Ask HN: Why can I just shut the lid on a Macbook and not think about it? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why can I just shut the lid on a Macbook and not think about it?

7 pointsandybak5 comments

...but even with Windows 10 a laptop will refuse to do anything sane with regard to sleep, hibernation or even thermal management.

(I've got a high-end Windows laptop that I'm fairly sure will burn itself to a crisp if I don't do the right thing every time I stop using it)

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I agree with Windows - it's screwy. Closing lid and putting it in backpack - 50% of that simple action resulted in laptop being hot like a frying pan when i take it out few hours after.

I traced it down to wireless mouse - it apparently "wake up" laptop as soon as mouse pointer movement detected and it "awakens" itself and boots itself with lid closed in a backpack.

So my sequence to close lid on Windows laptop:

- Disconnect all wires coming to it.

- Turn off wireless mouse.

- Close lid.

My Windows 10 desktop has similar issues. It'll fail to lock when idle most of the time.

My theory is the mouse is kept active by minute vibrations from a nearby fan among other sources, but I haven't tested it yet. Either way, how Microsoft's idle detection code can be so poor give the implications is breathtaking.

Because Apple have worked out a fairly good mechanism to prevent the system from not falling to sleep when the lid is closed.

Open a Terminal and type:

    pmset -g assertions

You will get a list of all processes and which kind of sleep mode they are preventing currently.

Having said that, it doesn't work well always. I remember that I had issues with btsync once, which was actively preventing sleep even when the lid was closed. This turned out to be a bug, but it was really annoying. An issue with modern MacBooks is that you cannot see anymore whether the device is sleeping or not as Apple decided to remove the status LED.

So it can still run hot in your bag, but it usually does not and good App developers test for this when it applies to their applications.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but shutting the lid of my MBP is not a good idea if I'm not planning to use it soon. The battery will be dead in ~1 week. Granted, it doesn't stay put for a week very often so I mostly "do not think about it" either, but it does drain the battery.

Do you have Power Nap enabled? That feature lets the Mac turn back on every so often to check for updates and other stuff, and can be a pretty big drain on your battery.

Otherwise, this is basically the difference between "sleep" and "hibernate". Hibernate shuts down and takes no power, sleep does require the computer stay powered on. When you close the lid of a Macbook, it sleeps, not hibernates.

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