Charging, running out of power, switching off and not being switched on are, arguably, daily challenges for the digital community & there’s always new advice equipment and consumables. Whether it’s a MacBook charger that’s like an umbilical cord to your Mac or your iPhone charger, good power management habits enhance the performance and lifespan of your Digi-equipment.
So - what are the MacBook's best practices?
Can You Do Mac-ing 24/7?
If your Mac is on 24/7 don’t feel alone - a LOT of Mac owners have this habit. Macbooks are the new desktops and are docked or plugged into MacBook Chargers.
Is it safe to leave them switched on 24/7/365?
It is not damaging but being left on all the time might result in a hampered performance speed over time. Aim to restart once a week.
Why?
If there is a clumsily coded program running it can experience memory leaks or RAM errors could pop up. You will be surprised to know that a big portion of these RAM errors is caused by ionizing radiation from solar flares (which accounts for a percentage of our daily radiation). The sun is in a big solar flare cycle at the moment so flare events will increase until the peak of the sun’s flare cycle in 2025.
So, your RAM single-bit errors might increase as well over this period and a weekly shut-off will help with performance.
The MacBook Charger Umbilical Cord
Are you a workaholic who can’t bear the thought of a power-down? Do you have your ‘MacBaby’ attached to its umbilical cord otherwise known as the MacBook Charger to the rest of NZ.
So, what is the best practice?
Like all digital consumables, batteries get older and their lifespan can be shortened by charge cycle behaviour and heat. If your ‘MacBaby’ is plugged 24/7 and constantly topping up to 100 per cent then you might be capping its ability to charge. A more worrying outcome could be the physical swelling of the battery over time. If it swells, immediately switch off and get bring your MacBaby to us before chemicals are leaked into the interior of your laptop causing irreversible damage.
This leads us to the answer - no, it’s not optimal to have your MacBook charger plugged in all day. It’s not optimal to leave it plugged MORE than is necessary. Charge up and unplug especially if you do heavy graphic work or gaming or the heat with the CPU combined with the heat from charging is a bad combination.
Another solution is to use the Optimize Battery Charging option (available in the macOS Big Sur update). This stops a charge from going past 80% when you're plugged in longer than necessary.
Now you know the best practice use for charging your ‘MacBaby’, don’t forget to only use brand-appropriate accessories so you don’t cook your hard drive!
Get your safe, premium quality MacBook charger in NZ today!