How often to shut down?

[newmacfilm]

I'm new to Mac, having purchased the new 17" MBP last month. The majority of my time is spent at my desk with the machine plugged in, I go mobile here and there.

When I'm finished working for the day, should I shut down my mbpro completely, or just close it and put it to sleep? I saw somewhere someone talking about rarely ever having to reboot their mbpro. Having come from a clunky HP windows laptop, I was constantly rebooting and out of habit always shutting down at night. Does that tax the machine making it turn off and on every night/morning?

As a quick aside, there's nothing wrong with keeping the machine plugged in all day? i.e. should I periodically let it run on battery for any reason?

Thanks for your feedback.

 

[GGJstudios]

To promote battery health, unplug the power cord and run on battery until it's down to about 50%. Do this about every 2 or 3 days. Also, be sure to calibrate your battery, as Apple recommends, every month or so. When you finish work at night, just close the lid to sleep your Mac. There's nothing wrong with going weeks or months without a shutdown.

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

 

[Abstract]

I don't shut down my laptop for months at a time.


And you only need to drain your battery once in a while if you don't use your laptop on battery power. You don't need to fully drain your battery before you recharge it. In fact, it's recommended that you don't. However, you must re-calibrate your battery once every 20 charge cycles, or once every 4-6 weeks, whichever comes first. That means you should fully discharge your battery to 0%, and then fully recharge it back to 100%. Don't do this everytime though.

Actually, I'm not sure. You have a 17" MBP, and what I posted above only applies for lithium ion batteries. The new Macs have batteries made from a lithium polymer technology of some sort, and I don't really know enough about this new battery. I'm not sure if anyone on this board would.

 

[gerbilbox]

To promote battery health, unplug the power cord and run on battery until it's down to about 50%. Do this about every 2 or 3 days. Also, be sure to calibrate your battery, as Apple recommends, every month or so. When you finish work at night, just close the lid to sleep your Mac. There's nothing wrong with going weeks or months without a shutdown.

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

Where are you getting the information for the 50% every 2 or 3 days? I've never heard of that one before and it'll be interesting to read some links about it. Thanks.

 

[ayeying]

I don't shut down until theres a hardware upgrade/change. The thing thats closest to "shut down" is standby/sleep.

Furthermore, it is good to constantly use the battery. Always keeping it plugged in tends to kill it prematurely.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I recommend restarting your Mac about once a week, more often if it seems to be slowing down. This clears the virtual memory swap files which are the main cause of poor performance.

 

[alphaod]

I don't see the need to shut down unless an update forces me to do so.

 

[derek1984]

When I leave for work in the morning, I always shut down. I'll turn it on as soon as I get home and go off the battery until it's about 20% drained and then fully charge it back up again. Once it's fully charged, I go off the battery. The only time I use my MBP when it is plugged in, is when I am charging it..Or during a calibration.

When I know I'll be away from my MBP for hours or days, I feel better when it's shut down. But I always leave my desktop on 24/7. I just don't feel like a laptop is made to be on 24/7 like a desktop.

 

[dlewis23]

I give it a restart when I notice it starting to get slow. Usually 2 - 4 times a month. I've got as long as 45 days with out shutting it down and have never had a problem.

 

[mscriv]

My wife uses a G4 iBook that we have owned for over 4 years and I swear it's been shut down less than 20 times. She takes it to work every day and I use it sometimes on weekends to DJ. We do have battery problems in that it will only go down to 30-40% battery before it shuts off, but we got a new battery and it continues to do this, so I think it's something with the machine itself. We also rarely shut down our iMac and it never seems to slow down. It's really up to your personal taste, but with a Mac you hopefully won't have the same problems that you experienced on the other side. I remember the days of daily shut downs because of system hangs or sluggish performance. I'm so glad I don't have to do that anymore.

 

[GGJstudios]

Where are you getting the information for the 50% every 2 or 3 days? I've never heard of that one before and it'll be interesting to read some links about it. Thanks.

It was recommended to me by an Apple Genius. It works!

I recommend restarting your Mac about once a week, more often if it seems to be slowing down. This clears the virtual memory swap files which are the main cause of poor performance.

This was necessary on Windows because Windows was notorious for not freeing up RAM and having enormous swap files. It's not necessary on OS X, since OS X is much better at memory and system management.

 

[pdxflint]

If you're working on some task, and haven't finished, then just put it to sleep overnight. Otherwise, I try to shut down my computer for the night. Booting in the morning isn't that much of an inconvenience for me. The main issue as I see it is energy consumption. I've started flipping the switch on my surge protector to cut power to everything plugged into it (printer, external drives, scanner, etc) even if they're turned off due to the trickle power consumption. We burn a lot more electricity than we realize when we're not using things, so that's my small contribution to my own wallet, and the bigger picture of energy waste in our society.

No, I'm not a green fanatic, but I'm see the benefit of at least starting small...

 

[ViciousShadow21]

I recommend restarting your Mac about once a week, more often if it seems to be slowing down. This clears the virtual memory swap files which are the main cause of poor performance.

i dont understand this kind of self-torture that some ppl put themselves through.

anyway i keep mine plugged in for three days unplug it get the Battery to 45% and then plug it back in and leave it for another 3 days ect ect. like alphaod said, usually updates force you to restart it about once a month so just do it then.

 

[jeremybuff]

Interesting. I use my UMBP 15" battery all the way from 100% to around 7%, then recharge it to 100% and back down to 7%, and so on. Is this actually bad?

 

[GGJstudios]

i dont understand this kind of self-torture that some ppl put themselves through.

I just had to laugh at this! Just 4 days ago, you two were in opposite positions of the "self-torture" or "self-abuse" argument! Do masochists come in pairs, I wonder?

