To sleep or not to sleep

I have been reading a lot of articles lately about the good and bad of having disk drives spin up and then spin down (?), warm up, cool off, etc.
What does Apple recommend for their computers (Intel iMac in particular), should we let them run all the time or have them sleep after 15 minutes being idle?

It seems to me Pondini has answered the question. I went and checked. Page 24 of my 'little booklet,' that came with my Late 2009 Mac mini says: *"If you'll be away from your Mac mini for less than a few days, put it to sleep."*
If away for 'more than a few days,' 'little booklet' says shut it down.
It also indicate the choice is up to the user.
I use my computer everyday, so, thus, absorbing this info means I should not Shut It Down...but let it go to Sleep. This would be not only convenient but make my computer usage more fun and effective. I use eight Spaces on Expose, and have two monitors and have 'learned,' to bounce around with stuff all over the place -- so if everything stays ON all the time, it would be so much easier to pick up where I left off and jump right in.
So, I'm gonna do it. Sleep only (unless on vacation). My hinderance has been that I'm older than dirt and have some 'Old School,' attitudes like, you should turn things off when not using them. (D'uh).
But I now vow to change my ways and get into Modern Times. If the Apple booklet says it; it says it.
Plus, even back at the Dawn of Electricity I had a friend who worked for GE and he'd talk about (also mentioned in this thread) that there was 'wear and tear,' and power surge consumption associated with turning things on and off.
Also mention (and I concur) is you don't want any equipment overheating -- so I have a fan directly set up to blow on my Mac (and my previous G5); this is a good idea, imo. So I'll let it sleep but also leave the fan on. I've calculated (using Numbers) that my retirement pension and the Earth can both afford this.
Apple recommended temperature ranges for your room and/or environment are 50-90ºF (10-35ºC).
Temperature ranges for the CPU's, Hard Drive Bay, etc. are much higher than I imagined. A freebie program Temperature Monitor -- and/or it's Lite version gives that info. TM Lite is one of my start up items, stays in the menu bar and the default for it's alarm (which I've set) is 75º C -- which strikes me a hot, darn hot. And right not the hotest reading I have is 57ºC and I've learned not to worry about it.
Like also mentioned in this thread: Enjoy your Mac!

Similar Messages

To Sleep Or Not To Sleep, that is the question

I work out once each day and I wondered what the concensus was concerning putting the sensor to sleep between workouts. Is it worth the hassle of doing this and does it significantly prolong battery life?
To my simple mind if the receiver is unpluged from the Nano then the battery in the sensor won't be working in any case and will just be subject to natural drain therefore putting it to sleep will not be a major benefit - in fact switching it on and off all the time may be detrimental to the battery life..
Has anybody used a sensor, either with or without sleep mode being used,until its battery failed naturally and if so how long did it last?

The sensor goes to sleep when it's not moving.
The sensor battery is supposed to last 1000 hours. However, the kit hasn't been out long enough to know how true that it is. Unless you can locate a Nike+ beta tester
I only put the sensor to sleep when I go on a trip and car/plane/train motion would probably be activating the senor battery.
When I'm not running my shoes sit in one spot waiting for the next run.

