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axlepin · May 19, 2004, 09:53 PM

Any thoughts on whether it's OK to put a sleeping iBook (lid closed) into a computer bag for the daily commute or trip to the coffee shop?

I like to save not only the boot time, but also the time of launching the apps and files I plan to work on.

Is there a risk of damaging a hard drive in a sleeping iBook as it undergoes the typical jostling of a train ride, walking, running, bounding up the stairs, etc?

axle

Link · May 19, 2004, 09:54 PM

Nope. The hard drive is shut off as usual.

nikon · May 19, 2004, 10:12 PM

It shouldn't cause any problems. I take my iBook with me all the time and I never turn it off, I just shut it and go. I'm been doing this for a year without any problems.

OldManMac · May 19, 2004, 10:14 PM

I've hauled mine to work and back daily for two years. I never turned it off.

rsgunther · May 19, 2004, 10:33 PM

I have been hauling windoze laptops back & forth to work for about 6 years. I have never shut them down - just close the lid - and they go to sleep. I've never had a hardware problem because of it, however; with windoze, it usually requires a reboot after sleep to get everything working correctly.

Did I mention how happy I am to come home & use my powerbook?

Cipher13 · May 19, 2004, 10:38 PM

That's what it's designed for.

When your iBook is asleep, the head is placed into the same position as when it's off; it's locked into a "resting" position.

Don't worry.

rytc · May 20, 2004, 03:22 AM

Originally posted by axlepin:

Is there a risk of damaging a hard drive in a sleeping iBook as it undergoes the typical jostling of a train ride, walking, running, bounding up the stairs, etc?

I've used mine many a time on the train, hasn't seemed to have harmed it.

ginoledesma · May 20, 2004, 10:02 AM

I put the iBook to sleep more than shutting it down. Actually, the only time I shut my iBook down is when I give it a general cleaning (polishing, scrubbing, etc) or when I access the insides (install/remove RAM/Airport Card, etc). Sleep is definitely a wonderful feature, since it takes just about a second to get back to working state again.

nJm · May 20, 2004, 06:42 PM

Is sleep like Hibernation on windows laptops? It backs up what's in the ram to your HD, and then is turned right off. So when you turn it on again you don't need to go through the boot process.

I wasn't sure, as my new iBook is way faster to wake up than any PC laptop I've used.

holygoat · May 20, 2004, 07:14 PM

Originally posted by nJm:
Is sleep like Hibernation on windows laptops? It backs up what's in the ram to your HD, and then is turned right off. So when you turn it on again you don't need to go through the boot process.

I wasn't sure, as my new iBook is way faster to wake up than any PC laptop I've used.

No.

Windows and Linux support both "sleep" and "suspend to disk" (hibernate). Mac OS X only supports sleep.

Sleep docks the HDD, spins down the optical drive, turns off the display, stalls the processor, but keeps the memory refreshed. When the machine wakes up, it just turns the display back on and sets the processor going. It's like a shutdown, but the RAM is kept lit.

Hibernate writes the contents of memory to a hibernate file, and shuts down completely. The boot process checks for a hibernate log; if there is one, it re-loads RAM and resumes where it left off.

Your iBook is only sleeping.

Main differences: reading half a gig off the disk is slow, which is why resuming from hibernation is slow. However, keeping the RAM hot takes power, which is why you drain battery slowly by sleeping. Tradeoff.

You can actually hibernate a machine then take out the battery with no worries, which can be handy.

nesuser2 · May 30, 2004, 05:37 AM

Hibernate is an extremely nice feature, and the only real problem is with windows. My vaio likes to crap out every couple of months and refuse to unhibernate and I know others who have this problem more frequently. But as stated above, it uses no battery power at all when hibernating and that rocks! Sleep is awesome since it powers up so fast, so...take your pick. Sleep with awesome back up speeds(uhh...1 sec) or a buggy hibernate which could result in the loss of work...if you're not careful!

Also for the record, I always care mine asleep in my booq bag and I've never even given it a second thought. Good questions with great answers

holygoat · May 30, 2004, 12:19 PM

Originally posted by nesuser2:
Hibernate is an extremely nice feature, and the only real problem is with windows. My vaio likes to crap out every couple of months and refuse to unhibernate and I know others who have this problem more frequently.

I have this problem very occasionally with my Dell when it's been left for a number of days. I haven't noticed it recently, though...

But as stated above, it uses no battery power at all when hibernating and that rocks! Sleep is awesome since it powers up so fast, so...take your pick. Sleep with awesome back up speeds(uhh...1 sec) or a buggy hibernate which could result in the loss of work...if you're not careful!

... which coincided with an astonishing improvement in speed of resuming from hibernate. Must have been a Windows patch, but the black screen loading from disk only takes about 4 seconds now, and the display comes up to usability almost instantly. In fact, it's quite close to resuming from sleep now! (not up to my iBook's level, though).

Hibernate certainly is more useful than sleep.