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/7349820/

Interesting. I use my UMBP 15" battery all the way from 100% to around 7%, then recharge it to 100% and back down to 7%, and so on. Is this actually bad?

Well, draining to 7% isn't necessary for routine activity.... 50% or so is fine. And draining to 7% isn't calibrating... for that, you need to drain it to 0%. So I wouldn't say it's bad, but it's not the best method.

 

[jeremybuff]

Well, draining to 7% isn't necessary for routine activity.... 50% or so is fine. And draining to 7% isn't calibrating... for that, you need to drain it to 0%. So I wouldn't say it's bad, but it's not the best method.

I understand it's not calibrating, which I do about once a month. The main reason I use the battery down to 7% is because I use my notebook for portability, I don't always want to plug it in, especially since I bought it to be portable. As long as it is not going to kill my batter, I'll keep using it. Bad idea?

 

[GGJstudios]

I understand it's not calibrating, which I do about once a month. The main reason I use the battery down to 7% is because I use my notebook for portability, I don't always want to plug in my laptop, especially since I bought it to be portable. As long as it is not going to kill my batter, I'll keep using it. Bad idea?

Not a bad idea at all. If you're using it for portability, use as much as you need. The 50% recommendation is for those who are using it primarily as a desktop replacement, where it's plugged in most of the time.

 

[jeremybuff]

Not a bad idea at all. If you're using it for portability, use as much as you need. The 50% recommendation is for those who are using it primarily as a desktop replacement, where it's plugged in most of the time.

I see. You have been really helpful, thank you!

 

[bossxii]

I understand it's not calibrating, which I do about once a month. The main reason I use the battery down to 7% is because I use my notebook for portability, I don't always want to plug it in, especially since I bought it to be portable. As long as it is not going to kill my batter, I'll keep using it. Bad idea?

Outside the monthly maintenance Apple recommends, using your battery to 7%or 50% makes no difference. Last battery I knew of that had any sort of "memory" was NiCd batteries. If this was such an important feature to only use "half" the battery before plugging it in, I would see it in the manual or Apple's website.

It also would be pointless to advertise an 8 hour battery you can only use to 50% for the "best" battery life. Just seems silly.

Where does this "recommendation" come from?

 

[GGJstudios]

It also would be pointless to advertise an 8 hour battery you can only use to 50% for the "best" battery life. Just seems silly.

You misread the previous posts. No one suggested you can only use it to 50%.

 

[jeremybuff]

Outside the monthly maintenance Apple recommends, using your battery to 7%or 50% makes no difference. Last battery I knew of that had any sort of "memory" was NiCd batteries. If this was such an important feature to only use "half" the battery before plugging it in, I would see it in the manual or Apple's website.

It also would be pointless to advertise an 8 hour battery you can only use to 50% for the "best" battery life. Just seems silly.

Where does this "recommendation" come from?

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I guess I misunderstood those in this thread were speaking of notebooks as desktop replacements. Although I suspected that I was fine, all in all it's good to have reassurance.

 

[bossxii]

You misread the previous posts. No one suggested you can only use it to 50%.

No? I was taking the direct suggestion you made..

"The 50% recommendation is for those who are using it primarily as a desktop replacement, where it's plugged in most of the time."

I was looking for facts to back up that statement. I get people have their own "theories" of what works, just trying to point out to jeremybuff, there is no fact to support this type of usage.


I know it was not an "only" statement but to even suggest you get better life out of a battery draining it to 50% vs 7% has zero factual basis. Lithium batteries do not form a memory based of percentages. (google it) They simply lose capacity over time as they are used. This is a fact that can't be avoided. The battery doesn't keep track if you drain it to 7% or 50% so his daily usage is perfectly fine according to Apple.

 

[GGJstudios]

No? I was taking the direct suggestion you made..
"The 50% recommendation is for those who are using it primarily as a desktop replacement, where it's plugged in most of the time."
I was looking for facts to back up that statement. I get people have their own "theories" of what works, just trying to point out to jeremybuff, there is no fact to support this type of usage.
I know it was not an "only" statement but to even suggest you get better life out of a battery draining it to 50% vs 7% has zero factual basis.

Again, you misread the posts. No one said you get better life by draining it to 50% vs 7%. I simply said "draining to 7% isn't necessary for routine activity" which is true. If you're using it as a desktop replacement, draining it to around 50% every few days will keep electrons moving. It's not necessary to drain it to 7% for that purpose.

 

[bossxii]

Again, you misread the posts. No one said you get better life by draining it to 50% vs 7%. I simply said "draining to 7% isn't necessary for routine activity" which is true. If you're using it as a desktop replacement, draining it to around 50% every few days will keep electrons moving. It's not necessary to drain it to 7% for that purpose.

Ah, well since jeremybuff was talking about 7% I was reading it as 50% is somehow better.

My bad then, I apologize for taking it in the wrong context, as it looked as if you were recommending to to 50% vs anything else.

 

[IJ Reilly]

i dont understand this kind of self-torture that some ppl put themselves through.

This was necessary on Windows because Windows was notorious for not freeing up RAM and having enormous swap files. It's not necessary on OS X, since OS X is much better at memory and system management.

I just had to laugh at this! Just 4 days ago, you two were in opposite positions of the "self-torture" or "self-abuse" argument! Do masochists come in pairs, I wonder?

So restarting the Mac once a week is masochism... but wiping your hard drive regularly and reinstalling OSX is not. Interesting. Weird, but interesting.

Anyway, you're not correct about swap files. OSX creates them, they do build up, they do slow down performance, often noticeably -- and they don't go away until you restart the Mac. Fact, fact, fact and fact.