So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
I know, it's a perennial question for laptop users, but as a new PowerBook G4 owner it's an issue that interests me.
At the moment I tend to shutdown my PB after each session, particularly overnight. I tend to think sleeping it will drain the battery too much over that period of time. However, I'm pretty impressed with the battery performance of my PB so I'm wondering if it could be left on sleep for longer periods.
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
Cheers, Rick
Rick Burton:
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
I put my PowerBook to sleep and leave it plugged in to the mains. I see no point at all in shutting it down. My iMac, however, gets shut down - basically because it's got a CRT in it and I'm old-fashioned and paranoid.
S
On 14/7/04 7:27 pm, in article cd3ttv$m8k$1@redacted.invalid, "Rick Burton" rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
I know, it's a perennial question for laptop users, but as a new PowerBook G4 owner it's an issue that interests me.
At the moment I tend to shutdown my PB after each session, particularly overnight. I tend to think sleeping it will drain the battery too much over that period of time. However, I'm pretty impressed with the battery performance of my PB so I'm wondering if it could be left on sleep for longer periods.
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
I always put mine (a Titanium 667MHz job) to sleep when I'm not using it. I leave it plugged in to the mains when possible, even if it is sleeping, because you basically want to keep the battery as topped up as possible.
I only shut it down if I know I'm not going to be using it for a long time (eg for a week or two.)
Cheers,
Chris
Rick Burton wrote:
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
Sleep it, definitely, so that it "boots up" instantly the next time you need it. I've never left mine turned off (though I have rebooted it to clear problems; regrettably more frequently since 10.3.4 came out). Of course, I use my Powerbook daily; if I were going to leave it longer (a week, say) then I would probably turn it off.
I tend to think sleeping it will drain the battery too much
Sleeping does use a certain amount of power. Once, when my machine went to sleep because of low battery I left it for six hours or so before getting it out to charge (and use at the same time). I found that it had turned itself off because the battery level had become too low even for sleep. But I read somewhere that with a full battery to begin with it will sleep for a month before turning itself off.
In my opinion, sleep is the default "power off" for Mac laptops, with hard shutdown only for long-term storage.
Pete
NB: Do not try to apply the same reasoning to Windows laptops. In my experience they're crap at sleeping and power management in general.
Rick Burton rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
At the moment I tend to shutdown my PB after each session, particularly overnight. I tend to think sleeping it will drain the battery too much over that period of time.
I set my 667 TiBook, running 10.2.6, to sleep overnight. But it's always plugged into the mains; don't run your battery down more than you have to. The old chestnut about letting the battery run down to zero between recharges is just that; a chestnut. Used to be the way to look after ancient NiCD cells, but it's a quick way to kill the modern NiMH cells in iBooks and PowerBooks.
Leave them on charge overnight- and during the day if you can; you can't overcharge them in the Mac. And in that case having the Mac sleep will make no difference- it'll just start up much more quickly in the morning and all your apps will still be up and running.
If you can't leave it on charge, then it is better to power down if you're not using it for a few hours. Sleep does use some power.
On 14/7/04 7:27 pm, in article cd3ttv$m8k$1@redacted.invalid, "Rick Burton" rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
Sleep. Never shutdown.
You should be able to let it sleep for at least a few days. I think I've left mine in sleep mode for about a week without it shutting down. I only restart it when there are updates and I never shut it down.
Some people have mentioned they leave the laptop plugged in. I tend to let the battery drop to around 60 to 70% and then I plug it back in for recharging. I read something online about batteries once and that was the recommendation. Don't treat it like a NiCd or NiMH and drain it all the way to the bottom. I've also seen people with Li ion batteries that left them plugged in all the time like a desktop and they can't ever unplug it anymore, because the battery is totally dead.
HTH, Jason
Rick Burton wrote:
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
I know, it's a perennial question for laptop users, but as a new PowerBook G4 owner it's an issue that interests me.
At the moment I tend to shutdown my PB after each session, particularly overnight. I tend to think sleeping it will drain the battery too much over that period of time. However, I'm pretty impressed with the battery performance of my PB so I'm wondering if it could be left on sleep for longer periods.
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
Cheers, Rick
Rick Burton rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
If I am taking it out of the house like into work I shut it down, otherwise I just close the lid (which is most of the time).
Jason Koesters no.spam@redacted.invalid wrote:
Some people have mentioned they leave the laptop plugged in. I tend to let the battery drop to around 60 to 70% and then I plug it back in for recharging. I read something online about batteries once and that was the recommendation. Don't treat it like a NiCd or NiMH and drain it all the way to the bottom.
PBook batteries are NiMH, and the best way to look after them is to keep them charged to the max, as much as possible.
IMy iMac, however, gets shut down - basically because it's got a CRT in it and I'm old-fashioned and paranoid.
S I need more explanation, Or i'll become(?) old fasshioned and paranoid, my iMac has been 'on' for years with hardly any shutdowns, or major problems. Richard(WorryingUndulyIHope)
On 14/7/04 8:30 pm, in article 1ggxkvp.731xow16eq536N%peter@redacted.invalid, "Peter Ceresole" peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
Some people have mentioned they leave the laptop plugged in. I tend to let the battery drop to around 60 to 70% and then I plug it back in for recharging. I read something online about batteries once and that was the recommendation. Don't treat it like a NiCd or NiMH and drain it all the way to the bottom.
PBook batteries are NiMH, and the best way to look after them is to keep them charged to the max, as much as possible.
Err. No they aren't, and no it isn't.
Rick Burton rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
Sleep.
At the moment I tend to shutdown my PB after each session, particularly overnight. I tend to think sleeping it will drain the battery too much over that period of time.
The battery will let your 'book sleep for a week or more when fully charged.
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
Waiting for booting is boring. If it's asleep you start in seconds.
Both my partner's and my iBooks are never turned off. My partner's is rarely plugged in, mine is but it's more havily used.
-z-
On 14/7/04 20:29, in article 1ggxkvc.88e3vl4wawxsN%usenet@redacted.invalid, "Woody" usenet@redacted.invalid wrote:
Rick Burton rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
If I am taking it out of the house like into work I shut it down, otherwise I just close the lid (which is most of the time).
This is my 5th Apple Powerbook.
The ONLY time I close it down is if I am installing some hardware or restarting.
Otherwise it always travels in sleep mode, on planes, trains and automobiles.
I just close the lid and put it in my case.
I have NEVER had a problem with any of them
Robin
Jason Koesters no.spam@redacted.invalid writes:
You should be able to let it sleep for at least a few days. I think I've left mine in sleep mode for about a week without it shutting down. I only restart it when there are updates and I never shut it down.
Mine seems to drain 10-15% of battery per day in sleep if not plugged in. Unless I'm going to be leaving it both unplugged and unused for more than a few days, it just goes to sleep. I can't remember the last time I actually powered it down and left it that way (as opposed to just a restart).
Rate of drain was about the same in my old iBook as it is in my fairly recent pBook.
was the recommendation. Don't treat it like a NiCd or NiMH and drain it all the way to the bottom. I've also seen people with Li ion batteries that left them plugged in all the time like a desktop and they can't ever unplug it anymore, because the battery is totally dead.
Well, they do have an effective lifetime. After about 2-1/2 years, I had to replace my iBook battery. It got down to the point where the batter would only power it for actual use for 45 min to an hour. New battery and it was back up to about 3 hrs.
I believe that that's fairly normal.
Peter Ceresole wrote:
Jason Koesters no.spam@redacted.invalid wrote:
Some people have mentioned they leave the laptop plugged in. I tend to let the battery drop to around 60 to 70% and then I plug it back in for recharging. I read something online about batteries once and that was the recommendation. Don't treat it like a NiCd or NiMH and drain it all the way to the bottom.
PBook batteries are NiMH, and the best way to look after them is to keep them charged to the max, as much as possible.
Err, they're actually lithium ion. IIRC, LI batteries have been used since the days of the 5300.
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specs.html
=:~)
Wed, 14 Jul 2004 (20:30 +0100 UTC) Peter Ceresole wrote:
Jason Koesters no.spam@redacted.invalid wrote:
Some people have mentioned they leave the laptop plugged in. I tend to let the battery drop to around 60 to 70% and then I plug it back in for recharging. I read something online about batteries once and that was the recommendation. Don't treat it like a NiCd or NiMH and drain it all the way to the bottom.
PBook batteries are NiMH, and the best way to look after them is to keep them charged to the max, as much as possible.
My 2002 PB is LiON. I believe LiON has been the industry standard for notebooks at least since 2000.
Bonge Boo! bingbong@redacted.invalid wrote:
PBook batteries are NiMH, and the best way to look after them is to keep them charged to the max, as much as possible.
Err. No they aren't, and no it isn't.
Bother. Indeed. I'm wrong. But keeping them fully charged does seem to keep Li-ions in good health. Discharging them certainly a no-no.
I did have a TonkaBook that I left asleep by accident when we left for 5 weeks. No problem except that somebody then unplugged the power supply. When we got back it had been completely discharged for at least three weeks. The battery has quite dead, couldn't be revived. Had to buy a new one. But it was something like three years old before the incident, even though it had had a quite reasonable battery life.
Thanks, guys. Great and really useful info. Looks like my PB is going to do a lot of sleeping from now on!
Cheers, Rick
In article cd3ttv$m8k$1@redacted.invalid, Rick Burton rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
I know, it's a perennial question for laptop users, but as a new PowerBook G4 owner it's an issue that interests me.
At the moment I tend to shutdown my PB after each session, particularly overnight. I tend to think sleeping it will drain the battery too much over that period of time. However, I'm pretty impressed with the battery performance of my PB so I'm wondering if it could be left on sleep for longer periods.
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
Cheers, Rick
Hi, My iBook G4 since November has been shut down only 3 or 4 times. I like to have it available to take notes and jottings at a moments notice. Every other day or so I charge it when needed.
-M.P.
On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 11:27:12 -0700, Rick Burton wrote (in article cd3ttv$m8k$1@redacted.invalid):
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
I know, it's a perennial question for laptop users, but as a new PowerBook G4 owner it's an issue that interests me.
