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MP sleep vs no sleep vs. nightly shutdown

M

MacMadness

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 19, 2013
61
1
Dallas TX
I know there has been much discussion on this general subject,
but I am looking for specific opinions for my recently upgraded 2009 4,1 MP 8-core 2.93ghz (from 8-core 2,26).

It runs great except it goes into deep hibernation and won't wake up
if i put it to sleep either from the apple menu or from the system preferences.
(The problem started after the CPU's were upgraded)
The fans were going crazy and apparently SMC got completely corrupted
for some reason.

It's already been to the Apple repair place and they reflashed
the Boot ROM Version: MP41.0081.B8.

Now it runs great but doesn't sleep properly.
Getting tired of monkeying with it at this point.

All the drives/ram & video card are new.
Ran an 2 and 8 hour Diglloyd memory/CPU stress test
and ran some pretty hairy photoshop tests with 15Gb files
and it never broke a sweat, got hot or crashed.

Specs:
Previously mentioned processor upgrade
New ATI 5870 card
96GB 1066Mhz OWC ram
Boot drive: 480GB 6G SSD
PCIe: Two Accelesior 480GB SSD cards
HD's: Three 4TB Black Caviar drives

So here's the specific scenarios I'm looking for answers to...
(And I don't care about electricity usage, just what's best for the machine)...

I'm leaning toward leaving it on all the time and just putting the monitors
to sleep. (perhaps a shutdown every couple weeks so it can reset)

Or is shutting down nightly better?
(Concerned about the stress on PS and and temp fluctuations on components from daily powering on/off.)

What do you guys think?
 
I like the idea that my MP goes to sleep when I do. Monitor, too. I only boot it after the weekly storage clones. Logic for this? I don't know there is any.
 
MacMadness said:
I appreciate the feedback. Since sleeping the machine is not an option...
I'll probably just leave it on 24/7 most of the time and let the monitors sleep...:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

That's currently what I do as well... but for no particular reason. I suppose the audio I sleep to and the possibility someone will want to access a shared mp3 or movie at night might be considerations tho. <shrug>
 
One of my mac pros 5.1 2.8 needs to be shut down nightly because once it sleeps it wakes every 5 minutes
 
One thing to keep in mind is OS X has maintenance scripts that are scheduled to run in the wee hours of the morning. The scripts run daily, weekly and monthly. If your Mac is always shut down at night, the scripts never run. If your Mac is asleep at the time scheduled, the scripts will run your Mac is awake.
 
GGJstudios said:
One thing to keep in mind is OS X has maintenance scripts that are scheduled to run in the wee hours of the morning. The scripts run daily, weekly and monthly. If your Mac is always shut down at night, the scripts never run. If your Mac is asleep at the time scheduled, the scripts will run your Mac is awake.
Click to expand...

If the computer if off or asleep during the time the maintenance scripts are scheduled to run, they then run at the next available time, i.e., when its turned back on. As for the majority of those scripts, I'd say the most have almost no effect on performance within OSX

As for my computer - I usually leave it on. While not a MacPro, my rMBP is either on or in sleep mode when I'm not in front of the computer. The only time I shut it off, is for traveling, being a laptop ;)
 
maflynn said:
If the computer if off or asleep during the time the maintenance scripts are scheduled to run, they then run at the next available time, i.e., when its turned back on.
Click to expand...
That is true for sleep mode, but not for being shut down. I have tested it numerous times and found they do not run when the Mac is started, only when awakened.

From: Mac OS X: About background maintenance tasks
In Mac OS X v10.6 and later, background maintenance tasks that do not run when the computer is asleep are run after it wakes from sleep mode.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
For those with an intense interest in knowing if, and when, the scripts have run...there is this widget that will tell you when the script last ran, and allow you to force run the scripts if for some reason one feels it is necessary. It's nothing more than a convenient way of monitoring script runs...and it's free.
 
maflynn said:
If the computer if off or asleep during the time the maintenance scripts are scheduled to run, they then run at the next available time, i.e., when its turned back on. As for the majority of those scripts, I'd say the most have almost no effect on performance within OSX

As for my computer - I usually leave it on. While not a MacPro, my rMBP is either on or in sleep mode when I'm not in front of the computer. The only time I shut it off, is for traveling, being a laptop ;)
Click to expand...

From Apple:

The tasks are scheduled for 03:15 to 05:30 in your computer's local time zone. This is described further in "Mac OS X: Unexplained Disk Activity Produced by 'find' Process." These tasks do not run if the computer is shut down or in sleep mode. If the tasks do not run, it is possible that certain log files (such as system.log) may become very large in Mac OS X v10.5 or earlier.

Do you know if the cron jobs still run if the machine/HD's are awake and active but the monitor(s) are asleep?

Thanks.
 
MacMadness said:
From Apple:

The tasks are scheduled for 03:15 to 05:30 in your computer's local time zone. This is described further in "Mac OS X: Unexplained Disk Activity Produced by 'find' Process." These tasks do not run if the computer is shut down or in sleep mode. If the tasks do not run, it is possible that certain log files (such as system.log) may become very large in Mac OS X v10.5 or earlier.

Do you know if the cron jobs still run if the machine/HD's are awake and active but the monitor(s) are asleep?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Yes, they will run if the computer is on. The power state or even the presence of the monitors has no effect.
 
