Sleep or Shut Down? 4 hours a day usage.

What is easier on the hardware and system… shutting down or sleep mode? I use my imac about 4 hours every day.

As the others have said, sleep is better for the machine. In your owners manual (bet you didn't' read it did you ) it says:
_Put Your iMac to Sleep_
*If you will be away from your iMac for less than a few days, put it to sleep. When your iMac is in sleep, its screen is dark. You can quickly wake your iMac and bypass the startup process.*

Similar Messages

  • Sleep or Shut Down with Mac Pro RAID Card?

    I'll be gone for a four-day weekend trip, which is longer than the 72 hours claimed for the Mac Pro RAID Card battery. If I shut down and come back four days later, the battery will presumably be discharged. What will happen when I restart?
    Asked another way ... is 72 hours the maximum amount of time that the computer should be shut down or do I simply restart and wait for the battery to recharge and the write caches to be re-enabled?
    The FAQ for the Mac Pro RAID Card http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1346 talks around this issue, but doesn't say whether it is a good or bad idea to allow the battery to discharge for "... any length of time." Please review the appended excerpt from the FAQ and advise on whether I should sleep or shut down.
    Regards,
    iPhoton
    Question: Why does RAID Utility show a yellow light and report the status "Write cache disabled"?
    Answer: The write cache is disabled automatically so data cannot be written to RAID volumes when the battery charge is not sufficient to back up cached data for 72 hours. This message is normally encountered when a RAID Card is used for the first time, when the battery enters a conditioning cycle once every three months, or when a computer with a RAID Card installed is shut down for any length of time.
    If your RAID card's firmware is M-2.0.3.3 or later, or E-1.2.2.4 or later, you can use RAID Utility to force-enable the write cache while the battery conditions itself. Warning: If you enable the write caches before the battery is fully charged, you might lose some data if the power to your computer is interrupted.

    Thanks to everyone who replied to my message. I did a proper backup and normal shut down on Wednesday night and restarted on Monday morning. That was over 100 hours later and certainly more than the battery is specified (72 hours).
    When I restarted on Monday morning I noticed ... no change! The battery was fully charged according to the RAID Utility, I received no warning messages, there were no new events in the RAID Utility log ... it's as if the extended shutdown never occurred.
    So, an extended shutdown appears not to be a problem and I won't worry about it again, not even on my next extended shutdown for three weeks at the end of the year.
    Regards,
    iPhoton

  • Should I put it to SLEEP or SHUT DOWN?

    Greeting everyone. I recently purchased my first Macbook, my first laptop ever. I've pretty much grown up using a desktop pc. I turn it on when I get home, put it on sleep mode when I leave it to watch tv or what not. If I'm done with it for the day, I turn it off.
    Now before everone jumps on me for probably doing the wrong thing please note that I come from a "Turn it off when you're not using it kind of family". Can someone give me some pointers in using my new mac? For example, someone told me that I can actually leave my macbook in sleep mode the entire day even when traveling to and from school/work. Is this safe for my macbook? I apologize if this is such an elementary question.

    I have found that my machines respond better when I just close the lid (sleep). It is important to understand that the laptop caches everything in memory to the hard drive before it goes to sleep, so you want to make sure you allow the extra time for that to happen (wait until the sleep light starts pulsating) before you move the laptop if you can. Otherwise you're moving the machine while the hard drive is still spinning. I know that the newer laptops typically have a Sudden Motion Sensor that will automatically park the heads under certain conditions, but why tempt fate? Depending on how many applications you have running, and how much RAM you have installed, going into sleep mode can take longer than you might expect. Whether you adapt a sleep or shut down operating preference (I prefer sleep- only shutting down every once in a while for OS installs, restarts due to problems, etc.), it is much more important to follow Apple's guidelines for calibrating the battery. Not only does following these instructions allow the computer to more accurately report the battery charge level, it also runs the lithium ion battery through a complete cycle - something that is needed every once in a while to keep it operating in tip-top shape. The instructions for the procedure are found here:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/9036.html

  • Sleep or shut down at night?