At the moment I tend to shutdown my PB after each session, particularly overnight. I tend to think sleeping it will drain the battery too much over that period of time. However, I'm pretty impressed with the battery performance of my PB so I'm wondering if it could be left on sleep for longer periods.
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
Cheers, Rick
I turn it off normally. Probably a bad Windows habit more than anything else. But I have had it fail to start up properly. That is more of an annoyance then turning it on in the morning. If it wasn't for it doing that every once in awhile I probably would just sleep it. I never leave it plugged in when I go to bed.
Peter Ceresole wrote:
If you can't leave it on charge, then it is better to power down if you're not using it for a few hours. Sleep does use some power.
Wrong. Why are you people so afraid of using up a little battery power at night? I've never purposely hit 'shutdown' on my Pismo, even if I leave it in the backback for a week while I'm on vacation. The laptop was not made to be shut off. Ever. That's why it has an onboard source of power that's renewable and long lasting.
Use those batteries, folks! I can't tell you how sad it makes me inside (do i really need therapy?) when I'm at a coffee shop and people are looking for a power outlet so they can use their laptop for 15 minutes to check email. The response I hear too often? "I don't want to wear down the battery." What? Just leave the batery at home then, and save yourself an extra pound of dead weight.
There is no need to shut down a computer. I have four of them in my house, and they all sleep themselves at midnight, awaken themselves at 9:00am, rarely crash and need a reboot, but most importantly, don't ask me to wait for two minutes every time I want a bit of information from them.
We humans waste far too much time waiting for computers to start up. Even if your computer only took two minutes to start, you lose over 12 hours a year staring at a useless screen! Count the time it takes for all your needed applications to come online, and you might be upwards of a full day lost every single year of your life. If you learned how to use computers in school and you live to be 80, you've traded about 100 hours of your life. That's almost three weeks! I'd rather take a three week vacation. WooYaa!
Shutdown? I think not.
On Wed, 14 Jul 2004, Rick Burton wrote:
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
I just log out, although responsiveness was getting a bit slow after 32 days' uptime so I restarted.
Leaving the pooter on lets cron do its housekeeping (usu at 3am), (I do use anacron too, but I'm not convinced it is working)
I switch it off for long journeys in the car, and when I'm on holiday and that's about it.
kt.
Richard F Dowling dowling@redacted.invalid wrote:
IMy iMac, however, gets shut down - basically because it's got a CRT in it and I'm old-fashioned and paranoid.
S I need more explanation, Or i'll become(?) old fasshioned and paranoid, my iMac has been 'on' for years with hardly any shutdowns, or major problems. Richard(WorryingUndulyIHope)
If he's the same as me he shuts them down as CRTs get rather warm
Peter Verdon news@redacted.invalid wrote:
Rick Burton wrote:
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
Sleep it, definitely, so that it "boots up" instantly the next time you need it. I've never left mine turned off (though I have rebooted it to clear problems; regrettably more frequently since 10.3.4 came out). Of course, I use my Powerbook daily; if I were going to leave it longer (a week, say) then I would probably turn it off.
I tend to think sleeping it will drain the battery too much
Sleeping does use a certain amount of power. Once, when my machine went to sleep because of low battery I left it for six hours or so before getting it out to charge (and use at the same time). I found that it had turned itself off because the battery level had become too low even for sleep. But I read somewhere that with a full battery to begin with it will sleep for a month before turning itself off.
Yes agreed, for overnight or over the weekend I just sleep the laptop [1], even in transportation, my G4 iBooks already covered a few thousand miles sliding around the boot of various cars in that state too. I don't think they'll last as long as a month asleep, probably just over a week fully charged but I've never done any scientific tests. But yes never had any problems doing that with either this G4 iBook or the G3 iBook before that
In my opinion, sleep is the default "power off" for Mac laptops, with hard shutdown only for long-term storage.
Its the same for our Mac desktops nowadays :)
NB: Do not try to apply the same reasoning to Windows laptops. In my experience they're crap at sleeping and power management in general.
Aren't they just although the XP IBM we've got here is much better than the win98 IBM we've got, sleep/hibernate on that was useless.
[1] I've normally found when its turned itself off I normally have enough power to leave it asleep till the next day.
X Kyle M Thompson kyle.thompson@redacted.invalid wrote:
Leaving the pooter on lets cron do its housekeeping (usu at 3am), (I do use anacron too, but I'm not convinced it is working)
Does it do that while asleep? I think not...
I switch it off for long journeys in the car, and when I'm on holiday and that's about it.
Exactly. Except that I (sad person) take the Mac on holiday- which is when it gets the two or three days in the car.
And I leave it on charge all the time, except for doing slide shows at weddings and parties; people love to see the pictures you just took of them...
Peter Ceresole peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
X Kyle M Thompson kyle.thompson@redacted.invalid wrote:
Leaving the pooter on lets cron do its housekeeping (usu at 3am), (I do use anacron too, but I'm not convinced it is working)
Does it do that while asleep? I think not...
No which is why some of us have little utils to run them while we go get lunch/make coffee etc.
Leaving the pooter on lets cron do its housekeeping (usu at 3am),
(I do use anacron too, but I'm not convinced it is working)
Does it do that while asleep? I think not...
No which is why some of us have little utils to run them while we go get lunch/make coffee etc.
This sounds like something I should know about. Can you tell me more?
Andrew Hickley amh67@redacted.invalid wrote:
Leaving the pooter on lets cron do its housekeeping (usu at 3am),
(I do use anacron too, but I'm not convinced it is working)
Does it do that while asleep? I think not...
No which is why some of us have little utils to run them while we go get lunch/make coffee etc.
This sounds like something I should know about. Can you tell me more?
MacJanitor is the one I use http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html
Onyx is another recommended one http://www.boostware.com/os/mac/onyx.html
Coffee :) http://www.krups.com/
This sounds like something I should know about. Can you tell me more?
MacJanitor is the one I use http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html
Onyx is another recommended one http://www.boostware.com/os/mac/onyx.html
Coffee :) http://www.krups.com/
Thanks very much Jon. MacJanitor now in use...
Andrew Hickley amh67@redacted.invalid wrote:
MacJanitor is the one I use http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html
Thanks very much Jon. MacJanitor now in use...
Here too- I always meant to and finally got of my duff...
One curiosity. I installed it ("drag MacJanitor to your hard drive") and it refused to copy to my boot volume (Darwin- OS10.2.6). There was no dialogue box, just nothing happened. But it went fine to the top level of my second partition, (HD OS 9.2.2 boot volume). This while running in 10.2.6
It runs fine; asked for my password and settled down. Daily took seconds, Weekly took minutes and Monthly took seconds again. As Weekly appears to involve rebulding three catalogue files, it's not surprising it took some time, on its first ever run.
But why would it not install on the OS10 boot volume, but install and work fine from the other partition? Just curious.
Peter Ceresole peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
Here too- I always meant to and finally got of my duff...
Off, even.
In article cd3ttv$m8k$1@redacted.invalid, Rick Burton rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
I know, it's a perennial question for laptop users, but as a new PowerBook G4 owner it's an issue that interests me.
At the moment I tend to shutdown my PB after each session, particularly overnight. I tend to think sleeping it will drain the battery too much over that period of time. However, I'm pretty impressed with the battery performance of my PB so I'm wondering if it could be left on sleep for longer periods.
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
Cheers, Rick
I've read about half the replies and have stopped. No one has mentioned another issue relative to the question, whether laptop or desktop: virtual memory and temp & caches files.
Rebooting frees up hard drive space for virtual memory and clears out temp files.
OS X sucks in its management of VM. I have 768 MB RAM on my 1 GHz PowerBook running 10.3.4 and after no more than 4 days will have 5 or 6 swapfiles eating up well over a GB of drive space. 10.3 creates incrementally sized files: 1st 2 are 64 MB, 3rd is 128 MB, 4th is 256, 5th is 512, etc. 10.2 and before creates them the same size though can't remember what exactly.
Make invisible files visible. On your boot volume look in /var/VM and see what you have.
Depending on how you use your machine it may not be an issue. After a couple days I do feel it and only a reboot works. Processes continue to use their original VM allocation and so you can't delete the early files. Oh, you can put them into the trash but they stay there even if you empty the trash (unless you Secure empty - and then your machine is mucked until you reboot).
--
On 15/7/04 3:32 pm, in article 150720040932497430%NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid, "Tim Lance" NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid wrote:
Depending on how you use your machine it may not be an issue. After a couple days I do feel it and only a reboot works. Processes continue to use their original VM allocation and so you can't delete the early files. Oh, you can put them into the trash but they stay there even if you empty the trash (unless you Secure empty - and then your machine is mucked until you reboot).
You're trying to trash your vm swapfiles???!!!
Cheers,
Chris
Joel Farris this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
Peter Ceresole wrote:
If you can't leave it on charge, then it is better to power down if you're not using it for a few hours. Sleep does use some power.
Wrong. Why are you people so afraid of using up a little battery power at night?
Each to his own...
Ooh. Hey Joel. Getting too intellectual for you over at a.a.p.l-s?
;)
Gav
Joel Farris this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
If you can't leave it on charge, then it is better to power down if you're not using it for a few hours. Sleep does use some power.
Wrong. Why are you people so afraid of using up a little battery power at night?
Not wrong at all.
When you go on battery power you want to conserve as much as possible. There's absolutely no point in running out because you can't be bothered to power down overnight- that's just dumb.
Peter Ceresole peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
Joel Farris this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
If you can't leave it on charge, then it is better to power down if you're not using it for a few hours. Sleep does use some power.
Wrong. Why are you people so afraid of using up a little battery power at night?
Not wrong at all.
When you go on battery power you want to conserve as much as possible. There's absolutely no point in running out because you can't be bothered to power down overnight- that's just dumb.
I tend to have mine plugged in at night, but that is because by then the battery has given me its 3 minute shutdown warning. It is connected all night and most of the day, then in the evening I put the PSU away and it generally stays on until the battery is completely flat.
However, I have left it from time to time unplugged all night, and I never shut it down in the house.
