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Mac Pro sleep mode/hibernate how does it work?

H

hoefler

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 10, 2010
50
0
I have a few questions about the sleep mode of my MacPro (first time Macuser)

How exactly does this sleep mode or hibernate mode work, i'm asking because i have the energy saver set to 15 minutes for the computer sleep and 15 minutes for the display sleep.

The monitor indeed shuts down after 15 minutes going black, but the computer however seems to keep working, i can still here the HDD sometimes.

However just yesterday i fell asleep with my mac pro still turned on when i woke up in the morning the macpro was completely quite as if it was turned off and the light in the front was like going on or off...is this some kind of other sleep mode that kicks in only after a few hours? it takes like really a few hours before it does this
 
In Energy Saver you have Computer Sleep and Display Sleep. Computer sleep puts the whole thing to sleep including spinning down the HDD. Display sleep only turns the screen off, but leaves the rest of the computer running. The light going on and off indicates that the whole computer is asleep.

I never actually turn my Mac's off but put them to sleep because they perform awesome in this mode compared to Windows machines in sleep mode.
 
When the light is on solid and the HDDs are running, it is in display sleep mode, then later, it will actually go into sleep mode, where the only thing powered is the ram and the light blinking.
 
but is there something wrong then with the mac because i have display sleep and computer sleep set at the same time 15 minutes, but after 1 hour i can still sometimes here the HDD kind of work at times. its only after having it on for the entire night yesterday that i noticed it was completely silent but that was after like 5 or 6 hours.

is there something wrong or is it perfectly normal
 
Might be something causing your Mac Pro to not go to sleep. The display might turn off just fine but the Mac Pro might still be awake.

Are you sure that it's sleeping when you hear the HDD? You can check the light on the front, when it is sleeping the light will be slowly pulsing instead of being solid.
 
Do you have "wake for Ethernet network access" checked under Energy Saver? If so, the computer will wake up every so often for a minute or so and then go back to sleep. Quite normal.
 
yeah the light just stays on, no slow blinking after 15 minutes its as if just the monitor turns of but the computer stays awake.

i do have "Ethernet network access" checked, is this the reason maybe?
 
hoefler said:
i do have "Ethernet network access" checked, is this the reason maybe?
Click to expand...

Yep. The HDD's will go to sleep, but will wake up occasionally. If you don't need to have network access to your machine while it's asleep, just uncheck it and you shouldn't have this happen anymore.
 
SandboxGeneral said:
Yep. The HDD's will go to sleep, but will wake up occasionally. if you don't need to have network access to your machine while it's asleep, just uncheck it and you shouldn't have this happen anymore.
Click to expand...

mmm hi have it unchecked an the light in the front is still not blinking...computer still seems to work
 
There are some applications which can prevent a Mac to go into sleep mode. Try quitting all your apps and check again if it works. Certain USB devices are also known to prevent sleep.

There is also a third sleep mode in OS X called deep sleep (equals to 'suspend to disk' in Win) which fully functional and safe, but only accessible by terminal or little third party tools.
The whole RAM content is written to the HD which allows to turn off the computer completely and even to reboot into another OS. When you boot OS X the next time, the previously stored RAM image is loaded back into memory. This takes more time than the normal sleep mode of course and it heavily depends on your hard drive speed and RAM amount. But a power failure has no consequences.
 
Hibernation mode

I can't be certain but i could swear in osx 10.7.2 you could hold down command & then press sleep & it will hibernate in leu of sleep. It probably would be safer transporting in hibernation mode rather than sleep- but for around the house sleep is fine. Thanks for reading please post if you know anything about the command sleep function?
 
nio9 said:
I can't be certain but i could swear in osx 10.7.2 you could hold down command & then press sleep & it will hibernate in leu of sleep. It probably would be safer transporting in hibernation mode rather than sleep- but for around the house sleep is fine. Thanks for reading please post if you know anything about the command sleep function?
Click to expand...

I guess we're not talking about a Mac Pro then... that beast stays where it is. No transporting around the house. :)
 
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