Login on waking from sleep, but not screensaver / sleep display

Hi all, been trying to get rid of the login from screen saver / sleep display, while keeping the login on waking the computer from sleep. The reason I want to do this is because I frequently use a Hot Corner to sleep the display while listening to music etc, and having to enter a password just to change tracks etc is a pain But obviously I want to keep the password protection when the computer is put to sleep, as it always is when left unattended.
Anyway, based on initial Googling, I first tackled the problem by installing SleepWatcher from http://www.bernhard-baehr.de/, and adding this line to the global /etc/rc.wake script:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend
However, this wasn't very satisfactory, because after waking the computer up from sleep, you initially get a normal session, which then suspends after 3 or 4 seconds. During this time you can interact with the session as normal and move windows etc, so it kind of gives you the impression that you don't have to log in, and then you do, so it's a bit clunky, and also doesn't feel very secure.
I thought I managed to improve the situation by moving the 'suspend' command to SleepWatcher's /etc/rc.sleep script instead of the /etc/rc.wake script - meaning that your session is suspended just before sleep, so it's already suspended when you wake the computer up. But then I noticed an even worse problem - my "Sleep Display" Hot Corner stopped working after SleepWatcher suspended my session!
Yes that's right, every time the 'suspend' command ran in conjunction with SleepWatcher, my "Sleep Display" Hot Corner got disabled, and didn't get re-enabled until I completely logged out and back in (or rebooted). So I stopped using SleepWatcher, by removing the 'suspend' command from any SleepWatcher scripts, and now Hot Corners work as normal again following successive sleeps.
So next I thought, maybe I could write an AppleScript that toggles the "Require password..." checkbox in System Preferences, perhaps to use in conjunction with SleepWatcher, so that the checkbox is disabled when the display is put to sleep, and enabled when the computer is put to sleep. I actually got as far as writing an AppleScript that toggled the checkbox, and was about to attempt to integrate it with SleepWatcher...
...then I stumbled across an old thread, where they talk about updating plists under com.apple.screensaver, in order to solve a slightly different problem:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=14085
Despite the thread being a few years old and trying to solve a different problem, the following command sounded hopeful so I thought I'd try it:
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword -int 0
...and lo and behold, it works!
My mac is now behaving exactly as I want it - prompting for password on wake from sleep in the normal way as it did before, and not prompting when I merely wake the display (or screensaver)!
This is in conjunction with having the "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver" checkbox turned ON in System Preferences.
But the puzzling thing is, why does it work? Is it safe? Are there any side-effects and am I likely to need to re-enable it following software updates? Does it work for anyone else?
When I query the values under com.apple.screensaver, I get the following... I have no way of telling what the askForPassword value was before I changed it:
$ defaults -currentHost read com.apple.screensaver
askForPassword = 0;
idleTime = 0;
moduleName = Flurry;
modulePath = "/System/Library/Screen Savers/Flurry.saver";
tokenRemovalAction = 0;
Basically I'm very surprised that a simple one-line command seems to solve the problem, when there are so many threads where people have asked the same question, and either been told it's not possible, or told you need to do weird stuff with SleepWatcher and/or Applescript, which is often incompletely explained, more complex and less effective.
So, is the one-line askForPassword solution too good to be true?

Thanks. I think for an office-type environment, it is an unusual requirement.
But let's not forget, more and more people use their computers in living-room type environments, for tasks such as playing music or watching films on a remote display. You're typically in a much darker ambience, which you don't want that to be shattered by the bright, white glare of a computer screen all the time!
So you need total control over whether the display is on or off. This has nothing to do with leaving the computer unattended. You're still there, "using" the computer, you're just not necessarily using the display.
Anyway... you are right, I toggled the "Require password..." setting in System Preferences off and then on again, and the "askForPassword" plist value changed itself to 1.
However... the behaviour of my mac has not changed. It behaves the way I want it (prompt for password on waking the compuer, but not on waking only the display), regardless whether the value of askForPassword is 0 or 1.
Even after rebooting.
Strange... what have I done?

To Sleep or not to Sleep... help for a noob

Hi there,
New to macs and needed to know wether its better to put my new iMac intel to sleep or to log it off...
Hope you can help....

You have to look at other things too when considering whether to put to sleep or switch off.
Power Supply Issues
Do you live in a country which has a good, regular and reliable power supply. Which does not suffer, brown outs or black outs or power spikes.
If you do live in a country with a good supply then I would invest in a Surge protection Power strip, plug your Mac into that and then just put it to sleep.
The Weather
Do you live somewhere where storms are very frequent? If you do then you are probably used to pulling electrical equipment from the wall when a lightening storm is happening. So the same precaution should be done here.
Security and location
Would it be more secure to put switch the Mac off? For example is it's location going to present itself to anything liquid or which could otherwise damage the machine.
Remember putting a system to sleep, especially if you haven't logged out and then pulling it out from the wall will certainly do it damage.
Mark

HT2412 to sleep or not to sleep?

Is it better for the computer to 'Never Sleep' in Energy Saver mode, or set it to go to sleep after a few minutes or an hour or so? I ask because I remember reading an idea some years ago that it's better never to shut down a computer because when it's started up again it's subjected to maximum stress. I'd rather forgotten this idea in recent years, and set my MacBook to go to sleep after an hour, but when re-setting the Energy Saver a little while ago the question ocurred to me again. Informed opinions appreciated.