    Hi, it just occurred to me that in summer with frequent lightning storms especially during the night, might it be a good idea to shut the computer down and disconnect the power adapter at night?
    I tend to use the computer plugged in during the day, with short periods of battery use, and then at night I leave it plugged in and just close the lid. Even with old PC's I did this without a problem, but with my new MBP I don't want to take any chances!
    Thanks,
    Karen

    karenr wrote:
    Thanks.. re. shutting down at night, I thought there was an issue of wear and tear from starting up so often.. otherwise it would certainly be simpler to shut down and not worry about nighttime power surges.
    I don't worry about wear and tear, because although technically it might be better to run your computer at full power 24/7 to avoid premature wear from thermal and power cycling, realistically nearly every Mac user either sleeps or shuts down their laptop at least once a day whether that's at night or merely to transport it (since it is a laptop after all) and therefore powering off is the norm, and it is not causing mass early laptop deaths.
    We are also weighing leaving the computer plugged in versus the potential damage from a lightning strike, and we're saying the potential damage from sleeping or shutting down at night is assumed to be less severe than that of a direct lightning hit.
    Re. sleeping the computer all night and draining the battery, I do that once a month to calibrate the battery, but isn't it recommended to not drain deeply too often?
    You are right that is is recommended to not do deep discharges too often. But an overnight sleep does not drain the battery that far, maybe a few percent. What I didn't mention is that if your battery is new and fully charged, it will probably last around a week in sleep mode. One night off the charger isn't going to drain the battery unless, as I mentioned, it's an old battery with a fraction of its original capacity.

  • Won't go to sleep or shut down

    My iMac won't go to sleep or shut down when I tell it to. If I push the button on the back to make it go to sleep it doesn't do anything and if I select sleep from the apple menu it doesn't go to sleep. If I click shut down in the Apple menu it goes to a blue sreen and then the little loading symbol comes up and it just loads. I left it for an hour and it was still loading so I just held down the back button and turned it off that way. What can I do to resolve this?

    First, try eliminating some variables-
    Disconnect any devices attached via firewire or USB, and try again.
    Some USB devices have been known to prevent the iMac from going to sleep or shutting down.

  • Sleep and shut-down

    Hi
    I wonder if it's normal that, when shutting down my MBP, I've got to wait for it to be totally turned off before I can close the lid. If I close the lid during the shutting down process the MBP very often go to sleep.
    If this is the normal behaviour, it doesn't seems to me so much efficent.
    I suppose very few code would be needed to have the lid-linked sleeping command excluded when the shutting down process starts.
    PS: I use 10.4.9, so maybe the problem as been fixed in leopard.
    bye
    Angelo

    I have been told previously by more than one Genius at the Apple store that the shut down function should not be done very often, just to put my laptop to sleep most often. I don't know if that is different for MBP. This is my 5th apple laptop (original 'portable'mac, powerbook 180, clamshell ibook, wallstreet powerbook, and powerbook g4) and have always relied on putting them to sleep rather than shut down on a day to day basis. So your issue is not usually a problem, since closing them puts them to sleep as you noted. If you are shutting down, I think you do need to wait for it to complete the process before closing your laptop.

  • Cannot sleep or shut down when connected to TV through DVI

    I recently reinvigorated my 2003 Power Mac G5 (Power PC) with a clean install of OSX Leopard and connected it to my TV via a VGA cable and DVI adapter.  I soon discovered the computer would not sleep or shut down with the TV connected:
    - Selecting "sleep" from apple menu, OR
    - Pressing sleep button on original ADC monitor (with both monitors connected,) OR
    - Waiting for 15 minute automatic sleep mode:
         computer sleeps (tower clicks off as normal) but immediately wakes again
    - Selecting "shut down" from apple menu:
         computer shuts down completely but immediately reboots
    When the G5 runs on only the original monitor, sleep and shutdown commands work as expected.
    Aside from unplugging the DVI adapter every time I want to sleep or shut down, is there a solution to this problem?

