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killhippie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 12, 2016
677
730
UK
Hi, long time lurker now posting. I received my new Late 2015 5k iMac yesterday, i7 16GB ram M395X and 1TB Flash drive. Now I have all settings in power turned off so no Wake on network no power Nap and hard drives set to stay on as ~I have a 3TB external spinner that seems happier spinning and sleep set to 15mins. I have noticed though that when the iMac goes to sleep the Ethernet port stays powered, but on my Netgear R7000 the port turns amber so only at 10/100Mbs not the usual 1000Mbps

All other Macs I have had don't leave the Ethernet port powered when in sleep mode, but is this normal for a ssd model? I have tried resetting power the settings but the Ethernet port still stays powered.I have a canon printer connected wirelessly, and a APC UPS and headphones plugged in. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Apart from this oddity its a great machine with a good screen totally silent and lightning fast. The Ethernet port powers up fine out of sleep as well.
 
Last edited:

killhippie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 12, 2016
677
730
UK
I don't get what the problem is.
Normally on previous iMacs when the mac sleeps the Ethernet port sleeps as well, I don't use Wake on network access or Power nap. On this iMac the Ethernet port stays powered and the router shows an amber light whereas my previous mac would show no light as the Ethernet port was asleep. I'm just asking is this normal for the Ethernet port to stay powered on the Late 2015 5K SSD iMacs.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,734
I don't think what you describe is an issue or a problem. To be honest, I don't fully recall, but my other macs do what you describe. The lights show amber when the Mac was put in sleep. I never really stared at it, when it was but I always showed lights being emitted.

Either way, as long as your Mac runs ok, while powered up, I'd not lose sleep over it (see what I did there :p)
 

killhippie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 12, 2016
677
730
UK
I don't think what you describe is an issue or a problem. To be honest, I don't fully recall, but my other macs do what you describe. The lights show amber when the Mac was put in sleep. I never really stared at it, when it was but I always showed lights being emitted.

Either way, as long as your Mac runs ok, while powered up, I'd not lose sleep over it (see what I did there :p)
Seems it was a hardware fault they are sending out a new one :)
 

killhippie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 12, 2016
677
730
UK
Is your Ethernet "issue" resolved with the new Mac?
Oddly no, and it had the same hiccup rebooting as well. Either a firmware update for my router has caused the Ethernet issue, the other seems to be USB based, for some reason the new USB stack in El Capitan does not like some APC UPS power supplies. <sigh> The thing is my First 5k iMac a Fusion drive model did not have the Ethernet issue, so maybe there is a change in behaviour with having pure SSD, I'm really not sure.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,734
So is the issue that the lights dont go off or change to amber when the iMac goes to sleep?
[doublepost=1453547616][/doublepost]I just checked my iMac and when I put it to sleep the ethernet connection on my router stays green. Personally, its not something that I even care about since the Mac works fine and I have no connectivity issues. I also made sure the powernap and wake on network access was turned off

btw, I'm using the latest Apple Airport Extreme base station.
 

killhippie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 12, 2016
677
730
UK
So is the issue that the lights dont go off or change to amber when the iMac goes to sleep?
[doublepost=1453547616][/doublepost]I just checked my iMac and when I put it to sleep the ethernet connection on my router stays green. Personally, its not something that I even care about since the Mac works fine and I have no connectivity issues. I also made sure the powernap and wake on network access was turned off

btw, I'm using the latest Apple Airport Extreme base station.
See that's odd because my last iMac with similar specs to yours (fusion drive) when using a Netgear R7000 the light went out to indicate no Ethernet port activity in sleep. As I wanted a full SSD I sent it back and got a new one which behaved like yours does and mine does with port lights on at 10/100Mbps in sleep, waking up to 1000Mbps (white on the R7000)

I'm happy with mine as it works but its odd that two machines should behave so differently with the same settings, maybe the port powering down was an issue, who knows. It would have been nice though if Apples tech support had known as then I would not have had to swap machines, they told me that the thing needed a new Logic board but I was within my 14 days so they swapped it. :)
 
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