Sleep is fine on "Today's" computers. And unless you need your computer to be awake for other purposes (such as being a file server, media server, backup server, etc..., then allowing it to sleep is a perfectly acceptable and even desirable thing to do.
I'm old enough to have used the computers that did not like being turned off. In those days they were kept in special air conditioned rooms on raised floors, with glass walls so company officials should display them to show how advanced a company they were. They took up multiple 19" rack cabinets, and the disk drives were separate washing machine sized devices holding as much as 100MB of data for each washing machine. The CPU was several very large circuit boards (not an integrated chip), and the RAM was several other very large circuit boards, and then there were the circuit boards for the external devices (card reader, disk drives, magtape drives, terminals). Lots and lots of discrete electronic components. And it had less power than your typical digital wristwatch of today :-)
In those days if you owned a computer (as in your company owned a computer), it was so expensive the company kept is busy all the time, so it was not typical to power them off (no such thing as sleeping in those days).
So between having lots and lots of components, each of which increases the chances of a single point of failure, they were not typically used in a power on/power off mode so designers were not under pressure to over spec components for the stress of heading up and cooling down all the time.
Today, you iPhone has the power of a '70's super computer that filled a room. All personal computers today uses far fewer components and they are designed in a world where personal computers and mobile devices are power off, or even used in hot (like a car) or cold (like Alaska) places.
You can put your Macs, iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches, etc... to sleep or power them off. They are not going to get stressed out over it.

Sleep or not to sleep?

I turn on my MBP every morning, do some stuff, put it to sleep, go to school and use it trough the day. Before I go to sleep, I turn it off and turn it on again the next morning. Is it better to just put it to sleep and turn it off if absent a dat or two? I use it once weekly on battery power.

Hi Stevo
For the most part my MBP runs 24/7.
My experience is that the restart is better but not really necessary on a daily basis. For me restart depends on what apps I have bee using. QT Pro, iMovie, Quartz comp, combined with simultaneous heavy usage of iTunes and Safari will usually hit the performance after a while and a restart brings it back to life.
As for sleep that depends on what I have running and connected. I find that using any apps that use time dependent files (i.e. movies, audio and even photos) that reside on an external HDD will hang upon waking and I get an occasional improperly disconnected device errors. I do deep sleeps to change batteries regularly and it seems to work okay. Very cool. Often times it will go deep for no apparent reason though. Waking from deep is done only with the power button (for me anyway) so if your computer appears to be sleeping but will not wake, one press of the power button should do the trick.
As for your battery get on a schedule where once every six weeks or so when you use the battery you "condition" it. Any discussion of battery will direct you to info on what to do.
Sweet Polly

To sleep, or not to Sleep hard drives?

Quick Question,
I have two internal 250 gb hard drives. What pros/cons are there to putting the hard disks to sleep? I use one hard drive for my os/apps/data, and the 2nd hard drive for my video/audio capture/render files.

1008/3454
When the option "put the hard disks to sleep when possible" is enabled,
the hard disks spin down after 10 minutes of inactivity.
This default time is long enough for you to check this option with no worry.
If you prefer more delay (example 20 minutes before spindown), the default delay is very easy to modify with an utility like Cocktail or TinkerTool System for example.
In a word:
No problem, go ahead and sleep them.
Axl

IMac G5 - Deep sleep - Will not wake up + Fans rev-up.

iMac G5 ( not under any recall programs and no bloated capacitors )
will not come out of deep sleep and the fans start to rev up after 1 min and
stay revved up on hi.
Tried all possible solutions:
Via keyboard : Reset pram + Open firmware
Reset SMU via power cord and the internal smu button.
Sleep light firmware is installed
Reinstalled 10.4.0 and went to 10.4.7
Tried to scare him with a glass of water, still nothing.
With iStat all temps a cool.
External fan on the PSU to keep it cooler.
Forced the iMac to have the fans on hi by booting in single user mode.
Rebooted. Fans still on hi. logged on then let it go to sleep on its own.
Monitor set at 1 min and HD at 5.
Monitor went to sleep but not the HD.
Forced deep sleep and it worked.
But Same symptoms on wakeup.
Removed the cover:
From a cold power up to video display all 3 led's light up.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301283
Deep sleep:
Leds 1 and 2 stay on, led 3 shuts off, normal .
Wake from sleep:
Led 1 and 2 are still on.
Led 3 lights up for a fraction of a second and does not come back on.
Checks the disk drive then spins down ( when a disk is present )
Checks the HD then spins down.
1 min later the fans start revving on hi.
Force reboot is required.
Symptoms started after 10.4.8 update. ( Yes I know about unsanity docks )
Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. I wait until that fat lady sings.
Please keep this post to the specific symptoms and to PPC G5 imacs.
Has any one ( iMacs G5) with these symptoms been cured?.
How can you uninstall the sleep light firmware patch to reinstall it?
I know that it stops the fans from revving.
Any known Open firmware manual?
PM B&W G4 1Ghz Sonnet :: And still strong Mac OS X (10.3.9) If it aint broke, tweak it. If it breaks then fix it and tweak it again.

