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boynigel

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 19, 2009
268
7
When I put mine to sleep, I'm suspicious as to if it's really asleep. Why? Because all my previous Macs (G4's, mini's), when asleep, the power light would continuously cycle from bright to dim. My Studio's power light stays bright, whether it's in use or (supposedly) asleep.

So the question is, when sleeping, does the power light not cycle from bright to dim on these new machines by design, or are my suspicions correct and it's really not going to sleep?
 
Have a look at Apple's support article for status lights:


After your Mac turns on or goes to sleep, the status indicator light is solid white and remains on until the computer turns off.

On Mac mini models introduced in 2010 and earlier, the status indicator light turns off after the display turns on. On Mac models introduced in 2014 and earlier, the status indicator light pulsates on and off slowly when the computer is in sleep.
 
Now, go look in your refrigerator. Is there a light? Does it go out when you close the door or does it stay on? How can you know? 😳
 
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Yes, the Mac Studio does not have any external indication for sleep.
I suspect that the display screen goes black in sleep mode (?) But, the power LED will remain on, until the computer is turned off.
 
OP here. the other thing that made me suspicious, that I forgot to mention, is that it never goes to sleep on the first attempt. The screen will go black for two or three seconds and then comes back on. 2nd time usually does the trick.
 
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When I put mine to sleep, I'm suspicious as to if it's really asleep. Why? Because all my previous Macs (G4's, mini's), when asleep, the power light would continuously cycle from bright to dim. My Studio's power light stays bright, whether it's in use or (supposedly) asleep.

So the question is, when sleeping, does the power light not cycle from bright to dim on these new machines by design, or are my suspicions correct and it's really not going to sleep?

I also have a Mac Studio. The power light does not "pulse" when sleeping.

The only way I can tell it's actually sleeping is because I have an old USB Griffin PowerMate and the LED in that thing does pulse when the Mac is sleeping.
 
I suspected my Mac Studio was sleeping and waking several hundred times a night. I called Apple support who was unable to give me any method of definitively determining if my machine was asleep or if was just that the monitors were asleep. The only data point they were willing to use was the monitors being off.

It doesn't help that Apple gutted the Energy Saver preferences. Invoking "Sleep" is only mentioned once in all of System Settings in this cryptic Displays setting:

1679524847703.png


I'm inferring there's an automatic sleep function that will kick on if this setting is off, but the level 2 tech wouldn't confirm this or even explain what that setting meant. She was also unwilling to escalate my case.

I looked at the pmset logs which confirm my suspicion, but I'm not smart enough to decipher why. Can anyone recommend a method of troubleshooting this?
 
I guess the only way to definitely tell if its sleep or not, is to purchase power meter plug to measure the watt usage during the "sleep" mode.
 
From what I've read, with the recent OS versions and the m1 processor, getting a mac to reliably stay asleep is a lot more complicated than it used to be. I ended up using Sleep Aid:


which seems to help; at least I feel like I have more control and visibility into it. Although even so, I have to manually disable Time Machine when I want it to sleep overnight, else it spends all night alternately backing up, or banging on the backup drive to update Spotlight.
 
My Studio definitely goes to sleep. It is the home NAS and the connection time is 18 seconds to see all of my disks on the system from sleep while it takes 1 second when the system isn't sleeping.
 
Great recommendation. Thanks.

I still find it preposterous that Sleep function is now opaque to the user. I don’t see the upside to eliminating all the options.
 
I suspected my Mac Studio was sleeping and waking several hundred times a night. I called Apple support who was unable to give me any method of definitively determining if my machine was asleep or if was just that the monitors were asleep. The only data point they were willing to use was the monitors being off.

It doesn't help that Apple gutted the Energy Saver preferences. Invoking "Sleep" is only mentioned once in all of System Settings in this cryptic Displays setting:

View attachment 2177426

I'm inferring there's an automatic sleep function that will kick on if this setting is off, but the level 2 tech wouldn't confirm this or even explain what that setting meant. She was also unwilling to escalate my case.

I looked at the pmset logs which confirm my suspicion, but I'm not smart enough to decipher why. Can anyone recommend a method of troubleshooting this?
I use the software SPLASHTOP - which from another machine, or iPhone - lets you look at and work on the other machine, thus linking them. I have put my Studio to sleep, after which I cannot gain access using SPLASHTOP.app - once awake access is back on.
 
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