[paularizer]

putting it to sleep drains the battery. if i don't use it for say a day, it'll drain around 20% of the battery. so i started shutting it down, so that if i shut it down at 100% charge it'll still be at 100% when i turn it on. but i remember reading something about how shutting down all the time is bad.

would appreciate suggestions.

[iREZ]

20%? There's something else going on there, you should be losing at most about 10% of your battery when leaving it to sleep for a day. On avg I lose about 2% when I put my computer to sleep for about 12 hours while I'm at work. Check to see if your screen saver is coming on before your machine is going to sleep as that's probably the culprit draining your battery that much that quick. I never shut my machine down unless I'm cleaning it or have installed an update (mbp 2.4).

[EndlessMac]

I put my computer to sleep during the day because I use it off and on or basically whenever I step away from the computer for a few minutes. It's so quick and easy to sleep the computer so why pay the electric company extra money? At the end of the day I actually turn off my computer. Macs are so much quicker to start up and turn off than Windows that I don't find it inconvenient to do so.

My family's electric bill is already high enough so I'm motivated to do so, but also why give the electric company any extra money when you don't have to?

Originally Posted by paularizer 

but i remember reading something about how shutting down all the time is bad.

I believe that was more in the past when computers weren't as reliably built and you would have to be turning on and off the computer many times a day for it to cause problems. I turn my computer on and off at least once a day and have been doing so for about 4 years with my PowerBook. It hasn't caused any problems with my computers. Actually that's what I have always done and I've been using computers for over 20 years.

[Big Mac]

Yeah, your battery should only drain a couple of battery percentage points for every day a computer sleeps.

[Simon]

Shutting down isn't good or bad per se. It's simply a pain because you have to quit all your work and later wait for your Mac to boot up again (it's fast, but still nowhere close to as fast as waking from sleep).

The battery will drain during sleep. But who cares if you can plug it in before it reaches zero?

And if you're worried about cycles, just plug it in while it's sleeping.

[IronPen]

Some technicians do believe that frequent shutdowns/startups can shorten the life of your computer due to the cooling/heating issue involved in the process (the system cools when you shut it off, then you send a burst of warm power surging through it when you turn it on). Personally, unless I am not expected to use the machine for a couple of days, which is rare unless I'm on vacation, I leave mine on. I like it to be ready when I need it, and the battery drain doesn't bother me.

You might want to close down your applications to help conserve battery if that is your concern. The system sleeps, but it is not off. Processes can still run in memory. 20% in a day when it has only been sleeping does seem like a lot. So try shutting down your apps first or logout then close the lid or put the system to sleep to see if that makes a difference.

[EndlessMac]

Originally Posted by IronPen 

Some technicians do believe that frequent shutdowns/startups can shorten the life of your computer due to the cooling/heating issue involved in the process (the system cools when you shut it off, then you send a burst of warm power surging through it when you turn it on).

It would have to be very frequent because I doubt it would make much of difference in normal usage. For those of us who shut down our computers I'm sure it's only once a day usually at the end of the day.

Turning off and on the computer as opposed to sleeping at night is more of an issue about convenience. I don't mind the few seconds it takes to turn off and on my computer but everyone has their own preferences.

[Jemi9OD]

I leave mine on at night because my screen saver is my clock, and my alarm is software based. So I don't shut it down unless I need to for some reason.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by IronPen 

Some technicians do believe that frequent shutdowns/startups can shorten the life of your computer due to the cooling/heating issue involved in the process (the system cools when you shut it off, then you send a burst of warm power surging through it when you turn it on).

Originally Posted by EndlessMac 

It would have to be very frequent because I doubt it would make much of difference in normal usage. For those of us who shut down our computers I'm sure it's only once a day usually at the end of the day.

Turning off and on the computer as opposed to sleeping at night is more of an issue about convenience. I don't mind the few seconds it takes to turn off and on my computer but everyone has their own preferences.

Thermal cycling is less of an issue than battery cycling-which is to say that it really isn't an issue at all. Components are VERY quickly cycled to a VERY high temperature during the manufacturing process (lead-based solder melts at around 360ºF/182ºC, non-lead solder at around 420ºF/220ºC); they can handle the highest operating temperatures encountered without even noticing. A faulty component may perform differently with thermal cycling, but then, if it's faulty that's not an issue, right?

Convenience is THE issue here. My MBP gets turned off when I leave work because I don't know when I'll use it next, and I use my iMac at home. My iMac sleeps most of the time when it's not being used. Please note that the difference in power consumption between "off" and "sleep" in a "late 2007 iMac" is VERY small-less than 1.5W for off and less than 2W for sleep-so I'm not even "damaging the environment" by using sleep (I've converted almost all my lights at home to CFLs (and the bad ones get recycled), so I come out on the "negative" side of energy use in the end).

[Simon]

There is no difference in heat cycles between sleeping and shutting off. If you sleep your MB it's power usage drops to a few percent of normal. As a consequence it will cool down to ambient temperature. Just like it would if you shut it off.

[Koralatov]

With both my Clamshell and MBP, I never turn them off unless they’re going to be unused for a while, or I’m cleaning them. The MBP can sleep for days without losing too much charge. I’ve never tested it in any scientific way, but I’ve slept it for a couple of days on a full charge and still managed to get a couple hours of use out of it when I did wake it up.

The Clamshell has an almost completely exhausted battery (about 8% of original capacity, according to Coconut battery), and it can sleep for literally days without dying.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Simon 

There is no difference in heat cycles between sleeping and shutting off. If you sleep your MB it's power usage drops to a few percent of normal. As a consequence it will cool down to ambient temperature. Just like it would if you shut it off.

This is exactly correct.

As far as the electrics are concerned, a sleeping machine IS OFF - the *only* difference is a minimal voltage supply to the RAM, to ensure that the RAM contents are still there when the machine is woken and won't have to be reloaded from the hard disk. This allows work to resume *immediately* (i.e. as fast as you can open up the machine).

Everything else is in exactly the same state it would be had you shut down the computer.

And as for 20% a day - on my Powerbook, I could always figure about 1% battery per hour of sleep. I haven't bothered to check whether this has changed on my MacBook (late 2006).

[paularizer]

very informative. thanks a lot.

[macsareawesome123]

I shut down when I go to sleep because my macbook keeps calling me to play on it.

But during the day, I let my computer go to sleep. I am always surprised how well the battery remains. As well as on my ibook.