Hold your breath until 10.8.5 hits and your trouble should go away. It's also is fixed / not present in the current version of 10.9. This problem was driving me crazy, I had to unplug/plug in a USB device for the wake up to occur. Power button, keyboard, mouse did nothing. MDP would sometimes fix the issue, but not 100% of the time.

I run my mac for days/weeks at a time, putting it to sleep when finished as I couldn't live without the instant-on stability of OS X. Rebooting only to switch between 10.8 and 10.9 or when xcode occasionally hoses itself.


MacMadness said:
I know there has been much discussion on this general subject,
but I am looking for specific opinions for my recently upgraded 2009 4,1 MP 8-core 2.93ghz (from 8-core 2,26).

It runs great except it goes into deep hibernation and won't wake up
if i put it to sleep either from the apple menu or from the system preferences.
(The problem started after the CPU's were upgraded)
The fans were going crazy and apparently SMC got completely corrupted
for some reason.

It's already been to the Apple repair place and they reflashed
the Boot ROM Version: MP41.0081.B8.

Now it runs great but doesn't sleep properly.
Getting tired of monkeying with it at this point.

All the drives/ram & video card are new.
Ran an 2 and 8 hour Diglloyd memory/CPU stress test
and ran some pretty hairy photoshop tests with 15Gb files
and it never broke a sweat, got hot or crashed.

Specs:
Previously mentioned processor upgrade
New ATI 5870 card
96GB 1066Mhz OWC ram
Boot drive: 480GB 6G SSD
PCIe: Two Accelesior 480GB SSD cards
HD's: Three 4TB Black Caviar drives

So here's the specific scenarios I'm looking for answers to...
(And I don't care about electricity usage, just what's best for the machine)...

I'm leaning toward leaving it on all the time and just putting the monitors
to sleep. (perhaps a shutdown every couple weeks so it can reset)

Or is shutting down nightly better?
(Concerned about the stress on PS and and temp fluctuations on components from daily powering on/off.)

What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Shut It Down!

I still use a 2006 Mac Pro and I shut it down every night. All of my computers get shut down every night. They won't be hurt by shutting down. They're built to be able to shut down and not get hurt. That might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard (that shutting it down could hurt). There comes a point where you need to use common sense, people!!!
 
Tesselator said:
Alternatively you could just run the scripts manually or use a utility like ONYX or Maintenance to kick them off for you whenever you wanted. See: http://www.titanium.free.fr
Click to expand...

Thanks.

Been using Onyx for about a year on all my machines.
Usually run it about every month or so.
(or in this case to try to fix the sleep problem, which didn't work)

How often do you run it?
 
Last edited:
SuperPolli said:
I still use a 2006 Mac Pro and I shut it down every night. All of my computers get shut down every night. They won't be hurt by shutting down. They're built to be able to shut down and not get hurt. That might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard (that shutting it down could hurt). There comes a point where you need to use common sense, people!!!
Click to expand...

i agree (not as roughly as you put it though ;). Its just like saying, starting/shutting off your car hurts your ignition's longevity! Welp, you know that's what it was made for!
 
Early 2008 MacPro. I used to put it to sleep the first few months that I've had it. Peripherals such as my Wacom Cintiq would have issues sometimes after waking it up, which required me to restart the machine. I ended up just shutting it down at the end of the day.

I've been doing that ever since, turning the machine on every morning and shutting it off when I am done with my work (animation). It's still doing fine. Saves me a bit in electricity bills I suspect.
 
MacMadness said:
Thanks.

Been using Onyx for about a year on all my machines.
Usually run it about every month or so.
(or in this case to try to fix the sleep problem, which didn't work)

How often do you run it?
Click to expand...

Uhhh... I donno. :D I have all three of those installed. I suppose about once a year I get a hair to tweak and maintain the system. So I'll defrag the storage (which does absolutely nothing in actuality) check some settings, flip a switch in ONYX - maybe something mundane like Show Emails In Text Format If Available or whatever, and maybe run those scripts or something. I ran it today in order to get the homepage URL for you. Prior to that I think I ran it for something about 5 months ago when I turned off the dynamic paging system in OS X. You might have seen me paste this into a few messages since:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

followed by a reboot to turn off the dynamic paging and to turn it on again:

sudo launchctl load -wF /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

and so on. Mostly the kinds of mods ONYX does I like to use the shell for.
 
SuperPolli said:
I still use a 2006 Mac Pro and I shut it down every night. All of my computers get shut down every night. They won't be hurt by shutting down. They're built to be able to shut down and not get hurt. That might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard (that shutting it down could hurt). There comes a point where you need to use common sense, people!!!
Click to expand...

Spoken just like Chris Christie. Thanks for weighing in, though.
(inadvertent pun...apologies to Chris)

Some Mac G5's and early Mac Pro's had potential problems with power supplies
and electrical arcing across components during startups (I speak from experience
as I had to have a couple of G5's repaired for faulty power issues back in the day
when they were my workhorse machines).

The highest stress on electrical components and hard drives is during power up.
(Second only to thermal expansion/contraction to caps and other components)
Over time these may become a ticking time bomb.

(Or Russian Roulette may be more apt analogy).

Some folks may get lucky and their machines last through thousands
of power up/down cycles.

...I'm still leaning towards not taking a chance that one of those chambers
has a bullet in it....
 
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