In article 1ggznka.u7jmsgm4y4kN%peter@redacted.invalid, peter@redacted.invalid (Peter Ceresole) wrote:
Joel Farris this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
If you can't leave it on charge, then it is better to power down if you're not using it for a few hours. Sleep does use some power.
Wrong. Why are you people so afraid of using up a little battery power at night?
Not wrong at all.
When you go on battery power you want to conserve as much as possible. There's absolutely no point in running out because you can't be bothered to power down overnight- that's just dumb.
Just a guess but the energy used keeping the computer in sleep over night is less than that needed to start it again.
In any event I almost never shut it down. Sleep uses very little power.
I much prefer to have everything ready to go when I wake it up. I
normally leave it plugged in. Normally the only time I leave it off
charge is when I'm transporting it. When I use it in the car I run it
off of a car adapter. Most of the time when I'm running it where no
mains power is available I use a 12V power pack and the car adapter to
power it. The power pack is a lot cheaper than a laptop battery and
runs it longer. But when I want to use it where I can't plug it in to
any power supply then I use the laptops battery. No point in having
them if I don't use them. But no sense wasting them either.
Clark Martin cmnews@redacted.invalid wrote:
Just a guess but the energy used keeping the computer in sleep over night is less than that needed to start it again.
I've wondered about that; it really depends on the relative power use of, say, ten hours of sleep versus the disk activity of a startup. And the disk activity is really just moving the heads- once awake and spinning there's no more and no less power consumption during startup than just sitting there with some keyboard input.
I'd say powering down and starting up wins.
In article cd3ttv$m8k$1@redacted.invalid, Rick Burton rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
Sleep is definitely more convenient. But OS X boots so fast anyway, that the occasional shutdown does not hurt.
I shut down mine may be once a week or so. For one thing, I like the idea of a 'fresh start' every so often. No OS is entirely free from memory leaks, so a restart will leave you with more free memory. I've always been one of those people who closes all their apps and logs out at the end of the working day, anyway, so it's not as if I need to keep stuff running.
But the most frequent reason I shut mine down is if I've been using it in the bedroom - that damned pulsating light on the case latch seems really bright with the lights off... ;-)
Tim
On 15-07-2004 10:22, in article x9rJc.256737$Gx4.841@redacted.invalid, "Joel Farris" this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
There is no need to shut down a computer. I have four of them in my house, and they all sleep themselves at midnight, awaken themselves at 9:00am, rarely crash and need a reboot, but most importantly, don't ask me to wait for two minutes every time I want a bit of information from them.
I will have to agree, this is the best argument for sleep rather than shut-down. Especially with Osx's instant wake.
Also, the idea that laptops were not made to be shut down is fairly reasonable. It could be argued that, given the tight tolerances in laptops, expansion and contraction due to constant heating/cooling from off to on and back to off, many problems that crop up after some period of use could be prevented by limiting the expansion/contraction process. EJ
In article BD1C5AFA.2DFB5%chrisridd@redacted.invalid, Chris Ridd chrisridd@redacted.invalid wrote:
On 15/7/04 3:32 pm, in article 150720040932497430%NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid, "Tim Lance" NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid wrote:
Depending on how you use your machine it may not be an issue. After a couple days I do feel it and only a reboot works. Processes continue to use their original VM allocation and so you can't delete the early files. Oh, you can put them into the trash but they stay there even if you empty the trash (unless you Secure empty - and then your machine is mucked until you reboot).
You're trying to trash your vm swapfiles???!!!
Cheers,
Chris
Just for grins to see what would happen. Seriously. Didn't do it until I had a backup. I have srewed up UN-intentially enough times to know better. It was just curiosity and part of a discussion in c.s.m.s awhile back. Actually didn't crash the machine per se, some things just didn't work. Reboot was fine. No real fun. : ) What we want is for the OS to transfer VM allocations as files are created so that old can be done away with. As it is you can have, say, (simplelified explanation here) one process using a bit of the first swapfile, a second process a little bit of the second, and so on. Why not have the OS at some point just reorder and reclaim space without rebooting? Of course there may be good reasons I don't comprehend, but others that do know more than me wondered the same.
--
In article cmnews-2A6B5E.00040016072004@redacted.invalid, Clark Martin wrote:
In article 1ggznka.u7jmsgm4y4kN%peter@redacted.invalid, peter@redacted.invalid (Peter Ceresole) wrote:
Joel Farris this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
If you can't leave it on charge, then it is better to power down if you're not using it for a few hours. Sleep does use some power.
Wrong. Why are you people so afraid of using up a little battery power at night?
Not wrong at all.
Just a guess but the energy used keeping the computer in sleep over night is less than that needed to start it again.
My measurements (about a year ago): Usage load: sleep: 14 mA; doing nothing: 400 mA; low use: 750 mA; max: 1200 mA Battery time: 10 days; 8h:05m; 4h:20m; 2h:45m
As you can see, maximum drain is about 80 times as much as sleep. Thus, if it takes you 3 minutes to reboot, you can get 4 hours of sleep for that energy. YMMV.
Consider as well that load surges (as during reboot) may de-calibrate your battery system, resulting in unexpected (apparent) battery depletion.
-- Peter
peter@redacted.invalid (Peter Hayes) writes:
Tim Cutts timc@redacted.invalid wrote:
[...]
But the most frequent reason I shut mine down is if I've been using it in the bedroom - that damned pulsating light on the case latch seems really bright with the lights off... ;-)
Yes, It looks cool, but it's also a security risk.
Having a pulsating light in your bedroom is a security risk? If there's someone undesirable in the bedroom to see it, I think the physical security of the laptop is the least of your problems.
On 16/7/04 3:10 pm, in article 160720040910566472%NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid, "Tim Lance" NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article BD1C5AFA.2DFB5%chrisridd@redacted.invalid, Chris Ridd chrisridd@redacted.invalid wrote:
On 15/7/04 3:32 pm, in article 150720040932497430%NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid, "Tim Lance" NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid wrote:
Depending on how you use your machine it may not be an issue. After a couple days I do feel it and only a reboot works. Processes continue to use their original VM allocation and so you can't delete the early files. Oh, you can put them into the trash but they stay there even if you empty the trash (unless you Secure empty - and then your machine is mucked until you reboot).
You're trying to trash your vm swapfiles???!!!
Cheers,
Chris
Just for grins to see what would happen. Seriously. Didn't do it until
You're a sick man ;-)
I had a backup. I have srewed up UN-intentially enough times to know better. It was just curiosity and part of a discussion in c.s.m.s awhile back. Actually didn't crash the machine per se, some things just didn't work. Reboot was fine. No real fun. : ) What we want is for the OS to transfer VM allocations as files are created so that old can be done away with. As it is you can have, say, (simplelified explanation here) one process using a bit of the first swapfile, a second process a little bit of the second, and so on. Why not have the OS at some point just reorder and reclaim space without rebooting? Of course there may be good reasons I don't comprehend, but others that do know more than me wondered the same.
I believe reclamation does occur - I've logged out and back in again, and have on occasion observed fewer swapfiles after logging back in again.
The manual page for dynamic_pager suggests this will happen under certain conditions. Since logging out will kill the processes that run the GUI (and use lots of memory), I guess logging out tends to trigger those conditions.
Cheers,
Chris
Peter Ceresole peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
When you go on battery power you want to conserve as much as possible. There's absolutely no point in running out because you can't be bothered to power down overnight- that's just dumb.
It's not just "can't be bothered to power down overnight", it's also "can't be bothered to answer all the 'do you wish to save changes' dialogs, wait around ensuring that it does shut down instead of borking on some stuck process, then the next day wait while it boots, then re-open all your applications, remember which documents/websites/projects were open in them and re-open those, and finally, wait whilst they load".
Two (partial) solutions:
- Saved-state applications. Close an app with files/projects open, and when you re-open the app, everything re-opens as it was. iMovie does this, Omniweb does this, Mail does this (all to varying extents). It astounds me that in this day and age, so few applications save state, when it is so useful (I have literally dozens of web pages open at any one time, and quitting/restarting safari was a nightmare - OmniWeb is so much better). Reload an app and you're immediately back where you left off, no faffing.
Saved state should also be independent of the file or project's saved state - if you quit an application when an unsaved document is open, you should not be forced to save that document, and if you don't, when you restart the app, the unsaved document will re-appear exactly as you left it.
- Hibernation (ie 'saved-state system'). A deeper version of sleep where the contents of RAM are saved to disk, and reinstated on wake. PC laptops do this (though not reliably, AIUI) and some iBooks had the facility to in an early version of OS9 (IIRC). This would mean a) you'd get a shorter 'boot' time than with off/on, b) you'd have no hassle of reloading everything just to get back to where you were, and c) hibernation time is indefinite (ie it uses no battery at all).
Joel Farris this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
I can't tell you how sad it makes me inside (do i really need therapy?) when I'm at a coffee shop and people are looking for a power outlet so they can use their laptop for 15 minutes to check email. The response I hear too often? "I don't want to wear down the battery." What? Just leave the batery at home then, and save yourself an extra pound of dead weight.
If these people are using Windows laptops, they may only have an hour or so of real-world battery use.
-z-
Peter Ceresole peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
And I leave it on charge all the time, except for doing slide shows at weddings and parties; people love to see the pictures you just took of them...
Don't they just? It all got a little weird once when Friend One took a photo of Friends Two, Three and four looking at the photos I'd just taken of them.... so, of course, they then wanted to see the photo that had just been taken of them looking at the photo that had just been taken of them.
It all got very meta and we may have spawned a parallel universe that took over this one - sorry if that has inconvenienced anyone.
-z-
Peter Renzland nomail@redacted.invalid wrote:
As you can see, maximum drain is about 80 times as much as sleep. Thus, if it takes you 3 minutes to reboot, you can get 4 hours of sleep for that energy.
The other way round; if you power down the Mac for 6 hours (which is less time than I'd have it down for overnight) then you make a clear gain over sleeping it. Not a huge gain, but then six hours is a short night.
Eric Johnson erj66@redacted.invalid wrote:
On 15-07-2004 10:22, in article x9rJc.256737$Gx4.841@redacted.invalid, "Joel Farris" this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
There is no need to shut down a computer. I have four of them in my house, and they all sleep themselves at midnight, awaken themselves at 9:00am, rarely crash and need a reboot, but most importantly, don't ask me to wait for two minutes every time I want a bit of information from them.