If your Mac happily goes to sleep but won't wake up--Hold down the power switch to force-reboot your machine and get it running again.
Don't worry-your Mac isn't narcoleptic. Its Open Firmware system or NVRAM (nonvolatile RAM) is likely corrupt, and your Mac can't remember how to wake up.
Restart your Mac and immediately hold down the Command-Option-O-F key combo until you see a somewhat intimidating command-line display that ends with the Open Fimware prompt. Type the following line:
reset-nvram
press the return key on your keyboard
set-defaults
press return
reset-all
press return
Your Mac will reboot. Once it's running, put it back to sleep to test. If the problem recurs your Energy Saver preferences may be the culprit. Delete the com.apple.PowerManagement.plist file (go to Finder/Hard drive/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration)--don't worry, your Mac will regenerate a new one--and then restart to see if that rights the wrong.
Still didn't work? Might be time to call AppleCare or see an Apple Genius or a technician.
Cheers!
DALE

Sleep Button Not Working on iPhone 5

Sleep button not working .. Advice on what Else I should do?
I've already turned it off & turned it on, & rebooted it.
I've had my phone since October and this is the first time it's done this

Morning AskVictoria95,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Installing the latest version of iOS may resolve the issue.
For more information on this, take a look at this article:
iPhone: Hardware troubleshooting
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2802
Sleep/Wake button will not lock or unlock iPhone
To lock the phone, press the Sleep/Wake button. Note: By default, if you don't touch the screen for a minute, iPhone locks automatically.
To unlock iPhone, press the Home button or the Sleep/Wake button, then slide the slider.
If either of the above steps don't work, try turning iPhone off and then on again.
If the iPhone will not power off, reset it.
Try to lock or unlock the phone.
Issue not resolved
http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/contact/
Best of luck,
Mario

I purchased I phone 5 from USA covered under Apple care . I'm in India now. Wake/sleep button not working. Apple care here have refused to replace or repair it though it is still under international warranty. Feeling harassed. Can some one help.

I purchased I phone 5 from USA covered under Apple care . I'm in India now. Wake/sleep button not working. Apple care here have refused to replace or repair it though it is still under international warranty. Feeling harassed. Can some one help.

Is there an "APPLE STORE" in India or you just went in a reseller store?
There is a replacement program for sleep/wake button for free. Just look for an Apple Store and make a reservation at Genius Bar.
I have an iPhone 5, bought in Dubai U.A.E.
It is a US model (model A1428) which is different of the model use here in Italy/Europe
My serial number is qualified for battery replacement program.
I thought the Apple Store wouldn't repair my phone because I bought it from another country , a different model and it is already out of warranty.
The Apple store's staff just checked if my iPhone's serial number is eligible for the program and he replaced the battery for free today.

Nano 6th sinks (not working) Sleep Button.

on my iPod nano 6th not working Sleep Button. problem occurs a second time.
problem has been, decided to change the service center to the next. Now this is not possible, the warranty is over. how can I fix this problem?

Hello J-Dub 181,
And welcome to Apple Discussions!
Have you tried resetting the iPod? If not, press and hold the Center and Menu buttons together until the Apple logo appears.
If, you are still have issues after resetting the iPod, it may be best to restore the iPod via iTunes and start from scratch. Usually a restore can resolve these types of issues.
[Restoring iPod to factory settings|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1339]
B-rock

Bluetooth Not Available/Sleep Problems

Hi,
I'm having a problem which I can't seem to find an answer for anywhere, and it appears i'm not the only one. The bluetooth icon in system bar has a line through it, and when I click on it, it tells me that bluetooth is unavailable. This isn't a major problem for me since i'm not using any bluetooth devices, but this problem also seems to prevent my Macbook from going to sleep. When I close the lid, the HDD whirs (like during startup) and just keeps going, and the indicator light stays solid. I've tried resetting the SMC controller like I read on some other posts but that didn't help at all. The problem has gotten much worse now as it is happening almost all the time, to the point where I need to shutdown my Macbook when ever I want to close the lid, either that or leave it on consistently. I'm using Tiger, but would upgrade to Leopard/Snow Leopard if I knew that would fix the problem, but from what i've read this problem is not specific to the OS. Does anyone know what I can do to fix this problem? It's become a major annoyance as I shouldn't have to shut down my Macbook whenever I just want to close the lid.
Thanks.

