MacFormat UK – September 2019

GENIUS TIPS Mac hardware

Mac hardware

We help to solve your hardware hassles, from

interrupted upgrades to running diagnostics

Hardware

quick-fire

questions

How do I repair

a scratch on

my MacBook

Pro screen?

> Because of its

materials and structure,

you can’t do anything

effective to try to

remove a scratch on

the display. Cleaning it

with solvent is likely to

damage its coating,

petroleum jelly smears,

and toothpaste is mildly

abrasive. You’ll either

have to live with it or

pay for a replacement.

Is there a repair

programme for

Magic keyboards?

> If your Apple keyboard

has become defective,

then it’s covered under

warranty and any

AppleCare. They’re

quite different from

built-in keyboards in

recent Mac laptops,

which are covered

by the replacement

programme at bit.ly/

mfkspmb. There’s also

a long-standing bug

in macOS which leads

to occasional stuttering

of letters on Bluetooth

keyboards – hopefully

this will get fixed in

macOS Catalina.

You can estimate how much energy your

Mac would save over a year using figures from

Apple (see the environmental report cards for

your Apple device at bit.ly/mfmaceco) and the

cost of your electricity. Shutting down outside

office hours, including peripherals, could save

up to £100 per year, but if your Mac sleeps as

much as possible, those savings would be

considerably less.

Patterns and availability of access are

important. As your Mac is already in your

home, shutting it down when you finish work,

only to want to start it up later in the evening,

wouldn’t only be inconvenient but could wear

out hard drives, and promote ageing of its

graphics card, for instance.

If you do decide to leave it running for long

periods when it’s unattended, you’ll need to

run it off a good uninterruptible power supply

(UPS) which can cope reliably with any mains

failure when you’re not there.

Q

I use my Mac most days in my home

office. Is it better to leave it running

overnight, or should I shut it down

every evening?

by GEOFF BRIDGES

A

Ultimately this is a personal choice,

and depends on several factors.

It was originally recommended to

leave computers running so as to minimise

mechanical wear on their hard drives, which

definitely do last longer when left spinning

in constant conditions for many days or

weeks at a time.

Now that many Macs have no moving

components, that’s a less common concern,

but it still affects Fusion Drives. There are

credible claims that leaving electronics

running at a steady temperature makes

failure in its soldered joints less likely, but

this is more difficult to verify.

58 | MACFORMAT | SEPTEMBER 2019

Should you shut down daily?

macformat.com @macformat

You can tweak your Mac’s

sleep settings in System

Preferences > Energy Saver.