I will have to agree, this is the best argument for sleep rather than shut-down. Especially with Osx's instant wake.
Every time.
Also, the idea that laptops were not made to be shut down is fairly reasonable. It could be argued that, given the tight tolerances in laptops, expansion and contraction due to constant heating/cooling from off to on and back to off, many problems that crop up after some period of use could be prevented by limiting the expansion/contraction process.
My PowerBook gets just as cold sleeping as it does switched off - 2 Watts isn't going to generate much heat.
Woody usenet@redacted.invalid wrote:
Rick Burton rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
If I am taking it out of the house like into work I shut it down, otherwise I just close the lid (which is most of the time).
Why?
There's no meaningful difference between sleep and power off other than sleep offers instant restart.
Tim Cutts timc@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article cd3ttv$m8k$1@redacted.invalid, Rick Burton rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
Sleep is definitely more convenient. But OS X boots so fast anyway, that the occasional shutdown does not hurt.
My WinXP Dell laptop boots far faster than my PowerBook, seconds instead of 1-2 minutes.
I shut down mine may be once a week or so. For one thing, I like the idea of a 'fresh start' every so often. No OS is entirely free from memory leaks, so a restart will leave you with more free memory. I've always been one of those people who closes all their apps and logs out at the end of the working day, anyway, so it's not as if I need to keep stuff running.
But the most frequent reason I shut mine down is if I've been using it in the bedroom - that damned pulsating light on the case latch seems really bright with the lights off... ;-)
Yes, It looks cool, but it's also a security risk.
There really should be an option to turn it off, or have it very dim and not pulsating.
Peter Hayes peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
Yes, It looks cool, but it's also a security risk.
There really should be an option to turn it off, or have it very dim and not pulsating.
I have a very hi-tech solution; I cover the flashing LED with a cloth or lay a book on it.
Do you suppose I could sell the idea to Apple?
Peter Ceresole wrote:
Clark Martin cmnews@redacted.invalid wrote:
Just a guess but the energy used keeping the computer in sleep over night is less than that needed to start it again.
I've wondered about that; it really depends on the relative power use of, say, ten hours of sleep versus the disk activity of a startup.
I'd say powering down and starting up wins.
I'd agree that powering down "wins" in the power consumption stakes, but it also loses heavily as far as convenience is concerned. Since 1) I bought a Mac for convenient computing[1] and 2) I'm rarely in the field without power, I only ever put my machine to sleep, except for the occasional restart.
Pete
[1] I could do as much, or probably more, on my Linux machines, but often only after hours of hacking. Thus, the only tasks that were truely convenient were those I did often enough to bother simplifying and semi-automating (ie Web, email, news, Eclipse and LyX).
Eric Johnson wrote:
You still get heating/cooling if you put your machine to sleep instead of shutting down. If it stayed hot in sleep, then it would still be using as much energy as when it was awake, which it clearly isn't. Near enough all the energy that comes out the battery ends up as heat. Since in sleep the only component receiving power is the refresh circuitry of the RAM, the amount of energy leaving the battery (and hence heat in the laptop) is minimal.
Pete
Peter Ceresole wrote:
Peter Renzland nomail@redacted.invalid wrote:
As you can see, maximum drain is about 80 times as much as sleep. Thus, if it takes you 3 minutes to reboot, you can get 4 hours of sleep for that energy.
The other way round; if you power down the Mac for 6 hours (which is less time than I'd have it down for overnight) then you make a clear gain over sleeping it.
Yup. So, if your only priority is minimising power use (which I suggest it rarely is) then your most efficient plan is to shut down for intervals of over four hours, and sleep for periods under four hours. Of course, this assumes that you know how long it will be before you need your computer again.
Pete
zoara wrote:
Joel Farris this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
I can't tell you how sad it makes me inside (do i really need therapy?) when I'm at a coffee shop and people are looking for a power outlet
If these people are using Windows laptops, they may only have an hour or so of real-world battery use.
My Windows[1] laptop had about half an hour of useful battery life. Not an entirely fair comparison, though, as it was an extremely cheap and shitty Windows[1] laptop.
Pete
[1] Actually, though it retained a partition of Windows ME[2] for those are times that only Windows would do, it spent most of its working life in Linux. [2] The operating system named after a disease.
In article BD1DB9F2.2E7B3%chrisridd@redacted.invalid, Chris Ridd chrisridd@redacted.invalid wrote:
On 16/7/04 3:10 pm, in article 160720040910566472%NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid, "Tim Lance" NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article BD1C5AFA.2DFB5%chrisridd@redacted.invalid, Chris Ridd chrisridd@redacted.invalid wrote:
On 15/7/04 3:32 pm, in article 150720040932497430%NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid, "Tim Lance" NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid wrote:
Depending on how you use your machine it may not be an issue. After a couple days I do feel it and only a reboot works. Processes continue to use their original VM allocation and so you can't delete the early files. Oh, you can put them into the trash but they stay there even if you empty the trash (unless you Secure empty - and then your machine is mucked until you reboot).
You're trying to trash your vm swapfiles???!!!
Cheers,
Chris
Just for grins to see what would happen. Seriously. Didn't do it until
You're a sick man ;-)
I had a backup. I have srewed up UN-intentially enough times to know better. It was just curiosity and part of a discussion in c.s.m.s awhile back. Actually didn't crash the machine per se, some things just didn't work. Reboot was fine. No real fun. : ) What we want is for the OS to transfer VM allocations as files are created so that old can be done away with. As it is you can have, say, (simplelified explanation here) one process using a bit of the first swapfile, a second process a little bit of the second, and so on. Why not have the OS at some point just reorder and reclaim space without rebooting? Of course there may be good reasons I don't comprehend, but others that do know more than me wondered the same.
I believe reclamation does occur - I've logged out and back in again, and have on occasion observed fewer swapfiles after logging back in again.
The manual page for dynamic_pager suggests this will happen under certain conditions. Since logging out will kill the processes that run the GUI (and use lots of memory), I guess logging out tends to trigger those conditions.
Cheers,
Chris
In my very little ken quitting apps certainly does reclaim (Thoth especially) but ongoing stuff, not so much. Still, compared to Classic!?!?!?!?
--
Peter Ceresole peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
Peter Hayes peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
Yes, It looks cool, but it's also a security risk.
There really should be an option to turn it off, or have it very dim and not pulsating.
I have a very hi-tech solution; I cover the flashing LED with a cloth or lay a book on it.
Do you suppose I could sell the idea to Apple?
Loses its cool factor... :-)
Peter Verdon news@redacted.invalid wrote:
Yup. So, if your only priority is minimising power use (which I suggest it rarely is) then your most efficient plan is to shut down for intervals of over four hours, and sleep for periods under four hours. Of course, this assumes that you know how long it will be before you need your computer again.
Oh yes. None of this is precision engineering.
For me, it's the uncertainty that wins out. If I know am going to be using the TiBook away from handy power, I just prefer to feel that it'll fall over a late as possible. Nothing feels so stupid as having your laptop run out of juice.
Most of the time I am using it on a desk, so it's plugged in 24/7 and it sleeps at night.
Peter Hayes peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
I have a very hi-tech solution; I cover the flashing LED with a cloth or lay a book on it.
Do you suppose I could sell the idea to Apple?
Loses its cool factor... :-)
Not if it's a nice cloth.
Peter Hayes peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
Woody usenet@redacted.invalid wrote:
Rick Burton rikkard@redacted.invalid wrote:
I'd love to hear how other laptop users treat their machines and what the current thinking in on sleep vs. shutdown. Please help me reach a decision.
If I am taking it out of the house like into work I shut it down, otherwise I just close the lid (which is most of the time).
Why?
There's no meaningful difference between sleep and power off other than sleep offers instant restart.
And shutdown writes unsaved data to the disk, which is nice if (for instance) the battery falls out as it did once.
On 17/7/04 12:05 am, in article 160720041805520995%NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid, "Tim Lance" NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid wrote:
In my very little ken quitting apps certainly does reclaim (Thoth especially) but ongoing stuff, not so much. Still, compared to
That's because you're not killing the big memory users, which start when you log in and exit when you log out. eg:
PID COMMAND #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE 22934 Finder 1 111 308 7.48M 37.2M 14.4M 141M 21527 System Eve 1 64 142 1.68M 6.01M 1.82M 90.8M 21117 AppleSpell 1 24 38 468K 1.13M 1.24M 35.9M 20621 UniversalA 1 64 137 732K 8.19M 1.98M 95.3M 20619 SpeechSynt 4 162 208 2.69M 10.0M 4.76M 109M 20610 SystemUISe 2 135 287 6.09M 19.1M 6.46M 114M 20609 Dock 2 121 206 3.07M 16.0M 5.32M 102M 20607 pbs 2 32 51 1.70M 1.90M 1.34M 45.9M 20601 WindowServ 2 265 765 5.79M+ 27.1M 28.8M+ 103M+ 20599 loginwindo 5 196 292 4.47M 18.7M 8.64M 101M
(columns removed to avoid line wrapping.) There's nearly a gig right there.
Classic!?!?!?!?
A slightly unreasonable comparison.
Cheers,
Chris
Dale J. Stephenson steph@redacted.invalid wrote:
peter@redacted.invalid (Peter Hayes) writes:
Tim Cutts timc@redacted.invalid wrote:
[...]
But the most frequent reason I shut mine down is if I've been using it in the bedroom - that damned pulsating light on the case latch seems really bright with the lights off... ;-)
Yes, It looks cool, but it's also a security risk.
Having a pulsating light in your bedroom is a security risk? If there's someone undesirable in the bedroom to see it, I think the physical security of the laptop is the least of your problems.
I don't have my laptop in my bedroom but in the living room. It was banned from the bedroom by my better half...
The pulsating light is very obvious at night from outside, lighting up the room with an eerie glow.
I now swing my chair round in front of it which helps The LED brightness could be controlled by the same ambient light sensors that determine the keyboard illumination.