    I've seen the TV problem before, not sure there is a cure, but perhaps one of these...
    http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orders6.cgi?action=Showitem&id=ID15122041&partno =30011&search=VGA_SWITCH&rsite=&rcode=
    The DVI ones don't have high enough resolution...
    http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orders6.cgi?action=Showitem&id=ID15122044&partno =81112&search=DVI_SWITCH&rsite=google.comsearc&rcode=

  • Is it better to sleep or shut down at night?

    Is it better to sleep or shut down when I'm through with my iPad for the night?

    I have been letting mine sleep when not in use since buying it new almost a year and a half ago...has never caused any issues with it.  Only time it has been shutdown is for aircraft take off and landing.

  • I have a Macbook  Pro 2009, i upgraded from 10.5 to 10.8.2 and now when I put it to sleep it shuts down. Does anyone know how to fix this?

    I have a Macbook  Pro 2009, i upgraded from 10.5 to 10.8.2 and now when I put it to sleep it shuts down. Does anyone know how to fix this?

    That disk from her computer is a machine specific version, you need this disk
    http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A
    and follow these instructions
    How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6

  • Sleep or shut down the laptop?

    Is it better to sleep or shut down the laptop? I mean in general for the laptop, not necessarily to save battery or anything. Thank you!

    No need to shut down unless perhaps the laptop is going to be in a travel bag for a while.
    I just close the lid to stop using; open the lid to use.
    I've been doing this routine since OS X 10.0.

  • Sleep and Shut-down menu commands

    Our 500 MHz Power PC G3, upgraded to system 10.4.6, is a great machine and a real work horse for us. However, it has been acting up lately. The apple symbol drop down menu command that puts the computer to sleep, restart, shut down etc. will not respond. The key board commands for sleep etc. also don't work. I tried the Disk Utilitly- First Aid, both Disk Repairs and Permissions. "No repairs were necessary" for both. I even reinstalled OS 10.4.6 which seems to have complicated the problem and ate a big chunk of our precious little harddrive memory. Now every time I start up I get the warning message, "Application Launch Failure" The applicaton "Transport Monitor' could not be launched
    because of a shared library error:"8<Transport Monitor><Transport Monitor><HotSyncLib.PPC><"
    Could this be the root of the drop-down menu problem?

    As I said, a weak or dead PRAM battery can reportedly cause odd startup issues. If it has never been changed in six years, that's a really long-lasting battery, even if the iMac was kept on continuously.
    They are pretty cheap from the right source, so you may want to try changing it.
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item-specials/Newer%20Technology/BAA36VPRAM/

  • When waking from sleep, it shuts down

    I use the energy saver to put the computer to sleep when I'm not using it. When I hit a button to "wake" the computer, it starts to spin up but then shuts down.
    I was told by Apple (when I still had my call-in protection plan) that this was because there was no room on my hard drive. This first happened when I had about 1 GB left (60GB drive). I have subsequently bought an external drive on to which I have moved my music files and now have 25+ GB, so that should no longer be an issue.
    Any ideas?

