Closed lid on MBP = lost wireless

I'm down to very few issues during my adjustment period to my MBP, and this is one of them. If I close the lid on my MBP for any amount of time, the wireless connection is lost during that time. When the notebook comes back online I do regain the connection.

Losing the network connection while the lid is closed causes me a couple of minor issues. First, I like to keep a constant RDP connection to my Windows server, and that does get interrupted. Secondly, if I'm copying or downloading files on the network/internet, that will be interrupted as well. So if I'm copying gigabytes of data to/from my server, I'll need to leave the lid open during the entire time.

I looked at the Energy Saver System Preferences and I couldn't find anything to prevent that from happening. Any ideas?

 

When you close your mac notebook it goes to sleep, regardless of what it's currently doing. Try InsomniaX, it prevents your notebook from going to sleep when it's on. That should solve all your problems.

 

Hey thanks! I tried it out and it seems to have done the trick. Do you know how can I get this program to start up when OS X starts up?

 

System Preferences -> Accounts -> Login Items

click the plus at the bottom and find insomniax.

 

Hey, that's where that startup application stuff was hiding

 

you can also get some applications to start at login by right clicking their dock icon and selecting "open at login"

 

u might wana wach out, ive heard mixed things about leaving macs on when the lids down

 

After digging in to this program a little more, I'll have to keep an eye on it for a while. For one thing, when InsomniaX is enable and the lid is closed, the display does not turn off. So that alone will heat things ups.

 

My MBP stays on almost constantly, most of the time with the lid closed. This is because I have a wireless keyboard/mouse, and 17" monitor hooked up to it. When I come back from class I just plug my power cable in, then my monitor and finally my usb hub(which has the keyboard/mouse plugged into it) which then wakes it up. After that, it's closed and the screen is off.

 

Yeaps. Probably not going to be really bad, but I don't see it being any good in the long run.

 

So can't you just turn the brightness of the screen way down low until it's black, and THEN close the lid?

Would that make any difference?

 

This is just another example of how everyone does something right except Apple, who just HAS to be stubborn and only give you the idiotic Steve Jobs way of doing things.

Really? Like what/why? That'd be really pathetic, I've kept my Thinkpad on 24/7 for over three months with no issues whatsoever.

 

i remember readin somewhere (prolly macrumors) about usin stuff like that the heat from the laptop like messing up the LCD or sumthin. idk i remember it had to do with messing up the screen in some way or another

 

On? As in you never even left it on Sleep/Hibernate, for three whole months? For 2160 hours?

 

Turn down the brightness to low black?

 

While I agree that it's completely stupid that the lid has to be closed in order to run solely on an external display, this is what Apple intended and what the company tells you to do in their support docs. Thus, I wouldn't worry too much about overheating issues unless you're stressing the processor and video card 24/7. If you're gaming for an hour or two or even processing video, it shouldn't be a problem.

 

Correct. I never use sleep/hibernate in XP, I hate it. When I was done using it I'd just close the lid move along. Worked like a champ for as long as I owned it.

 

I agree somewhat with both sides of the conversation here. The sleep method that Apple sets up is their recommended method, most likely configured to give the Macbooks as long a life as possible. In short instances, though, I don't think my use of InsomniaX is going to cause damage. With that said, I know I can't just leave the program on auto-pilot all the time; I have to be conscious of what I'm doing. So I use the program as follows:

* The program is set to load on startup with Insomnia enabled, but with hibernation disabled (I need to read up more on hibernation to feel comfortable using it).
* In instances where I'm going to close the lid for just a few minutes, I'll let Insomnia do it's thing and keep the MBP running without sleeping.
* If I'm going to have the lid closed for a while (longer than 30 minutes or so ) and I want to keep the system running, I can select "Sleep Display" from Insomnia just before closing the lid to turn off the LCD.
* If I want it to normally sleep, you can quickly turn Insomnia off with a hotkey (that you set up). This is useful to me just before going to sleep.