Peter Hayes wrote:
peter@redacted.invalid (Peter Hayes) writes:
The LED brightness could be controlled by the same ambient light sensors that determine the keyboard illumination.
Not with the lid closed.
Pete
In article 1gh12dj.8ml7936qvjehN%me3@redacted.invalid, zoara nettid1@redacted.invalid wrote:
Joel Farris this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
I can't tell you how sad it makes me inside (do i really need therapy?) when I'm at a coffee shop and people are looking for a power outlet so they can use their laptop for 15 minutes to check email. The response I hear too often? "I don't want to wear down the battery." What? Just leave the batery at home then, and save yourself an extra pound of dead weight.
If these people are using Windows laptops, they may only have an hour or so of real-world battery use.
The last Windows laptop I had had a useful battery life of about three hours. That was a Sony Vaio. Quite nice hardware, shame about the OS.
Tim
Peter Verdon news@redacted.invalid wrote:
Peter Hayes wrote:
peter@redacted.invalid (Peter Hayes) writes:
The LED brightness could be controlled by the same ambient light sensors that determine the keyboard illumination.
Not with the lid closed.
Damn - you're so right... :(
Obfus Kataa vapaa@redacted.invalid wrote:
Wed, 14 Jul 2004 (20:30 +0100 UTC) Peter Ceresole wrote:
Jason Koesters no.spam@redacted.invalid wrote:
Some people have mentioned they leave the laptop plugged in. I tend to let the battery drop to around 60 to 70% and then I plug it back in for recharging. I read something online about batteries once and that was the recommendation. Don't treat it like a NiCd or NiMH and drain it all the way to the bottom.
PBook batteries are NiMH, and the best way to look after them is to keep them charged to the max, as much as possible.
My 2002 PB is LiON. I believe LiON has been the industry standard for notebooks at least since 2000.
I have an old Gateway laptop purchased in 1998. It has a LiON battery. The machine is used mostly mains powered, ie the battery is continuously being 'topped up'and it is still capable of running the laptop for some time.
Peter Verdon news@redacted.invalid wrote:
zoara wrote:
Joel Farris this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
I can't tell you how sad it makes me inside (do i really need therapy?) when I'm at a coffee shop and people are looking for a power outlet
If these people are using Windows laptops, they may only have an hour or so of real-world battery use.
My Windows[1] laptop had about half an hour of useful battery life. Not an entirely fair comparison, though, as it was an extremely cheap and shitty Windows[1] laptop.
Why isn't it a fair comparison? The people hunting for power outlets could be (and probably are) using cheap and shitty laptops.
-z-
Tim Cutts timc@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article 1gh12dj.8ml7936qvjehN%me3@redacted.invalid, zoara nettid1@redacted.invalid wrote:
Joel Farris this.is.not@redacted.invalid wrote:
I can't tell you how sad it makes me inside (do i really need therapy?) when I'm at a coffee shop and people are looking for a power outlet so they can use their laptop for 15 minutes to check email. The response I hear too often? "I don't want to wear down the battery." What? Just leave the batery at home then, and save yourself an extra pound of dead weight.
If these people are using Windows laptops, they may only have an hour or so of real-world battery use.
The last Windows laptop I had had a useful battery life of about three hours.
Yes. Not all Windows laptops have crappy battery life; but not all Windows laptops have a decent battery life, either. Apple laptops all have at least a reasonable battery life.
Hence, "if these people are using Windows laptops, they may only have an hour or so of real-world battery use."
-z-
Peter Hayes peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
My 2002 PB is LiON. I believe LiON has been the industry standard for notebooks at least since 2000.
I have an old Gateway laptop purchased in 1998. It has a LiON battery.
I have an old 1996 Toshiba Satellite with a 100MHz Pentium in it. It still works as a desktop Windoze machine of last resort- but the battery died several years ago and I have slung it somewhere. I can't find the handbook either. But I am quite certain that it said somewhere that the battery was NiMH. Which is why I had that bee in my bonnet.
In article 1gh2mwl.1scchsp1lsukeiN%me3@redacted.invalid, zoara nettid1@redacted.invalid wrote:
Yes. Not all Windows laptops have crappy battery life; but not all Windows laptops have a decent battery life, either. Apple laptops all have at least a reasonable battery life.
Hence, "if these people are using Windows laptops, they may only have an hour or so of real-world battery use." Wierd City - where odd things happen to the order of letters.
You're still not being fair, though - you're comparing a reasonable quality manufacturer with a whole range, from good down to crappy. If you're going to compare fairly, you need to look at one of the PC laptop vendors with whom Apple are really competitive. Like Sony, for example, or one of the other quality manufacturers.
The poor battery life is not entirely down to Windows.
Tim
zoara wrote:
Peter Verdon news@redacted.invalid wrote:
zoara wrote:
If these people are using Windows laptops, they may only have an hour or so of real-world battery use.
My Windows[1] laptop had about half an hour of useful battery life. Not an entirely fair comparison, though, as it was an extremely cheap and shitty Windows[1] laptop.
Why isn't it a fair comparison? The people hunting for power outlets could be (and probably are) using cheap and shitty laptops.
Oh, I agree with that - I was always the one hunting for a power socket when I had that machine. My point is that it's not entirely fair to compare those machines with Apples, because Apple has no equivalent low-end laptops. The Windows equivalent of an iBook, say, probably has battery life better than half an hour.
Pete
Tim Cutts timc@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article 1gh2mwl.1scchsp1lsukeiN%me3@redacted.invalid, zoara nettid1@redacted.invalid wrote:
Yes. Not all Windows laptops have crappy battery life; but not all Windows laptops have a decent battery life, either. Apple laptops all have at least a reasonable battery life.
Hence, "if these people are using Windows laptops, they may only have an hour or so of real-world battery use." Wierd City - where odd things happen to the order of letters.
You're still not being fair, though - you're comparing a reasonable quality manufacturer with a whole range, from good down to crappy.
I'm not comparing anything.
What is so contentious about the statement "if these people are using Windows laptops, they may only have an hour or so of real-world battery use."? It's entirely true and doesn't contain any comparisons to Apple kit. It doesn't say all Windows machines have this issue. It's merely stating a probable/possible reason for people scrabbling around for mains power in cafes...
It's beside the point that Mac users happen to be in the category of laptop user that does not suffer from low battery life. There is no Mac vs Windows argument going on here.
If you're going to compare fairly, you need to look at one of the PC laptop vendors with whom Apple are really competitive. Like Sony, for example, or one of the other quality manufacturers.
Why would I use an example of a manufacturer whose laptops have a decent battery life in order to make the point that people scrabbling for mains power may have lousy battery life? That wouldn't make the point very well, would it?
The poor battery life is not entirely down to Windows.
I never claimed it was. I was using the generic term "Windows laptop" to differentiate between Macs and the rest of what is commonly available. If you're being pedantic (which is more then acceptable in uk.comp.sys.mac) you can replace "Windows" with "Intel & Intel compatible". My point still stands - those users scrabbling for mains power may well be using laptops with a lousy battery life.
-z-
In article BD1E9DB7.2EC76%chrisridd@redacted.invalid, Chris Ridd chrisridd@redacted.invalid wrote:
On 17/7/04 12:05 am, in article 160720041805520995%NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid, "Tim Lance" NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid wrote:
In my very little ken quitting apps certainly does reclaim (Thoth especially) but ongoing stuff, not so much. Still, compared to
That's because you're not killing the big memory users, which start when you log in and exit when you log out. eg:
Exactly.
PID COMMAND #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE 22934 Finder 1 111 308 7.48M 37.2M 14.4M 141M 21527 System Eve 1 64 142 1.68M 6.01M 1.82M 90.8M 21117 AppleSpell 1 24 38 468K 1.13M 1.24M 35.9M 20621 UniversalA 1 64 137 732K 8.19M 1.98M 95.3M 20619 SpeechSynt 4 162 208 2.69M 10.0M 4.76M 109M 20610 SystemUISe 2 135 287 6.09M 19.1M 6.46M 114M 20609 Dock 2 121 206 3.07M 16.0M 5.32M 102M 20607 pbs 2 32 51 1.70M 1.90M 1.34M 45.9M 20601 WindowServ 2 265 765 5.79M+ 27.1M 28.8M+ 103M+ 20599 loginwindo 5 196 292 4.47M 18.7M 8.64M 101M
(columns removed to avoid line wrapping.) There's nearly a gig right there.
Classic!?!?!?!?
A slightly unreasonable comparison.
To say the least.
Cheers,
Chris
--
Rick Burton wrote:
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
Lotta unexpectedly strong opinions about this issue, predominantly falling on the side of sleeping rather than shutting-down. Makes it sound like there is a real "right answer" to the question.
Well, I shut down at the end of every day <gasp!>. Maybe several times a day! What harm am I doing? What harm am I incurring? Convince me I should change. The "2 minutes saved x 1000 days = years of extra time for vacation" is preposterous, so try another argument. My startup on iBook g4/933 with OS 10.3.4 is a minute max. I wake up, I wander over to the computer at some point, I hit the power button, I brush my teeth, I rub my eyes, or perhaps I just yawn, and the iBook is ready to go.
Can we hear a compelling argument? Or is the real answer, "either way is pretty much fine"?
-- Josh
"Joshua Steinberg" jsteinb1@redacted.invalid wrote in message news:iiwKc.8504$5Y.6295@redacted.invalid
Rick Burton wrote:
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
Lotta unexpectedly strong opinions about this issue, predominantly falling on the side of sleeping rather than shutting-down. Makes it sound like there is a real "right answer" to the question.
I would have thought it indicates no real right answer !
Well, I shut down at the end of every day <gasp!>. Maybe several times a day! What harm am I doing? What harm am I incurring?
I doubt you are doing anything to harm the computer.
Convince me I should change. The "2 minutes saved x 1000 days = years of extra time for vacation" is preposterous, so try another argument. My startup on iBook g4/933 with OS 10.3.4 is a minute max. I wake up, I wander over to the computer at some point, I hit the power button, I brush my teeth, I rub my eyes, or perhaps I just yawn, and the iBook is ready to go.
Can we hear a compelling argument? Or is the real answer, "either way is pretty much fine"?
