To sleep or not?

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Lyra

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Back in the day, I used to have problems with sleeping my dp G4, up until 10.2.6. It regularly but unpredictably used to go into a coma and I would have to force restart, so I stopped sleeping it and shut down every evening.

With 10.2.6 things got much better, and I noticed that it only happened if I forgot to unmount a firewire device, so I thought I'd cracked it.

I've been running the new improved 10.2.8 a couple of weeks, and, apart from a couple of kernel panics on waking up, things have been fine up until today, when it's suddenly started going into a coma every time I sleep it.

I've been trawling through the Apple discussion boards, and a couple of people there say they never sleep their machines – they just leave 'em running. Given that I don't have to sleep in the same room as mine, otherwise it wouldn't be an option as I never bothered to trade in the old fan for a quieter one, is this a good thing, a bad thing, or just a thing? I'm happy to leave it on, but does it shorten the life of anything vital by huge amount?

Opinions gratefully received.
 
Lyra said:
Back in the day, I used to have problems with sleeping my dp G4, up until 10.2.6. It regularly but unpredictably used to go into a coma and I would have to force restart, so I stopped sleeping it and shut down every evening.

With 10.2.6 things got much better, and I noticed that it only happened if I forgot to unmount a firewire device, so I thought I'd cracked it.

I've been running the new improved 10.2.8 a couple of weeks, and, apart from a couple of kernel panics on waking up, things have been fine up until today, when it's suddenly started going into a coma every time I sleep it.

I've been trawling through the Apple discussion boards, and a couple of people there say they never sleep their machines – they just leave 'em running. Given that I don't have to sleep in the same room as mine, otherwise it wouldn't be an option as I never bothered to trade in the old fan for a quieter one, is this a good thing, a bad thing, or just a thing? I'm happy to leave it on, but does it shorten the life of anything vital by huge amount?

Opinions gratefully received.
Click to expand...

Leaving on a machine isn't a horrible thing, but it does suck up more juice...and it does cause more wear and tear on the harddrives for the most part, and system fans....and such. Leaving it in sleep would be optimal...if there is an option to "power down the hdds whenever possible" check that off...as that shouldn't bring the whole system to sleep, but instead just spin down the harddrives...however, sleep mode is the way to go...although my pc fileserver never sleeps(i just let the harddrives spin down) and my main computer almost never sleeps....i do notice that hardware tends to last a little less longer than the computers that i put to sleep more often :)
 
I never let my machine sleep, only the monitors, then they go off. Been doing this since OS X came along.
 
I have my HD and Display set to spin down/turn off after 15 minutes, and generally when I go upstairs for the night I sleep my iMac. But either should do a good job of resting the computer - if you can't sleep, just open up System Preferences > Energy Saver and click use seperate time to put display to sleep and put harddisk to sleep when possible.
 
I believe a G4 will suck 5W when it's on and 3W when it's off, so leaving it on doesn't consume that much more power (and it's still much less than what your TV uses).

I leave my iMac on all the time, though without it being in sleep mode. I have it set to spin down the drive & shut off the display as soon as possible, and it makes practically no noise. (I do this because OpenGL games freeze after I've slept and awoken my iMac.) Leaving it on like this also allows you just to walk away without having to put it to sleep or anything, and to just move the mouse to get it active again. My computer wakes when I move the mouse, though this is irregular, and it takes a bit longer to wake up than just to spin the hard drive up.
 
OK, thanks. I'm going to try setting hard drive to sleep whenever possible (I already sleep the monitor, of course) and see if I get any problems with that. Otherwise I think I'll try leaving it on – it feels as if I've spent way too long trying to find a solution to this – as it doesn't seem to do much, if any, damage. After all, I've never kept a computer for more than two years before I've given in and bought the latest one. Had this one just over a year. :D
 
Lyra

I've got the same problems with my DP G4...

It's been suggested that I have bad RAM causing this (it was bought from a third party, and doesn't appear to be from one of the well known brands)

Bl**dy thing has to be physically turned off and back on again if it's hit sleep mode...

I've decided to get rid of it next Summer...

Good luck with trying to avoid sleep - I'd be interested to hear how you get on!
 
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