Resolved iMac randomly wakes from sleep

[SoAnyway]

I've never had this happen to me before but my iMac has been randomly waking from sleep lately. There is never any intervention from me where I'll be sitting in the same room as my iMac and I'll randomly hear the fans and hard drive spin up then goes back to sleep after a minute or so.

I have a 27" 2011 iMac and currently running 10.9.1 Mavericks which I updated from 10.7.5 Lion in December. I do have the Find My Mac option with wake for network access on and I'm guessing this may be the cause of the random waking up from sleep but I just want to be sure about it or if there are other issues out there.

Thanks for any insight.

(Also, if this isn't the right area of the forum for this issue and it belongs more in the OS X forum, mods feel free to move it there.)

 

[Fatboy71]

I've never had this happen to me before but my iMac has been randomly waking from sleep lately. There is never any intervention from me where I'll be sitting in the same room as my iMac and I'll randomly hear the fans and hard drive spin up then goes back to sleep after a minute or so.

I have a 27" 2011 iMac and currently running 10.9.1 Mavericks which I updated from 10.7.5 Lion in December. I do have the Find My Mac option with wake for network access on and I'm guessing this may be the cause of the random waking up from sleep but I just want to be sure about it or if there are other issues out there.

Thanks for any insight.

(Also, if this isn't the right area of the forum for this issue and it belongs more in the OS X forum, mods feel free to move it there.)

My late 2012 iMac does this too and I've been told on another forum that it's normal.

You can try to find out what caused the iMac to wake by doing the following:

Load up Terminal and copy and paste the below into it. Copy and paste back the results you get back from Terminal and maybe we will be able to determine what is causing your random wake from Sleep.


syslog |grep -i "Wake reason"

 

[andycho7]

I have exactly the same computer and it does the exactly the same thing. I turned off the Wake for network access and it stopped doing that.

IMHO, I don't think you need to keep Find My Mac turned on, unless you don't mind your computer from being awake every now and then(if that is the reason). I would turn it off if I were you... I mean that thing won't go anywhere unless someone is brave enough to rob your house or something.

 

[Fatboy71]

Just to add that I have Find My Mac turned off and also Wake for network access is unchecked (off) too.

When my iMac does wake, the screen does not come on, I can just hear the faint sound of the hard drive/fan startup.

From advice I received on another forum, I also tried unplugging all my USB devices and I switched off my Magic Trackpad, to try and determine why mine was waking, but despite doing this, my iMac would wake randomly, so in light of this I would just put it down to normal behaviour of your iMac doing some necessary maintenance.

 

[andycho7]

Just to add that I have Find My Mac turned off and also Wake for network access is unchecked (off) too.

When my iMac does wake, the screen does not come on, you can just hear the faint sound of the hard drive/fan startup.

Yep. Screen remains off and the hard drive start spinning with the other fans. I don't think it does that anymore on my computer(it's been couple days) but who knows.

I've been wondering if the App Store's automatic update has anything to do with this?

 

[Fatboy71]

Yep. Screen remains off and the hard drive start spinning with the other fans. I don't think it does that anymore on my computer(it's been couple days) but who knows.

I've been wondering if the App Store's automatic update has anything to do with this?

Whatever is the cause, it is normal. Just put it down to your iMac needing to do some necessary maintenance

 

[Brian33]

You probably turned on a "Sharing" service and have an Apple router, Time Capsule, or Apple TV. Have you turned on any of these:

iTunes library sharing
iPhoto library sharing
printer sharing
file sharing
screen sharing

These network services use Bonjour, and Apple Airport stations, Time Capsule, and Apple TVs have a neat feature that allows your Mac to provide these sharing services even if it goes into sleep mode!

A "Bonjour Sleep Proxy" runs on the Apple network device, and as part of keeping the available services list up to date, it wakes up the sharing Mac briefly every hour, without lighting the display.

It's normal and desirable, when one of these sharing services is turned on and you want the service to be available even if the providing Mac goes into sleep mode.

See this Apple document for more info.

 

[SoAnyway]

Thank you all for the feedback.

Yeah, my iMac does do what you described and as I mentioned earlier where the hard drive and fans spin up but the display does not turn on. It then goes back to sleep again after a minute or so.

I don't have any of the syncing or sharing features on in the background and I only use iCloud for Find My Mac/iPhone with wake for network access turned on. So definitely no background app updating for me.

This has never happened before with any computer I've owned so I was a little surprised when it started to happen. At this point I'll have to agree with you guys and say that this is normal behavior unless I change the Find My Mac/wake for networks access settings or the iMac does anything other than randomly waking up from sleep for more time than usual.

 

[Fatboy71]

At this point I'll have to agree with you guys and say that this is normal behavior unless I change the Find My Mac/wake for networks access settings or the iMac does anything other than randomly waking up from sleep for more time than usual.

I have both Find My Mac and Wake for network access switched off and mine occasionally wakes from Sleep like what your iMac does. So I can't see it making any difference if you altered these settings.

I'm a relatively new comer to Mac (I got my first Mac in January 2013). But you mentioned that your:

currently running 10.9.1 Mavericks which I updated from 10.7.5 Lion in December

Maybe I'm wrong with this thought, but perhaps in more recent versions of Mac OS. There has perhaps been a feature added, whereby it will make the Mac wake from sleep, to do whatever it does when it wakes it?

 

[SoAnyway]

I have both Find My Mac and Wake for network access switched off and mine occasionally wakes from Sleep like what your iMac does. So I can't see it making any difference if you altered these settings.

I'm a relatively new comer to Mac (I got my first Mac in January 2013). But you mentioned that your:




Maybe I'm wrong with this thought, but perhaps in more recent versions of Mac OS. There has perhaps been a feature added, whereby it will make the Mac wake from sleep, to do whatever it does when it wakes it?

I believe you're referring to Power Nap. I have a 2011 iMac and only 2012 and newer iMacs support it.

Like I said, I don't have anything else running in the background that would cause the iMac to wake up other than what I have all ready mention. In fact, I don't even have iCloud syncing turned on for most of my Mac, just Find My Mac.

 

[Fatboy71]

I believe you're referring to Power Nap.

No I wasn't referring to Power Nap . I just thought that there might be some part of the OS (on more recent versions of Mac OS) whereby it will make the Mac wake from sleep, to do whatever it does when it wakes it