The right answer is, you have been provided with a choice and you can do whatever you want to. But why do you need to clean your teeth after hitting the power button? Is it some weird tooth depolarisation thing?
On 18-07-2004 17:02, in article iiwKc.8504$5Y.6295@redacted.invalid, "Joshua Steinberg" jsteinb1@redacted.invalid wrote:
The "2 minutes saved x 1000 days = years of extra time for vacation" is preposterous, so try another argument.
It isn't that at all. I'm going out the door to work.
I want to look at the weather radar to see if I can pull the top of my car.
2+ minutes saved at 8:40 am is more important and relevant. It take approximately 2 minutes to pull the top off my car.
Hhmmmmmm.
EJ
P.S. I do favor shutting down or restarting periodically just to keep performance at peek.
Joshua Steinberg jsteinb1@redacted.invalid wrote:
Well, I shut down at the end of every day <gasp!>. Maybe several times a day! What harm am I doing? What harm am I incurring? Convince me I should change.
Why should you? You're doing no harm, unless you're running on batteries at the time and you restart more frequently than once every six hours or so, in which case you're unnecessarily hitting the batteries.
It's more of a lifestyle choice. And since the PBooks and iBooks became such good sleepers, it's just nice to have them alive and kicking within five seconds, networked within ten. But the word is 'nice'. Not 'vital'.
I hit the power button, I brush my teeth
Ansolutely right. With the Mac, you can't be too careful about your polarisation.
zoara me3@redacted.invalid wrote:
If you're being pedantic (which is more then acceptable ^^^^ The only person allowed that Merkin abomination is Woody, and only because it seems to come from his fingers not from his brain. You, zoara, have no excuse.
Joshua Steinberg wrote:
Rick Burton wrote:
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
Lotta unexpectedly strong opinions about this issue, predominantly falling on the side of sleeping rather than shutting-down. Makes it sound like there is a real "right answer" to the question.
Well, I shut down at the end of every day <gasp!>. Maybe several times a day! What harm am I doing? What harm am I incurring? Convince me I should change.
Why? You don't sound like you want to, and it's none of my business how you operate your computers. No, you're not doing any harm, the only argument against turning the machine on and off is the inconvenience of waiting for it to boot up. If you don't find this a problem, then by all means carry on doing it. Nobody here is going to care either way.
Pete
["Followup-To:" header set to comp.sys.mac.portables.] On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 18:08:40 +0100, zoara wrote:
- Hibernation (ie 'saved-state system'). A deeper version of sleep where the contents of RAM are saved to disk, and reinstated on wake.
There is a simple question:
- How about power consumption?
How much does it take to refresh RAM and all required power circuitry? The vendor's specs are not very promising. I hat a look e.g. at Infineon 512 Mb, 133 MHz: 4 mA each, refresh time every 64 ms. That's about 210 mW - resulting in 100 days out of 50 Wh batteries.
I don't know the real consumption - it may be less pessimistic or higher due to extra circuitry (e.g. voltage conversion 14 V -> 3.3 V).
A well designed system can be much, mmuch more efficient than a very basic component mix.
How much does it take to start from sleep mode to normal operation? How much battery does it take e.g. do load 1 GB of buffered RAM contents from HardDisk to RAM?
Apart from a perhaps significant delay for a poorly designed system (which has to copy not only the used memory areas, but the full RAM), this power consumption for starting the HD, reading/writing the full data etc. may be significantly higher.
So the question then is: where's the break-even time whether to sleep in RAM or swap to disk? Add some penalty for wakeup speed.
I suppose Apple chose to use RAM only, since its power consumption still is reasonablly low, while they expect that real users would not leave ther portable unused for more than a few days.
Regards Martin
PeterD pd.news@redacted.invalid wrote:
zoara me3@redacted.invalid wrote:
If you're being pedantic (which is more then acceptable ^^^^ The only person allowed that Merkin abomination is Woody, and only because it seems to come from his fingers not from his brain. You, zoara, have no excuse.
Not even for humor value? Note where I used it.
-z-
PeterD pd.news@redacted.invalid wrote:
zoara me3@redacted.invalid wrote:
If you're being pedantic (which is more then acceptable ^^^^ The only person allowed that Merkin abomination is Woody, and only because it seems to come from his fingers not from his brain. You, zoara, have no excuse.
All my spelling comes from my fingers. My brain has moved on to other things by the time my fingers catch up.
According to my wife, "it isn't a merkinism, it is people just not knowing how to spell". bloody foreigners.
zoara me3@redacted.invalid wrote:
PeterD pd.news@redacted.invalid wrote:
zoara me3@redacted.invalid wrote:
If you're being pedantic (which is more then acceptable ^^^^ The only person allowed that Merkin abomination is Woody, and only because it seems to come from his fingers not from his brain. You, zoara, have no excuse.
Not even for humor value? Note where I used it.
Well your irony light wasn't flashing, so I took it at face value. If you're playing the humour card, I guess I'll have to withdraw my allegation.
In article iiwKc.8504$5Y.6295@redacted.invalid, Joshua Steinberg jsteinb1@redacted.invalid wrote:
Well, I shut down at the end of every day <gasp!>. Maybe several times a day! What harm am I doing? What harm am I incurring? Convince me I should change.
No real harm, most likely. Maybe a little extra wear and tear, but not the kind of thing that will make much difference before the machine's completely obsolete. Dunno about the various battery arguments, as I'm not that knowledgable on battery technology.
However, convenience is a big factor. I used to shut down every night back when I used a desktop instead of a laptop, in the days when desktops didn't have very good power management. Invariably, I would often power down for the evening, only to later decide I needed something from the computer and had to power up again.
The extra time needed to start up your computer may not make a difference at some times, but when your spouse is tired, grumpy and waiting for you to come to bed and turn the lights off, and you really need to get a look at your calendar to see what time to set the alarm for, then it's a pain.
So I guess it comes down not to the question "Why should I sleep my machine?", but "Why do I shut it down?" Ask yourself why you shut down your machine every night, and if you can't come up with a decent answer, don't do it. Just put it to sleep.
On 19-07-2004 18:05, in article 190720041205366027%thomasareed@redacted.invalid, "Thomas Reed" thomasareed@redacted.invalid wrote:
The extra time needed to start up your computer may not make a difference at some times, but when your spouse is tired, grumpy and waiting for you to come to bed and turn the lights off, and you really need to get a look at your calendar to see what time to set the alarm for, then it's a pain.
This is the real time saving advantage of sleep.
Short term savings and not long term cumulative gains..
EJ
In article 1gh1ib6.1i2lpq81quqwonN%peter@redacted.invalid, peter@redacted.invalid says...
There really should be an option to turn it off, or have it very dim and not pulsating.
I totally agree, an option to turn it off is certainly necessary. For those of us that see their machines as tools, having it constantly crying for attention in the corner of the room is annoying. At least the "I need a wee, I need a wee!" bouncing doc can be turned off, if only unoffically.
Trooper news@redacted.invalid wrote:
I totally agree, an option to turn it off is certainly necessary.
That option already exists. It's called a piece of paper, or a cloth, or a book. Laid in the right place.
Of course it's not on sale at the Applestore. But don't let that stop you.
In article 1gh7vtq.19ccdh01evd67wN%peter@redacted.invalid, peter@redacted.invalid says...
Trooper news@redacted.invalid wrote:
I totally agree, an option to turn it off is certainly necessary.
That option already exists. It's called a piece of paper, or a cloth, or a book. Laid in the right place.
Of course it's not on sale at the Applestore. But don't let that stop you.
That's a frig, not an option...
Trooper wrote:
peter@redacted.invalid says...
There really should be an option to turn it off, or have it very dim and not pulsating.
I totally agree, an option to turn it off is certainly necessary.
I'd suggest the reason it's there is because otherwise a sleeping laptop would be indistinguishable from a turned-off one. The crucial difference between the two is that the sleeping laptop can't be left indefinitely - if it runs out of power it will lose the contents of memory, equivalent to yanking the battery out while running.
Whether this is important enough to make turning off the light impossible, I'm not sure. Certainly I can see the need for a "steady" or "dim" option - the "breathing" doesn't bother me, but I can understand why others might find it annoying.
Pete
Pete brings up an excellent point here. Think about when your powerbook's battery is so low it won't even come out of its sleep? Then where would you be? How would you ever know if it was about to die without a proper shutdown or if it was already turned off?
Jason
Peter Verdon wrote:
Trooper wrote:
peter@redacted.invalid says...
There really should be an option to turn it off, or have it very dim and not pulsating.
I totally agree, an option to turn it off is certainly necessary.
I'd suggest the reason it's there is because otherwise a sleeping laptop would be indistinguishable from a turned-off one. The crucial difference between the two is that the sleeping laptop can't be left indefinitely - if it runs out of power it will lose the contents of memory, equivalent to yanking the battery out while running.
Whether this is important enough to make turning off the light impossible, I'm not sure. Certainly I can see the need for a "steady" or "dim" option - the "breathing" doesn't bother me, but I can understand why others might find it annoying.
Pete
PeterD pd.news@redacted.invalid wrote:
zoara me3@redacted.invalid wrote:
PeterD pd.news@redacted.invalid wrote:
zoara me3@redacted.invalid wrote:
If you're being pedantic (which is more then acceptable ^^^^ The only person allowed that Merkin abomination is Woody, and only because it seems to come from his fingers not from his brain. You, zoara, have no excuse.
Not even for humor value? Note where I used it.
Well your irony light wasn't flashing, so I took it at face value.
thwack
Damn, its busted. Sorry.
-z-
In article 1gh13dl.1eop28r1y6bikmN%peter@redacted.invalid, peter@redacted.invalid (Peter Ceresole) wrote:
Peter Renzland nomail@redacted.invalid wrote:
As you can see, maximum drain is about 80 times as much as sleep. Thus, if it takes you 3 minutes to reboot, you can get 4 hours of sleep for that energy.
The other way round; if you power down the Mac for 6 hours (which is less time than I'd have it down for overnight) then you make a clear gain over sleeping it. Not a huge gain, but then six hours is a short night.
If you sleep it you can keep your apps running. If you start up you have to launch the apps again which is going to add additional startup minutes.