    USB scanners are generally a red flag for sleep-related isuues but usually in terms of failing to wake or failing to sleep, not shutting down instead of waking up. You can check if the peripheral hardware is involved by disconnecting all peripherals other than keyboard and mouse, Starting Up in Safe Mode (to disable any peripheral drivers), and seeing if you can then sleep and wake the Mac without the shutdown problem.
    The system.log messages indicate you have the Mac set to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN); I'm not familar wnough with that to be sure if it affects the wake-from-sleep issue. You may want to post that snippet from the system.log along with a statement of the problem in the Using OS X 10.4 Tiger forum part of the Apple Discussions in order to reach a broader audience than in the eMac part of the Discussions.
    The 'SystemUIServer not responding' message may be helped if you try this:
    -- trash /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist
    -- trash /Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist
    -- reboot while resetting PRAM
    To reset PRAM, restart, as soon as the screen goes dark, hold down command-option-p-r until you hear three sets of chimes, then release the keys and let the Mac finish starting up. You may need to re-do some System Preferences settings after resettings PRAM (see What's stored in PRAM?)
    BTW, a viable workaround is to change the Energy Saver settings to slepp the display only after XX number of minutes, with put system to slepp set to Never and put hard drives to slepp when possible unchecked. That also ensures the Mac can perform the background maintenance tasks overnight. If you normally shut down an OS X Mac overnight or leave it in system sleep, the cron maintenance tasks cannot run in their nominal 3 am timeframe. (Display-only sleep allows the maintenance tasks to run). Tiger 10.4.2 and later will force the maintenance tasks to run after sufficient time has elapsed, but kust how long is long enough, and whether the timer is reset on shutdown, isn't entirely clear. You can leave the Mac in display-only sleep a weekend or two a month; you can manually Force Background Maintenance; or you can use a third-party utility such as OnyX to run the maintenance. Note that any system utility you use must be compatible with the OS version (e.g., use the Tiger version of OnyX with 10.4.x).

  • MacBook Pro won't Sleep or Shut Down

    My MacBook Pro won't go to sleep or shut down.
    Sleep
    The behaviour is the same whether I press the power button and choose 'Sleep' or whether I choose 'Sleep' from the Apple menu. The computer stays awake, but it loses the ability to respond to Keyboard Shortcuts, such as those used for Expose, and can get stuck in some Apps. If I close the lid the computer stays awake but the screen blacks out. Re-openning the lid does not re-illuminate the screen so I have to force shut down and re-boot.
    *Shut Down*
    The behaviour is erratic. Sometimes the computer simply ignores me (although it does close the 'Are you sure you want to Shut Down now?' window), and sometimes it goes to the blue screen with the progress circle and hangs.
    *What I've tried already*
    - Resetting the SMC
    - Checked the Firmware versions are the latest

    Sorry for the repost. New to this forum and I hadn't seen the answers to the last time I brought up this topic here:
    http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=5050821

  • Start up Disk full and MacBook Pro won't reboot.  Only white screen but can sleep, restart, shut down.

    Start up Disk full and MacBook Pro won't reboot.  Only white screen but can sleep, restart, shut down.

    Reboot into Safe Mode (hold the shift key down at the sound of the chime, release when the progress bar appears) Safe Mode will take longer to boot than normal.

  • My MAC mini looses the wi-fi connection to a Belkin N wireless router when it goes to sleep or shut down.  I have to re select the network when restarting or waking the computer up.  I think this just started with Lion.  My iPod and iPad  have no trouble.

    My MAC MINI looses the wi-fi connection to a Belkin N wireless router when it goes to sleep or shuts down.  I have to re select the network when re starting or waking up the computer.  I think this just started with LION.  My iPod and iPad have no problem remembering the wireless network.

    Thank you BGreg.  That is what I have been doing, and then it works just fine.  I think it was doing the same thing in the previous version of Lion.  I may be incorrect about that.  I upgraded to 10.7.3 a few weeks ago, and then last week I reloaded the combo update, hoping it would help.  Not so.  Thank you for letting me know it is a common problem.  I have tried permissions in Disk Utilities, and in Macaroni, both at least 4 times, plus numerous restarts.  Nothing Improves.  It still can not find the internet when it wakes up or gets up.

  • When I click on my Imac to sleep, it shuts down instead

    When I click on my Imac to sleep, it shuts down instead

    Hello, Hank. 
    Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities. 
    Here is an article that I would recommend when experiencing this issue. 
    OS X: When your Mac doesn't sleep or wake
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5357
    Cheers,
    Jason H. 

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