12-28-2011, 10:22 AM

New Mac user and trying to understand if this behavior is normal.

Brand new '11 MBP 8gb RAM completely stock.

I close the lid or sleep from the menu at the top and it goes to sleep (light blinks) within 3-5 seconds. So far so good.

OK, go into Energy Saver, adjust display sleep to 3 minutes and full sleep to 5 minutes.

3 minutes arrives, screen goes black, light on front comes on. 5 minutes arrives and nothing changes, the light is still fully lit and not blinking. But at 6.5 or 7 minutes, sleep light begins to blink like it should...about 2 minutes after it it is told to in Energy Saver.

Is this normal?

12-28-2011, 11:49 AM

I actually had this discussion with one of the "Geniuses" at my local Apple Store about 2 weeks ago.

The time it takes between when a computer is told to go asleep & it actually goes to sleep is due to various process's the computer goes thru to prepare itself to go to sleep.

What I mean is...there are lots of things the computer stores in the ram while you're using the computer...and when you tell the computer to go to sleep...it needs to write this info to the hard drive before going to sleep (so when the computer "wakes up" it can start exactly where things were left off). The more ram you have...the potentially longer this process can take.

With all of this said...2 minutes does sound like a long time between being "told" to go to sleep...and actually going to sleep.

I will share my personal experience. I have two hard drives for my MacBook Pro. One of the hard drives I've had for a long time (lots of files & programs installed on it) and a 2nd hard drive that I haven't used much (has lots of programs installed on it).

With the older hard drive I experience the same thing you mentioned (about 2 minutes between being told to go to sleep & actually going to sleep (pulsing sleep light). With the 2nd hard drive...the computer goes to sleep almost right away. Since the computer is the same (with the same amount of ram)...and the hard drives are both 5400rpm models. My only theory is that the older hard drive may be starting to go bad...and this may be why it takes longer to go to sleep (slower write times).

Hopefully your HD is not going bad...since it is a brand new computer (but anything is possible with HD's).

Food for thought,

- Nick

12-28-2011, 12:56 PM

Thank you for the reply Nick, very informative.

I am wondering though, if it is normal to take a little extra time to go to sleep when setting your auto sleep, why does it go to sleep almost instantly when choosing sleep from the menu bar or closing the lid?

Also, since it takes time to write the files to disk, with an 8gb RAM, is this perhaps why it is taking between 1 and 2 minutes longer?

12-28-2011, 01:32 PM

Originally Posted by MXG

I am wondering though, if it is normal to take a little extra time to go to sleep when setting your auto sleep, why does it go to sleep almost instantly when choosing sleep from the menu bar or closing the lid?

In my earlier post...I assumed that your computer took 1-2 minutes to go to sleep via the "auto-sleep" setting OR the "sleep" command from the drop-down menu. So are you saying that when you choose "sleep" from the drop-down menu...that it goes to sleep immediately...or does it also take 1-2 minutes (till the "sleep" light starts to pulse)?

Originally Posted by MXG

Also, since it takes time to write the files to disk, with an 8gb RAM, is this perhaps why it is taking between 1 and 2 minutes longer?

Yes...this is what I was describing in my earlier post.

- Nick

12-28-2011, 01:59 PM

It is going to sleep immediately via both the sleep from drop-down menu and closing the lid.

The only time it is taking 1-2 minutes longer is when I have leave the laptop alone and it goes into Auto-Sleep set by the time I have set in Energy Saver. Do you think that it normal? I have nothing to compare it to, so I have no idea.

Thank for the help so far!

12-28-2011, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by MXG

It is going to sleep immediately via both the sleep from drop-down menu and closing the lid.

Well this sounds normal...so that's good.

Originally Posted by MXG

The only time it is taking 1-2 minutes longer is when I have leave the laptop alone and it goes into Auto-Sleep set by the time I have set in Energy Saver.

This does seem a bit "odd"...I would expect the computer to go to "sleep" right away...just like the two methods you described above.

- Nick

12-28-2011, 04:13 PM

Yeah, I really have no idea. I see no applications running which would keep it awake. It's not such a big deal though. Nothing I will lose sleep over. Just curious.

12-28-2011, 04:24 PM

Originally Posted by MXG

Yeah, I really have no idea. I see no applications running which would keep it awake. It's not such a big deal though. Nothing I will lose sleep over. Just curious.

The difference between your situation and mine is...all three methods of sleep (auto-sleep, menu-sleep, and close lid sleep)...all take 1-2 minutes for my computer to actually go to sleep (with my older original HD). With a newer HD I have...my MacBook Pro goes to sleep right away.

This is why I'm thinking my older HD may be "living" on borrowed time. I of course have everything backed up...just in case!

- Nick

12-28-2011, 07:01 PM

Do you think it is a hardware or software problem and I should get it looked at? Or is it like a fingerprint...unique to my Mac?

12-28-2011, 11:21 PM

Downloaded Please Sleep and it solved it...for now.

Found no less than two dozen of the same issue through google and apple support forums, even though an Apple Support phone call said they have never heard of this. There seems to be no fix-all solution and is likely a bug in 7.2.
Waiting on a fix in the next update.

12-29-2011, 10:34 AM

New question for today:

Please Sleep works like it should. But does running this program cause the mac to lose its ability to write the contents of the RAM to the disk? Or is this function still enabled like it normally would be?

Basically it works so well and so fast that I wasn't sure if it was writing to the disk in case something happens to the battery...