And if it's asleep you have almost instant access to it when you wake it. If you have to start up then you either sit waiting for it or you do something else in which case you waste a few minutes of the computer being idle while till you come back to it.
In article aeF*poLpq@redacted.invalid, Tim Cutts timc@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article 1gh2mwl.1scchsp1lsukeiN%me3@redacted.invalid, zoara nettid1@redacted.invalid wrote:
Yes. Not all Windows laptops have crappy battery life; but not all Windows laptops have a decent battery life, either. Apple laptops all have at least a reasonable battery life.
Hence, "if these people are using Windows laptops, they may only have an hour or so of real-world battery use." Wierd City - where odd things happen to the order of letters.
You're still not being fair, though - you're comparing a reasonable quality manufacturer with a whole range, from good down to crappy. If you're going to compare fairly, you need to look at one of the PC laptop vendors with whom Apple are really competitive. Like Sony, for example, or one of the other quality manufacturers.
The poor battery life is not entirely down to Windows.
Except that often when Apple is compared to Windows on price it's one of those crappy machines. Turnabout is fair play.
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote:
On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 11:27:12 -0700, Rick Burton wrote (in article cd3ttv$m8k$1@redacted.invalid):
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
I turn it off normally. Probably a bad Windows habit more than anything else. But I have had it fail to start up properly. That is more of an annoyance then turning it on in the morning. If it wasn't for it doing that every once in awhile I probably would just sleep it. I never leave it plugged in when I go to bed. I expect that it just wouldn't wake because the battery was low when you put it to sleep. 10 Seconds on charge would soon solve that.
Peter.
Clark Martin cmnews@redacted.invalid wrote:
The other way round; if you power down the Mac for 6 hours (which is less time than I'd have it down for overnight) then you make a clear gain over sleeping it. Not a huge gain, but then six hours is a short night.
If you sleep it you can keep your apps running. If you start up you have to launch the apps again which is going to add additional startup minutes.
As a result of this very interesting thread, I now send my Powerbook to sleep rather than shutting it down. It's just seems so much easier.
I guess I used to shutdown just to feel 'safe' about it, but it's been no problem having it sleep for the last week or so, and very handy having access to apps a few seconds after lifting the lid.
I still shutdown my desktop machine each night though - can't seem to break that habit.
On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 04:12:28 -0700, Peter Lee wrote (in article 1ghe5qr.1qgbbn9cq7n6qN%peterlee@redacted.invalid):
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote:
On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 11:27:12 -0700, Rick Burton wrote (in article cd3ttv$m8k$1@redacted.invalid):
So is it best to shutdown your PowerBook (or iBook) after each use or sleep it?
I turn it off normally. Probably a bad Windows habit more than anything else. But I have had it fail to start up properly. That is more of an annoyance then turning it on in the morning. If it wasn't for it doing that every once in awhile I probably would just sleep it. I never leave it plugged in when I go to bed. I expect that it just wouldn't wake because the battery was low when you put it to sleep. 10 Seconds on charge would soon solve that.
Peter.
Not the case here. Its always plugged in and charged when I turn it off. One of those documented bugs they can't seem to fix on some machines. If you have an external hard drive hooked up pretty much all the time it is easier to just shut it down. If you sleep it while it is connected then you are going to have to shut it down anyway to get the drive back so your going to have to eject the drive and hook it back up.
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote:
Its always plugged in and charged when I turn it off. One of those documented bugs they can't seem to fix on some machines. If you have an external hard drive hooked up pretty much all the time it is easier to just shut it down. If you sleep it while it is connected then you are going to have to shut it down anyway to get the drive back so your going to have to eject the drive and hook it back up.
I have a Powerbook with external hard drives hooked up all the time. I sleep the PB, wake it up and everything is there. I've never lost the drive from sleeping. It sounds like some part of your setup is borked.
On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 03:30:12 -0700, PeterD wrote (in article 1ghh7xo.wiljej1tkczpcN%pd.news@redacted.invalid):
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote:
Its always plugged in and charged when I turn it off. One of those documented bugs they can't seem to fix on some machines. If you have an external hard drive hooked up pretty much all the time it is easier to just shut it down. If you sleep it while it is connected then you are going to have to shut it down anyway to get the drive back so your going to have to eject the drive and hook it back up.
I have a Powerbook with external hard drives hooked up all the time. I sleep the PB, wake it up and everything is there. I've never lost the drive from sleeping. It sounds like some part of your setup is borked.
Might be because I'm running it from a USB adaptor in my card slot. But if I forget I get a warning message about improperly disconnecting a drive and its gone until I reboot.
On 25-07-2004 12:30, in article 1ghh7xo.wiljej1tkczpcN%pd.news@redacted.invalid, "PeterD" pd.news@redacted.invalid wrote:
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote:
Its always plugged in and charged when I turn it off. One of those documented bugs they can't seem to fix on some machines. If you have an external hard drive hooked up pretty much all the time it is easier to just shut it down. If you sleep it while it is connected then you are going to have to shut it down anyway to get the drive back so your going to have to eject the drive and hook it back up.
I have a Powerbook with external hard drives hooked up all the time. I sleep the PB, wake it up and everything is there. I've never lost the drive from sleeping. It sounds like some part of your setup is borked.
Borked is the pasted participle of an actual verb, to bork. It means to oppose on political grounds a supreme court nominee.
ej
Eric Johnson erj66@redacted.invalid wrote:
It sounds like some part of your setup is borked.
Borked is the pasted participle of an actual verb, to bork. It means to oppose on political grounds a supreme court nominee.
But that was a typo. The real spelling is 'b0rked'.
["Followup-To:" header set to comp.sys.mac.portables.]
On 2004-07-25, Eric Johnson erj66@redacted.invalid wrote:
Borked is the pasted participle of an actual verb, to bork. It means to oppose on political grounds a supreme court nominee
who was nominated on ideological grounds rather than on the basis of competence and judicial temperament.
For a contrasting example in which the lack of such politcal backbone allowed a ludicrously incompetent and utterly ideological nominee to be appointed rather than rejected, see Clarence "Nino's lapdog" Thomas. What's the verb for that?
On 25-07-2004 19:01, in article 2mi7b2Fn7et6U1@redacted.invalid, "soothsayer" sssayer@redacted.invalid wrote:
["Followup-To:" header set to comp.sys.mac.portables.]
On 2004-07-25, Eric Johnson erj66@redacted.invalid wrote:
Borked is the pasted participle of an actual verb, to bork. It means to oppose on political grounds a supreme court nominee
who was nominated on ideological grounds rather than on the basis of competence and judicial temperament.
See what I mean?
On 2004-07-25, Eric Johnson erj66@redacted.invalid wrote:
On 25-07-2004 19:01, in article 2mi7b2Fn7et6U1@redacted.invalid, "soothsayer" sssayer@redacted.invalid wrote:
who was nominated on ideological grounds rather than on the basis of competence and judicial temperament.
See what I mean?
Yes Eric, we see. We understood from your first post that the "right" ideology (so to speak) is all that matters to you. Borkers are easy to recognize that way.
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote:
On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 03:30:12 -0700, PeterD wrote (in article 1ghh7xo.wiljej1tkczpcN%pd.news@redacted.invalid):
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote: [...]
If you have an external hard drive hooked up pretty much all the time it is easier to just shut it down. If you sleep it while it is connected then you are going to have to shut it down anyway to get the drive back so your going to have to eject the drive and hook it back up.
I have a Powerbook with external hard drives hooked up all the time. I sleep the PB, wake it up and everything is there. I've never lost the drive from sleeping. It sounds like some part of your setup is borked.
Might be because I'm running it from a USB adaptor in my card slot. But if I forget I get a warning message about improperly disconnecting a drive and its gone until I reboot.
Ah. USB, waddya expect. USB is a flakey beast. USB - the new SCSI.
Peter Ceresole peter@redacted.invalid wrote:
Eric Johnson erj66@redacted.invalid wrote:
It sounds like some part of your setup is borked.
Borked is the pasted participle of an actual verb, to bork. It means to oppose on political grounds a supreme court nominee.
But that was a typo. The real spelling is 'b0rked'.
Mebbe, mebbe I meant b0rken.
PeterD pd.news@redacted.invalid wrote:
Ah. USB, waddya expect. USB is a flakey beast. USB - the new SCSI.
I liked SCSI. Used it with no problems at all on a number of old-style Macs, and indirectly on a large number of Avid systems.
I agree that USB has its moments, although they are a lot fewer and farther between than they used to be in OS9.something- although the 9.2.2 drivers were okay.
On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 13:13:27 -0700, PeterD wrote (in article 1ghi07x.wwcm841fgj36uN%pd.news@redacted.invalid):
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote:
On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 03:30:12 -0700, PeterD wrote (in article 1ghh7xo.wiljej1tkczpcN%pd.news@redacted.invalid):
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote: [...]
If you have an external hard drive hooked up pretty much all the time it is easier to just shut it down. If you sleep it while it is connected then you are going to have to shut it down anyway to get the drive back so your going to have to eject the drive and hook it back up.
I have a Powerbook with external hard drives hooked up all the time. I sleep the PB, wake it up and everything is there. I've never lost the drive from sleeping. It sounds like some part of your setup is borked.
Might be because I'm running it from a USB adaptor in my card slot. But if I forget I get a warning message about improperly disconnecting a drive and its gone until I reboot.
Ah. USB, waddya expect. USB is a flakey beast. USB - the new SCSI.
So your using firewire? My new one is both and usually I hook it up firewire. But that one I hook up, do what needs to be done and unhook it. Its my main archive and I limit its exposure. The other one is my workhorse and it is USB only. My computer is a 1 gig Ti and is USB 1.1. So I run a USB 2.0 adapter in my card slot that works real well. Wonder if it is the adapter or just USB in general that causes the problem.
Antony Lacey allatsea@redacted.invalid wrote:
Clark Martin cmnews@redacted.invalid wrote:
The other way round; if you power down the Mac for 6 hours (which is less time than I'd have it down for overnight) then you make a clear gain over sleeping it. Not a huge gain, but then six hours is a short night.
