Never carry your MBP in sleep mode

Question

Level 1

13 points

Never carry your MBP in sleep mode

Little story to tell you.

Yesterday I went to my brothers and decided to take my 2.8Ghz 15" MBP with me.

Its in a speck case with a Moshi keypad cover. I slipped it into my Targa laptop case and off I went. What I didnt realise was I had left it in sleep mode.

After being over my brothers for about 3 hours I grabbed the Targa case to get the MBP out... Wow it was really hot. I quickly unzipped it and the MBP in side was extremely hot with the fans running flat out. I reckon I could of fried an egg on it no joking. I mean the whole thing was very very hot and no response from it. The poor old Moshi cover was like melted plastic.

Any way I popped it out the Speck case and put it on a cool surface. The flashing sleep light was off and all seemed dead apart from the fans howling.
After about 2 mins I pressed the power button and up it came. It cooled very quickly and the fans soon stabilised back to normal. The battery was at 5% and was fully charged when I left home.

All seems well now.

My advise is to never travel with your MBP in sleep mode and also remember that a Moshi Keyboard skin stops the heat dissipating as does the Speck case.

So you guys who are worried about a 100 degrees temperature, thats peanuts against how hot mine was.

Carlo

MacBook Pro 15" 2.8Ghz 7200rpm Antiglare, MBP 13" 2,25ghz, IPhone 3GS, Mac OS X (10.6.2), PC's

Posted on Apr 26, 2010 10:25 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 26, 2010 11:10 AM in response to Carlouk

Looks like it wasn't actually put in sleep mode. Or it woke up for some reason.

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Answer 2

JoeyR

Level 6

8,305 points

Apr 26, 2010 11:10 AM in response to Carlouk

From your description, either your machine was not actually sleeping when you stored it, or it came out of sleep while it was stored.

Thousands of people travel with their Macs while they are sleeping without any problems. If your machine is not sleeping properly, or coming out of sleep unexpectedly, that is what would need to be investigated.

A properly functioning Mac is perfectly safe to travel with while sleeping.

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Answer 3

Network 23

Level 6

12,351 points

Apr 26, 2010 12:37 PM in response to Carlouk

I don't agree with this advice. I routinely carry various Apple laptops in sleep mode, only shutting down/restarting every couple weeks. I go on long-distance trips this way, never shutting down during the trip itself.

I'll tell you what the advice should really be: When you close the lid, wait until the sleep light begins to pulse. If it does not, you know that it has not successfully entered sleep and you need to find out why.

Yes, there can be a problem with the pre-unibody MacBook Pros (I'm typing on a 2008 model right now) where the mechanical latch releases while the laptop is inside a case and it turns on and heats up in the enclosed space. To minimize the possibility of this happening, I have turned off the "lidwake" feature, which you can easily do as described here. If you do this, after opening the lid the Mac won't wake up until a key is pressed.

The new unibody MacBook Pros are unlikely to pop open in a bag, because their spring loading works the other way, to keep the lid closed. You really have to yank them open.

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Answer 4

JasonFear

Level 5

4,965 points

Apr 26, 2010 12:45 PM in response to Carlouk

I agree with the three above posters, situational advice poorly based on improper usage. I'll also agree that the new unibody design definitely helps eliminate "accidental" wake-ups while the machine is in a bag or brief case. On my old Santa Rosa MacBook Pro I definitely had a few incidents where the machine woke up in my bag as the lid had been falsely opened in transportation.

But the Apple portables are perfectly capable of being transported while being asleep.

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Answer 5

a brody

Level 10

85,372 points

Apr 26, 2010 12:54 PM in response to Carlouk

Your mileage may vary, but I believe you have more hard drive protection if the drive is not spinning while it is shut down, than if it is, and as others have pointed out, unless you can 100% of the time prevent accidental wakeup, it probably isn't wise to carry it in sleep mode. SSDs obviously prevent the former from being an issue. But heat can kill computers.

That said, the temperature monitoring software offers only arbitrary comfort for your machine based purely on the sensor the software is able to detect at the time it is programmed. Not knowing the official limits from Apple's own engineers, which nobody here would know, you are basically blinding chasing a temperature that only may cause problems. See more about heat that I say here:

http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=3461358

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Answer 6

Carlouk Author

Level 1

13 points

Apr 26, 2010 1:10 PM in response to a brody

Hi again

The MBP was in a Targa case which has velcro straps over the MBP. It would be very difficult to pop open. Maybe it hadn't gone completely into sleep mode when I closed it i just don't know.

My suspicion is that it was in sleep mode and woke up. Its 6 months old and I always use sleep mode when its on my desktop. Never had a problem. What ever the cause i wont risk toasting it again and will shut down when taking it to work etc.

i am not really looking for advice or reasoning just telling you guys the story 🙂
Part of the moral is that the MBP can get Extremely hot and still work. You wouldn't believe how hot it was when I took it out.

Carlo

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Answer 7

a brody

Level 10

85,372 points

Apr 26, 2010 1:12 PM in response to Carlouk

Given the temperature inside the machine regularly exceeds the hottest temperature on the surface of the earth in the shade, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

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Answer 8

Apr 26, 2010 1:40 PM in response to a brody

I traveled from NY To Raleigh NC by Amtrak and once by car round trip with my MBP and never
had a problem. Even left apps running when it was put to sleep. You just have to make sure its sleep before you go. If you ever noticed that you put it to sleep before and it woke up, thats a good tip
not to carry it in sleep mode until that problem has been iron out.

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