Sleep Settings?

[jason2811]

Can someone explain to me the difference between the various sleep settings? Put the computer to sleep..., put the display to sleep..., put the hard disk to sleep...? What is the difference? Right now I have all of mine enabled on my MacBook- is this a good idea? What is the best way to have it set up? Thanks.


Sometimes when I wake my macbook up from sleep the log in screen won't appear and I will just have a black screen where I can move my mouse around until I close the lid and re-open it. Could this be because of my sleep settings? Thanks.

 

[EricNau]

Put the Display to Sleep: This turns the display off while leaving the computer running. Think of it as turning your monitor off.

Put the Computer to Sleep: Virtually everything is disabled. Just enough power is supplied to the processor and RAM to keep the computer from shutting down. (While sleeping, the computer uses very little power).

Put the Hard Disks to Sleep: Basically, this stops the Hard drive from spinning when you are not using it.

Having all of these settings enabled is ideal for portable computers (esp. when running on battery power).

To learn more about Sleep in Mac OS X, visit this article:
Energy Saver: About sleep and idle modes in Mac OS X


How are you waking your computer up from sleep? Clicking or tapping the trackpad will not do the trick... You must click a key on your keyboard, or if the lid is closed, open it.

 

[jason2811]

thanks, that helped somewhat. I don't know what I should set my sleep settings to though on my MacBook. does anyone have any recommendations?

 

[WildCowboy]

How about using some of the built-in optimization default settings? Since my PowerBook is mostly used as a desktop replacement and I do some data crunching on it, I leave mine set on "Better Performance."

Try one of those settings and see how you like it. If it's not working for you, adjust one of the sliders for what's bugging you.