothing to do with the Repair Permissions feature, and every time you move your mouse. If you don't, your computer will explode, and spew radioactive material all over your neighborhood, making the land uninhabitable for approximately 500 years." You'd think that OS X was the flimsiest, least reliable piece of crap ever designed by programmers. Really guys, it's a damn stable OS and doesn't need anywhere near this kind of obsessive-compulsive behavior just to keep it running!

[steve626]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

You'd think that OS X was the flimsiest, least reliable piece of crap ever designed by programmers. Really guys, it's a damn stable OS and doesn't need anywhere near this kind of obsessive-compulsive behavior just to keep it running!

But the folks who hang out here WANT to "maintain" their computers, and they are even a bit frustrated that there isn't that much for them "to do" (I confess I feel that way sometimes). Look at the flood of "downloading and installing right now" posts that happen when something like a Security Update gets released. Folks pounce on it because they've been starved for doing something to their OS and finally something has come along.

Reminds me a bit of the Mercury and Gemini astronauts who were all crack test pilots but their job was to sit inside a little capsule that went up into space and then plopped down in the ocean. They all demanded to be empowered to fire thrusters, steer, or *do something* but NASA said no, you sit in the capsule and ride, that's your job. Finally one of them got frustrated when the capsule landed in the ocean and rather than just wait for the helicopter to pick him up, he activated the explosive bolts to pop open the door, and out he went onto a life raft ... but the space capsule itself promptly filled with water and sank to his great embarrassment and NASA's fury.

Well, MacNN readers/posters include a lot of "top gun pilots" who probably feel like Mercury astronauts and the fact that the Mac doesn't really need much "maintenance" is probably frustrating to them. I have three Macs in our house (four if you count the 7100 with a G3 card running OS 9) and most all I do is run backups every couple of days. Yes I check if the periodic tasks have run and they always seem to "catch up" even if the computer running Tiger sleeps all night, and I do run Disk Warrior and fsck before any OS upgrade or Security Update, but it never seems to find anything of note. I remember when people used to get bored and do thing like run Norton-type software or utilities to "optimize" their disks and end up causing big problems.

If you're really looking for more computer "action," I'd say you won't find it with Mac OS updates or "maintenance," but you can get Parallels and install it and then you'll be busy every day with WIndows updates and the like and sorting through all kinds of Windows peculiarities. And I guess the release of 10.5 will lead to a flurry of activity for a while ....

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

The monthly script does almost nothing of note. The weekly script basically updates the locate database and the whatis database, which will not affect performance at all, and actually won't affect you in any way unless you use the locate command in the Terminal a lot, in which case you probably know how to update the thing yourself. The daily script is the only one that does anything notable, and even that's a stretch.

Please tell me how this is such a grave issue that means everyone needs to leave their Macs running all night without even putting them to sleep, or else these big, nasty, scary consequences will occur.

Mac users seem so accepting of Mac voodoo troubleshooting tricks that they never seem interested in learning what these jobs actually do. Got a problem? Try zapping your PRAM... Computer running slow? Repairing permissions will help!

If these jobs were really important, Apple would use Anacron rather than Cron for these jobs.

[CharlesS]

They actually don't use cron anymore. All the periodic tasks are handled by launchd, which usually runs them.

I bet that Leopard will fix this little bug and then there'll be nothing left to argue about at all.

[besson3c]

How does one restart a LaunchD service? This has always seemed awkward to me... WHat is the difference between load/unload and stop/start exactly? I'm assuming that stop is actually the same as a restart? Will it reread config files and actually restart as one would expect, because I remember having problems in this respect and resorting to an unload/load, which is awkward.

Will Launchd work with intervals, or just absolute times?

[digital_dreamer]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

In 1987, power-cycling a computer was not the best thing for the hardware. The materials and components were not as robust as they are today, and thermal management was in its infancy. The same could be said for power supplies and disk drives-THEN.

This is the twenty-first freakin' century! Hardware is BUILT for having power cycles and extremes in temperature. Further, hardware is "smarter" today, too. When you turn stuff on, it comes on in stages so that the components don't all get "shocked" by the application of power all at once; this is particularly true of desktop power supplies, but it applies to just about everything in one way or another. My CAR even starts in stages-its computer turns off everything except the start up equipment when it starts, and does not turn them back on until the engine is running properly.

Avoiding restarts because "they're hard on the equipment" went out with believing that there was some poor kid who would stay on dialysis unless you sent in a ton of cigarette packages and forwarded that email to as many people as possible.

Is a restart considered power-cycling?
My understanding of a restart in modern CPUs is that it's a graceful shutdown and reboot without powering off. At the moment it is safe for powering off, a motherboard reset is executed. Hard drives on the power bus are not shut down, obviously, and doing so for that brief moment would be counter-productive and harmful to the drives. For all practical purposes, no power surge should be produced as nothing is turned off.

regards,
MAJ

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

You're doing something good for the environment, that's the advantage.

Well, yeah, but how about starting in areas that REALLY make a difference. Get rid of your truck, get your home Energy Star rated, stop eating fast food, re-use plastic bags for shopping etc.

-t

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Try zapping your PRAM...

Does that do anything good under OS X ?

I remember using it a lot in OS 8 and 9, but not in X.

-t