If you sleep it you can keep your apps running. If you start up you have to launch the apps again which is going to add additional startup minutes.
As a result of this very interesting thread, I now send my Powerbook to sleep rather than shutting it down. It's just seems so much easier.
I guess I used to shutdown just to feel 'safe' about it, but it's been no problem having it sleep for the last week or so, and very handy having access to apps a few seconds after lifting the lid.
I still shutdown my desktop machine each night though - can't seem to break that habit.
Not here, just sleep all them too, great just being able to come home hit the space bar and realise oh bugger this is Derbyshire and we've had another powercut. But except for the odd one of those my machines been put to sleep everynight for the past 12months without a hitch, same benefits of waking it up and just being able to go from where you left off, the light on the G4 is a bit brighter though. Handy like lask week, getting ready to leave the house last week, just slept computer, mate rings, you online? nope, hitting space, but I am now...finds what he wants and 30seconds later back out the door again machine sleeping
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote:
My computer is a 1 gig Ti and is USB 1.1. So I run a USB 2.0 adapter in my card slot that works real well. Wonder if it is the adapter or just USB in general that causes the problem.
No telling, of course, but the adapter sounds a good candidate for blame. USB ought to be okay in 10.
On 25-07-2004 20:54, in article 2midvgFn8mg1U1@redacted.invalid, "soothsayer" ssayer@redacted.invalid wrote:
Yes Eric, we see. We understood from your first post that the "right" ideology (so to speak) is all that matters to you. Borkers are easy to recognize that way.
Wow! Aren't we sensitive these days.
I was only making a comment about the language.
Lighten up, will you? This is not a politics group.
ej
On 25-07-2004 22:13, in article 1ghi07x.wwcm841fgj36uN%pd.news@redacted.invalid, "PeterD" pd.news@redacted.invalid wrote:
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote:
On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 03:30:12 -0700, PeterD wrote (in article 1ghh7xo.wiljej1tkczpcN%pd.news@redacted.invalid):
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote: [...]
If you have an external hard drive hooked up pretty much all the time it is easier to just shut it down. If you sleep it while it is connected then you are going to have to shut it down anyway to get the drive back so your going to have to eject the drive and hook it back up.
I have a Powerbook with external hard drives hooked up all the time. I sleep the PB, wake it up and everything is there. I've never lost the drive from sleeping. It sounds like some part of your setup is borked.
Might be because I'm running it from a USB adaptor in my card slot. But if I forget I get a warning message about improperly disconnecting a drive and its gone until I reboot.
Ah. USB, waddya expect. USB is a flakey beast. USB - the new SCSI.
Its my experience that FireWire is much more reliable than usb.
USB devices often stop being recognized as being on the bus, and I have seen this happen for too long on too many computers with -every- device for my experienced not to be generalized.
ej
Jon B jon.bradburyusenetspam@redacted.invalid wrote:
I guess I used to shutdown just to feel 'safe' about it, but it's been no problem having it sleep for the last week or so, and very handy having access to apps a few seconds after lifting the lid.
I still shutdown my desktop machine each night though - can't seem to break that habit.
Not here, just sleep all them too, great just being able to come home hit the space bar and realise oh bugger this is Derbyshire and we've had another powercut. But except for the odd one of those my machines been put to sleep everynight for the past 12months without a hitch, same benefits of waking it up and just being able to go from where you left off, the light on the G4 is a bit brighter though. Handy like lask week, getting ready to leave the house last week, just slept computer, mate rings, you online? nope, hitting space, but I am now...finds what he wants and 30seconds later back out the door again machine sleeping
That's true. I suppose it's just a case of getting used to sleep rather than shutdown. It's such an ingrained habit to go for shutdown.
But certainly on the Powerbook it's much nicer to lift the lid and have the machine on - no faffing about waiting for everything to load first.
And the speed of access is a big plus - I burnt a CD in a few minutes the other day before heading off on a trip - which I wouldn't have done if I'd had to wait for the Powerbook to start up. I even checked the AA for traffic info while I was waiting - and changed my route accordingly!
I must get a post-it to remind me to use slppe - I'd use Stickies, but the screen will be off when I most need it!
In article BD1C5AFA.2DFB5%chrisridd@redacted.invalid, Chris Ridd chrisridd@redacted.invalid wrote:
On 15/7/04 3:32 pm, in article 150720040932497430%NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid, "Tim Lance" NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid wrote:
Depending on how you use your machine it may not be an issue. After a couple days I do feel it and only a reboot works. Processes continue to use their original VM allocation and so you can't delete the early files. Oh, you can put them into the trash but they stay there even if you empty the trash (unless you Secure empty - and then your machine is mucked until you reboot).
You're trying to trash your vm swapfiles???!!!
This is one of the options available on Onyx and I've been doing it for awhile without any disasters. It's one of several options that requires a reboot, which I always do.
Is it really dangerous to trash these files, even if you reboot right after? I've heard only good things about Onyx; presumably if it were causing major problems when trashing vm swapfiles, someone would have made a fuss about it.
I run MacJanitor for daily maintenance and Onyx once a week, along with repairing permissions. Both my iBook and eMac seem to run smoothly all the time as long as I do this.
On 28/7/04 7:59 pm, in article d49ot-C65545.14593328072004@redacted.invalid, "d49ot@redacted.invalid" d49ot@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article BD1C5AFA.2DFB5%chrisridd@redacted.invalid, Chris Ridd chrisridd@redacted.invalid wrote:
On 15/7/04 3:32 pm, in article 150720040932497430%NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid, "Tim Lance" NotAbitOFspam*tlance@redacted.invalid wrote:
Depending on how you use your machine it may not be an issue. After a couple days I do feel it and only a reboot works. Processes continue to use their original VM allocation and so you can't delete the early files. Oh, you can put them into the trash but they stay there even if you empty the trash (unless you Secure empty - and then your machine is mucked until you reboot).
You're trying to trash your vm swapfiles???!!!
This is one of the options available on Onyx and I've been doing it for awhile without any disasters. It's one of several options that requires a reboot, which I always do.
Is it really dangerous to trash these files, even if you reboot right
If you're going to reboot straight afterwards, there's no point trashing the swapfiles. They will get deleted (not just trashed) by /etc/rc when the machine reboots multi-user, just before the dynamic_pager starts up.
If trashing just means the swapfiles are renamed into the .Trash folder, and the VM subsystem always keeps the swapfiles open, and you trust that the authors of the VM subsystem anticipated someone might rename an active swapfile, then you might be OK. Just don't try emptying the trash or you will be in trouble :-)
after? I've heard only good things about Onyx; presumably if it were causing major problems when trashing vm swapfiles, someone would have made a fuss about it.
Since you can't gain anything by it and you actually end up with large files in your trash (does rebooting empty your trash?) the feature is at best dubious. Why does the Onyx author think it might be useful?
Cheers,
Chris
In article BD1C5AFA.2DFB5%chrisridd@redacted.invalid, Chris Ridd chrisridd@redacted.invalid wrote:
You're trying to trash your vm swapfiles???!!!
Do not EVER do that. And if you find a program that offers the option to do it, trash that program.
In article BD2DBDBD.33200%chrisridd@redacted.invalid, Chris Ridd chrisridd@redacted.invalid wrote:
You're trying to trash your vm swapfiles???!!!
This is one of the options available on Onyx and I've been doing it for awhile without any disasters. It's one of several options that requires a reboot, which I always do.
Is it really dangerous to trash these files, even if you reboot right
If you're going to reboot straight afterwards, there's no point trashing the swapfiles. They will get deleted (not just trashed) by /etc/rc when the machine reboots multi-user, just before the dynamic_pager starts up.
If trashing just means the swapfiles are renamed into the .Trash folder, and the VM subsystem always keeps the swapfiles open, and you trust that the authors of the VM subsystem anticipated someone might rename an active swapfile, then you might be OK. Just don't try emptying the trash or you will be in trouble :-)
after? I've heard only good things about Onyx; presumably if it were causing major problems when trashing vm swapfiles, someone would have made a fuss about it.
Since you can't gain anything by it and you actually end up with large files in your trash (does rebooting empty your trash?) the feature is at best dubious. Why does the Onyx author think it might be useful?
He doesn't explain why he thinks it might be useful. It's one of a number of choices to trash files that build up over time (e.g. log and cache files.) I'm not sure if there's anything in the trash after rebooting -- never looked.
Since I always reboot after doing the weekly maintenance tasks anyway and since this will delete the vm swapfiles, I'll stop selecting the Onyx option to trash them.
Peter Ceresole wrote:
Trooper news@redacted.invalid wrote:
I totally agree, an option to turn [the sleep indicator light] off is certainly necessary.
That option already exists. It's called a piece of paper, or a cloth, or a book. Laid in the right place.
Of course it's not on sale at the Applestore. But don't let that stop you.
Well, I put a small, yellow smiley-face sticker over mine. It's very friendly looking now.
Peter Ceresole wrote:
John Biltz biltzjohn@redacted.invalid wrote:
My computer is a 1 gig Ti and is USB 1.1. So I run a USB 2.0 adapter in my card slot that works real well. Wonder if it is the adapter or just USB in general that causes the problem.
No telling, of course, but the adapter sounds a good candidate for blame. USB ought to be okay in 10.
The PC card slot USB adaptor has a documented history of loosing external drives upon wake. Go look it up on http://xlr8yourmac.com
On 2004-07-15 14:43:51 +0100, peter@redacted.invalid (Peter Ceresole) said:
MacJanitor is the one I use http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html
Thanks very much Jon. MacJanitor now in use...
Here too- I always meant to and finally got of my duff...
One curiosity. I installed it ("drag MacJanitor to your hard drive") and it refused to copy to my boot volume (Darwin- OS10.2.6). There was no dialogue box, just nothing happened. But it went fine to the top level of my second partition, (HD OS 9.2.2 boot volume). This while running in 10.2.6
It runs fine; asked for my password and settled down. Daily took
It ran fine for me too, however...
the text in the report window
l o o k s l i k e t h i s
any ideas? Often when I open a Text Edit file the same thing happens.
I have to convert to rtf, even though the pref is set to rtf.
A
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