How often should i put my iMac to sleep?

Am I supposed to let my iMac go to sleep everytime I am away from it or can I just let a screensaver run? Thanks, Holly

SexyHolly said:

Am I supposed to let my iMac go to sleep everytime I am away from it or can I just let a screensaver run? Thanks, Holly

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I'm pretty sure it's like any other computer. They don't actually *need* to sleep, but some would say that it saves energy overall if they do. I only put my Mac to sleep if I want to see the little light "breathe".

I like the sleep feature on Macs. It actually works; I could never get it to work quite right on my MS machines. It always took too long to get things going. With my Mac, I just hit the power button and when I get back, I just press the "any key" and everything is good to go.

Official Sleep Instructions

I put my comp to sleep every time i step away for more than 10 minutes.

So far, 100% wake-up rate after 2 years

:heart: osx

Good rule of thumb is if your gona be away for an hour or better put it to sleep. Anything under that let the screen saver take over. I would say if your going to be away more than 6 hours just shut it off. Doesn't take that long to boot back up and you will save some on electric bill.

I usually put mine to sleep at night and when I'm at work. I do it more for the whole saving energy/environmentally friendly thing. Many people leave their Macs on all the time without a problem.

So really it's more of a personal preference.

But never shut it off unless you have to for some reason. Macs are designed to not be shut off, rather they should just be put to sleep.

Hi schweb:

Why shouldn't Macs be shut down? I hear a lot of hype why Macs are better and all, but if I new that they required constant power I would have had second thoughts.

1) I can't find any advice from Apple recommending constant power-on or sleep.
2) I can't find any evidence that people who shut down regularly are having any higher incidences of problems than people who leave them on.

I've never had any problems from using the power switch, PC or Mac.

i don't think it matters anymore w/ modern computer systems (Mac and PC). i turn my mac mini off if i'm not going to use it for 1 hr or more at home. when i bring it to work, i usually leave it on from mon to fri and just turn off my LCD when i leave work.

warrenbert said:

Hi schweb:

Why shouldn't Macs be shut down? I hear a lot of hype why Macs are better and all, but if I new that they required constant power I would have had second thoughts.

1) I can't find any advice from Apple recommending constant power-on or sleep.
2) I can't find any evidence that people who shut down regularly are having any higher incidences of problems than people who leave them on.

I've never had any problems from using the power switch, PC or Mac.

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Sleep mode uses almost no power anyway so it's about the same equivalent powerwise to shutting it off.

Sleep of course is advantageous in that you don't have to wait for the machine to boot back up and load everything again.

There should be little harm in shutting off the system, however there is little advantage to it either. One thing to keep in mind if you do shut down or sleep your system is that you might need to do the scheduled maintenance manually as needed.

If you do leave it up all the time with a screensaver I would not use a processor intensive one though.

Can the computer run it's automated tasks (the ones @ like 2am) while the thing is asleep? I've never actually thought about it much.

Yes, I have heard that there are some legacy Unix-derived tasks that are set to run at night. Do they do any good? Will they run during "sleep"? Is it better to just run Onyx or something?

No, they won't run while the machine is asleep. I use Cocktail and run them every so often just to keep things running smoothly.

On computers with LCD screens, (iMacs, PowerBooks, iBooks, G5 towers with flat screens) the backlight in the display has a limited life. Putting these machines to sleep turns that backlight off, in addition to saving energy. Since you can't (easily) replace the display on an iMac or laptop when it dies, it's a good idea to prolong the life of that neon bulb as long as possible

technologist said:

On computers with LCD screens, (iMacs, PowerBooks, iBooks, G5 towers with flat screens) the backlight in the display has a limited life. Putting these machines to sleep turns that backlight off, in addition to saving energy. Since you can't (easily) replace the display on an iMac or laptop when it dies, it's a good idea to prolong the life of that neon bulb as long as possible

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True, but that is why you have the option of putting the monitor to sleep after a specified amount of idle time. I believe that should turn off the backlight. Or you could lower the brightness to 0.

schweb said:

No, they won't run while the machine is asleep. I use Cocktail and run them every so often just to keep things running smoothly.

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Will "Mac-Janitor" do the same thing? I've heard, but not done a lot of research (though I hear it's as easy as pie to use...that's if you like pie, of course).

Yep MacJanitor will do it also. It's a nice program. I used to use that before Cocktail.

Apparently, it uses up as much energy to start up then it does to put it on sleep, my imac hasnt been off since i got it

I do not shut my computer down unless I need to remove it from the external monitor. That is pretty much the only time I'll shut down. That and perhaps when I go on my road trip seeing how I will only use it in the hotel at night I presume.

I do not see the harm in putting it to sleep over shutting it down. Apple has told me to each is own, but if you are going to use your computer for an hour, walk away for another and then come back and repeat those steps then sleep is for you. Shutting down and turning back on is actually kind of annoying and harsh on the processor---I know it is on the windows machine.

I kept my win machine up with the screen off for 15 days total. Then it crashed. I never used sleep because when I did, nothing ever came back on and I had to shut down manually and reboot anyway.

Put it to sleep or shut it down. To each is own.