Filed under: Software, Macbook Pro, MacBook, Beta Beat
Put your laptop to sleep with SmartSleep
You know the drill. Close your laptop's lid or select "Sleep" from the Apple Menu and it does just that - it goes into low-power mode, or "sleep." That's just not good enough. Check out SmartSleep, which puts your MacBook or MacBook Pro into either Sleep Mode or Hibernate Mode, depending on several factors.
For example, if your battery is at 20%, SmartSleep puts your Mac to sleep and hibernate. If it's down to 5%, it goes right to hibernate mode, preserving items in memory. Otherwise, it just sleeps as it typically does.
Finally, you can select any of these settings as the default for your machine. SmartSleep is free.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Joshua Ochs said 7:04PM on 2-28-2008
"Otherwise, it just sleeps as it typically does."
Um, the default is to *always* hibernate on MacBook/MacBook Pro's - something I find very annoying. If this can put me into normal sleep above 20% battery, and hibernate below 20%, then I will be a very happy camper.
Reply
tukan said 7:36PM on 2-28-2008
Yep, have to agree, especially after I installed 4GB of memory it takes ages to fall asleep :P
TheZero said 1:33AM on 3-04-2008
Not Correct. The MacBook goes into sleep mode when you close the lid and wakes up when you open it. That's why it takes 1-2 seconds to wake up.
But when you close the lid it also saves the system state (it takes about 30 seconds depending on amount of RAM) in case it has to go into a deep-sleep mode (hibernate) when the battery goes flat while sleeping.
BTW Your lappy's harddrive does not like it very much when you move it while it's saving state. You should only move it when the LED heartbeat (pulse) starts.
Joakim Bergman said 7:33AM on 2-29-2008
That's exactly what it does. If your battery has 20 % or more power, it will go to sleep and if below 20 % it will hibernate and sleep.
Ed said 7:43PM on 2-28-2008
Somewhat off topic, but does anyone know of a menu bar applet thing to quickly disable sleep and prevent the screen dimming itself? It's very annoying when watching internet videos...
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Adam said 7:51PM on 2-28-2008
There's the perfect Freeware app for you :)
http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/
Ross said 7:52PM on 2-28-2008
Ed, if you're on a laptop, just go to the battery menu, choose "Open Energy Saver" and set all the sliders to maximum. That will be your "custom" setting on the menu. Then if you're watching a video, just click on the battery menu and choose "custom." When you're done, just go back to the menu and choose "normal" or whatever you normally keep it set to.
Ed said 7:57PM on 2-28-2008
Thanks Adam and Ross. Caffeine looks just whats needed. It's not for me but for my parents, so Ross's solution is fine, but a little more cryptic. If the settings are changed in the Energy Saver pane, it isn't obvious from the menu. Ideally, there would be a way to make custom profiles...
Billy said 10:06PM on 2-28-2008
In your screen saver preferences, click "Hot Corners" on the bottom left. You can set it so that if you drag your mouse to a certain corner, your screen saver will be disabled. I think that should stop sleep too.
5cents said 10:12PM on 2-28-2008
Deepsleep widget'it
Reply
ramond said 11:42PM on 2-28-2008
To sleep just your display, e.g. on the iMac use:
http://www.imalc.com/Site/SleepDisplay.html