hi. i have to get off this thread but the problem i am having is that i am not seeing anything that factually states that 2009 13" MBP is supposed to have a "hibernate" or "safe sleep". and every time i try to get an answer (from mac) about battery issues or performance with this device i get some kind of zen koan.
i arrived upon the thread after searching in order to troubleshoot problems related to this kind of issue which have existed for me since using the computer out of the box (i.e. pre-RAM upgrade). the computer does not behave consistently upon waking from sleep (unresponsive to the point of needing to manually restart, slow, black screen, long delay for dock icons, beachball hangs, background only for a minute or longer - but more often than not it is simply extremely sluggish and slow upon waking from sleep). the machine has /never/ behaved in a way that made sense to me. this was compounded by ongoing (and unconfirmed by mac) battery issues, high heat and loud fan.
the issue i see here (maybe i am missing something so i am happy to stand corrected) is that neither of your links suggest that this computer has anything except a conventional sleep mode. the first link only casually mentions what appears to be a conventional sleep (i.e. "sleep") and the second link related to Mountain Lion specifically states "/some/ portable Mac computers have a feature called 'safe sleep.' "
and again - my research as i recall showed that this computer does not have a safe sleep or hibernate mode.
i am not sure figuring this out will solve my issue but you seemed pretty confident that your machine had the same functionality as mine ("Yes, I am ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that my machine is supposed to behave EXACTLY like your machine in terms of sleep!") and that you had this "hibernate" or "safe sleep" mode ("In my case, it was hibernate instead of sleep when I closed the lid). since i have tested this behavior on my end ad nauseum it would be good to know if the computer is in fact going in to some kind of deeper sleep mode in some cases.
maybe the defective RAM caused your computer to behave in a way that made it appear that there was some problem with safe sleep or hibernate mode. either way at the very least - particularly in the context of this thread - it would be helpful to know definitively if the 2009 13" MBP /has/ this functionality when upgraded to ML.
i mean, prior to reading this thread i was considering buying a 2013 15" - and giving the laptop to a family member (preferably in a way that didn't require them to periodically replace keys every other month...) - but i just can't spend this kind of cash again and get the same kind of performance. frankly i think there is some kind of problem with this model and based upon my empirical experience i find it almost suspicious there isn't better documentation about the issues described on this thread as it relates to the 2009 model. either the computer should have a hibernate mode or it shouldn't. if i didn't know better i'd say i think hibernate mode was /tested/ on the 2009 model and they didn't try to implement it on the laptops until releasing Mountain Lion...
peace out.
