New to Mac Questions

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bholstege

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 31, 2007
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I just bought a 15" MBP, and had a few questions about the MBP/OS X, since I really have no experience with it. If any of you Mac experts could help me, it would be appreciated.

1) How do I make the laptop stay awake when I close the lid? I cannot find an option in the energy preferences to do this.

2) The dedicated GPU seems to switch on randomly, for things like downloading (not playing) a game on Steam or downloading a file in Chrome. Is there a way to control it for specific applications or anything like that?

3) I bought a mini DP to DVI adapter, and while the monitor stops showing the "no signal" message, nothing is outputted to the screen and the monitor preferences panel shows only the laptop screen as a display option. Thoughts on how to fix this?

4) The bottom of the laptop gets REALLY hot. Is this normal?

Thanks.
 
1. If you have an external keyboard plugged in (I assume you do) then just hit the spacebar key on the external keyboard. That'll wake the computer back up and turn on the monitor and mouse.

2. It's less random than you think. Steam is still a little funky and I notice that too. Chrome I'd imagine uses CoreAnimation which will activate the GPU. You can see what apps specifically are using it, and even control it yourself with gfxCardStatus - http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus/

3. I'm not really sure on that. It is strange!

4. The aluminum body acts somewhat like a large heatsink, yes it is normal under most use. If you're worried though you can use iStat Menu or iStat Pro to keep an eye out on the temperatures.
 
CKMorpheus said:
1. If you have an external keyboard plugged in (I assume you do) then just hit the spacebar key on the external keyboard. That'll wake the computer back up and turn on the monitor and mouse.
Click to expand...

If you don't have an external device, then just use Sleepless.
 
The reason for number three I believe is related an active vs passive adaptor problem. Check further but you may need a new adaptor that is known to work with macs
 
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