Offering another ditto on this one. Bluetooth capability mysteriously disappears from my computer periodically -- to the extent that the computer seems not to believe it even has bluetooth hardware when looking at "About This Mac," and Bluetooth is not visible in the System Preferences panel. While Bluetooth is conked out, the computer cannot seem to go into Sleep mode (I choose Sleep from the apple menu, and the computer appears to sleep for about 3 seconds, then it wakes up right away on its own).
Then, mysteriously, Bluetooth will re-appear and work as it should. When Bluetooth is working, Sleep also works fine once Bluetooth is working again.
Sometimes this goes on intermittently several times a day -- sometimes everything seems to work fine for four or five days and then it starts up again.
Rebooting does not help. Logging out and back in does not help. Resetting the SMC does not help. Reinstalling the OS software has not helped (I've only done the lightweight reinstall, where you don't erase your hard drive and start fresh).
I am at a loss as to how I might fix this or what's going on.
This is a problem I've had intermittently over the last several years, but it always previously resolved itself without too much hassle -- it has gotten worse since upgrading to Snow Leopard.
I have a Bluetooth keyboard; at the moment that's the only Bluetooth device that I've got set up on this computer.
I have a Palm PDA and have installed Missing Sync in the past, but have uninstalled it as I try to troubleshoot this problem, because I THOUGHT that Missing Sync seemed to be contributing, but uninstalling and rebooting hasn't helped.

TS3479 I mac early 2009 do not go sleep

I have I mac early 2009 2 inch it did not go to sleep I cal support 1 year ago told to trun i mac off power and tunr it on with pressing option command & R P
I did it work for 2 month but still it start again not go sleep Support told to do recovery so I instle my dvd that came with i mac it work fine for 2 month now it again please help me my imac is 3 years and 3 month old Thanks

Hello Ken,
What all USB or Firewire devices are connected?
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.

I've installed Mavericks on my Mac Pro. It works well, generally, but will not stay sleeping! Pressing the power button twice sometimes extends the sleep mode but even that seldom results in a full overnight sleep. File sharing off. What else can help?

I've installed Mavericks on my Mac Pro. It works well, generally, but will not stay asleep! Pressing the power button twice sometimes extends the sleep mode but even that seldom results in a full overnight sleep. File sharing off. What else can help?

Hi fremley,
Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
This article may be helpful with determining why your Mac Pro doesn't stay in sleep mode:
Mac OS X: Why your Mac might not sleep or stay in sleep mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1776
Some things reset the sleep timers, preventing the computer from sleeping:
Hard drive access (even if you're not using the computer, a running application might be accessing your drive, such as when downloading a large file or listening to music in iTunes)
Moving the mouse or using a portable Mac's trackpad, pressing a mouse button, or pressing a key on the keyboard
Some System Preferences settings (see below)
Open applications (see below)
Input devices (see below)
Expansion cards (see below)
Additional drives, such as USB, FireWire, DVD, or CD drives (see below)
Best Regards,
Jeremy

IMac will not auto sleep after 10.5.7 update with Safari 4 Beta

I've noticed that my new iMac 24" will not automatically sleep after updating to 10.5.7. Actually, that's not completely true, I've just discovered that if Safari Beta 4 (latest update) is open the iMac will never sleep automatically, but that if Safari is not open, automatic sleep works perfectly as it always did with 10.5.6. I've repeated this test numerous times and it's always consistent. Anyone have any ideas how to solve this?

Sorry that I do not remember where I saw this, could be MacFixIt, but the advice that I saw for issues with the 10.5.7 delta that comes through Software Update for folks with 10.5.6, was to download and overlay the 10.5.7 Combo as Carolyn has suggested, and then to download and install the most recent beta for Safari 4.
Of course this is best done without multitasking while the installations are happening, as well as unplugging and shutting down all other processes; external attachments and even Bluetooth and Air Port. Prepare for the installs by rebooting to your Install DVD and use Disk Utility in the Utilities Menu to verify and repair any issues with your boot volume, followed by rebooting into your account and using DU in Apps/Utilities to Repair Disk Permissions before and after the installs.

To sleep or not to sleep

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