This is a classic question that will always be debated, I’m sure.

But ....

What is truly better? Besides the fact that waking up from sleep takes much less time than restarting, what are the pluses and minuses here?

And .... From the “this may be a dumb question department ...”

When you transport a tibook—carry it in a bag, etc, I am assuming that it always has to be shut down. Is that indeed correct?

Thanks.

What is truly better? Besides the fact that waking up from sleep takes much less time than restarting, what are the pluses and minuses here?

When you transport a tibook—carry it in a bag, etc, I am assuming that it always has to be shut down. Is that indeed correct?

Now I’m not a PowerBook user (yet), but I believe that you can carry it in a case while asleep.  As for sleep or shut down, you’ve covered the main (and pretty much the only) plus and minus.

Brad

If that’s the only difference, sleep wins all the time!

Does anyone know about the transport/sleep issue? Can I do that safely? It’s a powerbook g4 we’re talking about but i guess it goes for any laptop.

I usually put my iMac to sleep rather than shutting down.  It means a much shorter wait (and practically no wait in Mac OS X) when you want to use it later, and the computer is supposed to use very little power when asleep anyway.

I can’t imagine any reason not to pick sleep instead of shutdown, expecially in OS X.

As for transportation, you can certainly transport a laptop while it’s asleep. I’ve had my Powerbook for 4 years now and I’ve never had a problem tossing it around (in and out of backpacks, etc) while it’s asleep. If you’re moving a computer the only thing you’d have to worry about would be having a head crash on your hard drive, and since your hard drive is not spinning while asleep you’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about. Think about it, if you can walk around with your laptop while it’s awake, why not when it’s asleep? Please feel free to put your TiBook to sleep and run around with it, it makes putting it down and working with it soo much faster since you’re just waking from sleep.

I’ve seen some system flakiness under OS 9 (and earlier) after waking from sleep sometimes, so I generally don’t do it.

OS X on the other hand…WOW! Totally rock solid and FAST!
I never shut down under X. (except to boot to 9 for something)
-Dan

The previous posts more or less covered it, but here’s the summary, for anyone keeping score:

    SLEEP:
Pro:
Faster restart

Con:
Continued waste of energy, particuarly with desktops
Reduced stability under OS 9—not an issue in X

    SHUTDOWN:
Pro:
No power consumption
Renewed stability under OS 9

Con:
Slow restart

btw, I’ve noticed that under OS X when I leave my PowerMac alone, it goes to sleep but the fan stays on. When I actually tell it to go to sleep (from the Apple menu), both the HD and fan spin down, leaving the machine silent and more energy-friendly. Under OS 9 the fan always remains on when asleep.

Well since starting this post, I have read some very interesting information in a book that was published just 2 months ago.

—laptops—you can do more harm than good by consistently shutting down and rebooting a laptop. They have power consumption circuits that are meant to be optimized by sleeping.

—Desktops—and I guess this applies for laptops too—but the most stressful thing you can do your computer is reboot it. Same as starting and shutting down a car. We are more willing to idle rather than start and stop and start and stop. It’s not good for your starter, it’s not good for your computer.

And heck, I’m glad, because I can’t even time how quick it is for my powerbook to wake from sleep in X. I mean it’s lightning fast!!

Well in my case it doesn’t really matter.  You see that’s why my iMac is going to the shop. 

If it goes to sleep it won’t wake up and if I shut it down and try to restart it a few hours later - it won’t spin up.  Apple thinks it’s a power supply problem. 

So it’s going away for a while :=((

Maybe after it returns home I can answer this question.

I never shutdown my TiBook Scott, I travel with it asleep and under X I still get a respectable amount of battery life to only shut it down on airplanes so they dont yell during takeoff and landing.

DAVE

I got a PowerBook G3 FireWire 400 with 10.0.0 on it (4K78), I’ll upgrade to 10.0.4 in the following days, but how are the reports on battery consumption, cause under 10.0.0 it empties the batteries like a black hole. How’s that under later builds of OS X?

dcantrel,

You have to shut down (as opposed to sleep) on take off?!?! Why?? I’ve never had this problem. In fact, I make it a point to never shut down through airports because sometimes the security people ask me to turn it on to prove that it’s not a bomb. Waking from sleep and then back down again is much faster than waiting for the startup sequence to finish so you can close it up again..

How would the airline people know if your PB is asleep or off (and then get upset about it)?? Moreover, why do they care? I suspect that a sleeping PB creates about much EMF as a CD player..

I make it a point to never shut down through airports because sometimes the security people ask me to turn it on to prove that it’s not a bomb.

I took my Handspring Visor on a recent plane trip and they made me turn it on at the security point both on the way there and on the way back.  At least the thing turns on and off in just a half of a second.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David Nelson on 2001-08-11 16:18 ]</font>