Any idea why Mac's sleep better then Vista PC's?

I own a Dell XPS 1530 and my gf has a Macbook Pro.

While the hardware on paper is very similar, there are some key differences I've noticed in the way they behave... the hardest to explain is the way they sleep.

The Mac goes to sleep very very quickly and wakes up very very quickly. Vista on the other hand can take up to 20 seconds to go to sleep and 5 to wake up.

The other thing which I find more annoying is the length of time the machine can sleep for.

The battery on my Dell (6 cell) isn't THAT much lower capacity then the Macbook Pro battery but where my Dell will only sleep for about two days, the Mac seems to be able to sleep for at least twice that and still have some charge left to use it for a bit. A colleague at work tells me his will sleep for a week before needing to hibernate due to low battery.

Does anyone know why this is? Does the Mac use a different level of sleep state on the CPU and if so, why doesn't Vista?

 

macbook uses macos X,which is optimized better and has way better power management.also,have u noticed how long does it take macbook pro to boot?

 

I am not sure about what is better. It is true (personal observation) that my macbook sleeps/wakes faster than the sony we have, but it is not in the number range that you posted, more like within secs of difference.

But comparing the sleep/wake mechanism between 2 totally different OS can't be valid in determining that the functionality is better from one than the other, kinda reminding me of comparing sleeping/waking up from 2 different beds

cheers ...

 

I understand that the sleep and wake times will differ wildly between OS's.

What I don't understand is why the Mac hardware can remain asleep for much longer i.e. it draws less power when asleep.

Sleep is a hardware feature, not an OS feature...

 

Vista's sleep function is designed to work on a wide variety of different PC hardware, on desktops and laptops by many different vendors.

OS X's sleep function is designed to work on Macs, of which there are two types of laptops and three types of desktops.

When you design for variety, you often have to make concessions for the sake of compatibility. When you only have to worry about a small number of possible platforms, the code for it doesn't need to be so generic.

 

nope,it is software-in sleep mode macos needs much less power then windows.

 

I give my vista machine some tylenol with codine. Actually, i have noticed that my vista laptop takes much longer to standby than my laptop.

 

My Dell Latitude D630 running Vista takes about 7 seconds to go to sleep and 5-6 seconds to wake.

No, it's hardware. The OS isn't actually running in sleep mode, because the CPU is off.

The amount of RAM probably will matter, because you need to power the RAM during sleep.

Also, I don't know about that M1530 and MBP that the OP was comparing... but my Latitude flashes an LED power light when it's sleeping... that has to use some power of course... don't know how much though.

 

Well, Vista defaults to Hybrid Sleep. Basically, it saves data to the hard drive and then goes to sleep, still keeping the data on memory. It's a compromise between's XP's Standby and Hibernates, and ends up combining the worst of each - using power and not being all that quick. But you can alleviate this problem two ways:

*Enable Hibernation. Then it won't use any power whatsoever no matter how long you leave it. Come back three years later and you'll still have a charge, provided the battery hasn't degraded.
*Change it from Hybrid Sleep to Sleep. It will not save any data to the hard drive this way, and will go to sleep and wake up much quicker - nearly instantly really. This won't use any more power than Hybrid Sleep, so it's really win-win if you aren't going the Hibernate route.

Both of these can be done somewhere in Vista's power options; I don't recall exactly where.

The only hardware being used in sleep mode is memory (other than what's required to power it of course). All I can think of to explain why the MBP might have nearly double the sleep life of the Dell is that perhaps OSX puts everything on memory onto one stick of RAM before going to sleep, while Vista leaves data on both RAM sticks. This would allow the MBP to power only one memory stick in sleep versus two in the Dell, roughly halving power draw. This could probably be tested either by removing a stick from the Dell, or by making sure the MBP is using almost all its RAM when put into sleep mode.

Note that there's no real basis for that guess. It's just a feature that would be rather handy to built in for sleep mode - whether it is in any OS I have no idea.

 

My wife's macbook crashes a lot from sleep.

 

Hit the nail on the head right here.

This is the reason why OSX runs so well and everyone is wowed; because apple only has to support a handful of hardware configurations.

On the other hand, MS supports the majority of hardware configurations. If apple decided to sell their OS with support for other hardware, theyd be the next MS.

A lot of people dont understand this and simple believe apple is awesome and MS sucks. Oh well, bandwagon has to stop somewhere right.

 

The ONLY 2 reasons i still dont have MBP is coz its **** expensive for normal specs...

and it hardly has any games for it.

 

Yeah a MBP starts at 1900 bucks. You can actually find "Gaming laptops" for less than that with better specs.

Laptops have been dropping in price...except Apple's. I wonder how much it costs them to make it.

I know the 16GB iPod touch is like 250 to make, 400 to sell as of a few months ago. I wonder if the margins are that big?

Mind you, I'm no Apple hater, if you choose to spend the money....make sure you get a warranty. You'll thank me later

 

Also, Mac products try to imply some sense of superiority by putting down windows.

i dont like this Narssistic behaviour of Apple.

And seeing that most Mac Owners atleast in my region are all Sissy guys..its kinda embarrasing to carry around Macs.

No Offense to Power Macbook users on NBR

 

It's because Mac's use Temperpedic beds with foam and cushions while PC's use ordinary spring mattresses.

 

Not sure if this is an accurate gauge, but in Windows XP, my Macbook Pro drained about 12% battery life after 10 hours of sleeping. That would mean that it would have roughly 40~% battery life after sleeping for 2 days.

Haven't tried making it sleep in Leopard though.