Tag Archives: Sleep

How to fix your Mac not waking from sleep

EnergySaverIconXThere may be an issue that some iMac users experience where after being in sleep for a period of time, their systems will no longer respond to keypresses or other input, and even though pressing the power button should similarly wake the system, doing this similarly has no effect. With this problem, affected systems require either the power button be pressed and held for ~10 seconds, or the power cord is pulled to shut the system down and reset it. Continue reading

Sleep and power settings possibly behind Wi-Fi dropouts in Yosemite

WiFiIconXAlong with its perks and new features, OS X Yosemite has not been without its share of problems, with at least some of these being associated with the inability to keep your Mac connected to Wi-Fi. If this happens, there are some basic fixes from toggling Wi-Fi off and on, to fully resetting your Mac’s network configuration; however, there are times when these might not work, and your Mac will continue to drop its connection. Continue reading

How to determine what woke your Mac from sleep

ConsoleIconXSleep modes in OS X, as with other operating systems, allow you to quickly lock your Mac, and use less energy when not in use while being ready to resume operation almost instantly. However, unlike a full shutdown, this readiness to resume means that one of a number of events might result in your Mac being woken from sleep. These can be purposeful interactions, but at other times the system might wake for unknown reasons, which can be a bit of a problem. Continue reading

Apple Issues MacBook Air EFI firmware update

FirmwareUpdateIconXIf you have a MacBook Air and are experiencing long pauses when waking from sleep, or if you find your system fans are regularly blaring after waking from sleep, then Apple has a fix in the form of an EFI firmware update, that should hopefully clear the issue.

The update, for Mid-2011 MacBook Air systems, is a small download available via Software Update in the Apple menu, Continue reading

How to put your Mac’s display to sleep

DisplaysIconXWhen working at your Mac, there may be times when you would like to simply shut off the monitor without interrupting your work. For example, if you are downloading files or in the middle of processing a large amount of data that will take hours to complete, or if you are simply playing music and do not want to view anything on your display, then you might like to blank out the display. Continue reading

How to put your Mac to sleep and keep it there

EnergySaverIconXPutting your Mac to sleep is perhaps one of the easiest tasks you can do; however, there are several options for doing this that you might not know about, and in addition, if your Mac is either not going or not staying in sleep mode, then there are several things you can try to remedy the situation.

First, to get your Mac to sleep you have anything from menu options to Terminal commands that can get you there: Continue reading

Determine the reason why your Mac wakes up

ConsoleIconXWhen your Mac wakes form sleep, the OS X Kernel will output a message to the system console, containing a code that identifies the reason for the system having been woken up. This can be anything from a lid being opened, to a key being pressed.

Since you can access these logs using the System Console utility, if your system is regularly waking unexpectedly up Continue reading

Test related settings when troubleshooting

SystemPreferencesIconXSometimes we get fixated on specific settings and possibilities when troubleshooting problems with our Macs, and in doing so might overlook other seemingly unrelated settings that might end up being the root of the problem at hand.

Recently, MacIssues reader Graham wrote in, asking about a problem with his Thunderbolt drives unmounting at random intervals: Continue reading

Disable new power button sleep mode in OS X Mavericks

PowerIconOne of the new features in OS X Mavericks is a slight change to the way the power button on your Mac is used. While pressing the button on a powered-down system will start it up as expected, with OS X running, instead of bringing up the power menu as it did in the past, the behavior now has three different modes.

The first mode is to sleep your Mac, where you press the button for about a second and then release it. Continue reading