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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > Why does my iMac's screen wake up from sleep all the time?

Why does my iMac's screen wake up from sleep all the time?
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Veltliner
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Oct 20, 2010, 01:11 AM
 
I like it to let the screen go off and just listen to music. I put the screen saver to 1 minute to achieve that.

(I have a 24" white iMac)

Recently, that's no longer possible. The screen comes on for no apparent reason, bathing the room in ugly, white light.

What's going on in my Mac that wakes up my screen?
     
Ph.D.
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Oct 21, 2010, 01:06 AM
 
Does this happen at random, yet typically after some considerable delay? If so, there may be vibration in your room or furniture that imperceptibly bumps the mouse (e.g., a heavy truck rumbles by). This happens to me on rare occasions.
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Oct 21, 2010, 03:05 AM
 
I thought of the vibration, but I don't think that's the case. The computer has been where it is now for three years and it's not been this way so far.
     
ghporter
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Oct 21, 2010, 06:25 AM
 
My first gen aluminum iMac also seems to not want to just "go to sleep" by itself. I can make it go to sleep, but if I leave it alone, most times it won't sleep by itself. I've looked at what's running without finding any obviously suspicious processes, I've restarted it several times, and I still can't find out what's causing this. I'm not happy about replacing mouse batteries more often because of this (last set only lasted 1 month), and I'm thinking it's more of an "iMac problem" than just a random, OS X oddity.

Not that I'm happy you're having problems, Vetliner, but I am happy I'm not alone.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
P
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Oct 21, 2010, 06:44 AM
 
ghporter, I have that problem as well. I think I have traced it to the mouse pointer slowly moving up to the top left corner. I have my Dashboard trigger there, and I often come back to see the Dashboard on the screen. It does not do that in Windows, so it's likely something in the driver (USB Overdrive).
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
ghporter
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Oct 21, 2010, 07:08 AM
 
I don't have any corner triggers set. I have my keyboard and mouse on a drawer that closes completely, so nothing touches the mouse. I think it may be what I leave running-often it's Firefox-but I haven't been able to mess with it enough to test the theory.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
P
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Oct 21, 2010, 08:21 AM
 
It doesn't have to be any triggers. If the mouse keeps moving (pixel by pixel), that would keep the Msc from sleeping.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
FireWire
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Oct 21, 2010, 11:12 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
ghporter, I have that problem as well. I think I have traced it to the mouse pointer slowly moving up to the top left corner. I have my Dashboard trigger there, and I often come back to see the Dashboard on the screen. It does not do that in Windows, so it's likely something in the driver (USB Overdrive).
That would explain why this happens to me as well. It happens to my friend as well, who's not using USBOverdrive but the Microsoft's driver, which I heard is made by the same guy.
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Oct 22, 2010, 01:24 AM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
My first gen aluminum iMac also seems to not want to just "go to sleep" by itself. I can make it go to sleep, but if I leave it alone, most times it won't sleep by itself. I've looked at what's running without finding any obviously suspicious processes, I've restarted it several times, and I still can't find out what's causing this. I'm not happy about replacing mouse batteries more often because of this (last set only lasted 1 month), and I'm thinking it's more of an "iMac problem" than just a random, OS X oddity.

Not that I'm happy you're having problems, Vetliner, but I am happy I'm not alone.
The thing is that my computer is three years old and only recently started to do this.

When I upgraded to Snow Leopard, no, this didn't trigger it.

But somebody mentioned Firefox left open - maybe that's a clue. But, on the other hand, having iTunes play music doesn't trigger the screen to brighten, nor does downloading images from a Compact Flash cards or converting TIFFs into JPEGs through DPP.

To be precise: it's not about sleeping. My computer sleeps well. Its about the screen going bright for no reason (in a way, it's the screen's sleeping mode that's affected).
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Oct 22, 2010, 01:25 AM
 
By the way: it happened a few times that I put my Mac to sleep, and it immediately woke up again, and I had to put him to sleep again. But that was just a few times.

The screen not sleeping well is new.
     
ghporter
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Oct 22, 2010, 06:29 AM
 
Vetliner, does your computer sleep when you make it sleep, like with option-command-eject? When I do that, my computer sleeps and stays asleep. But if I leave it and wait for it to sleep automatically, I can't count on it doing it by itself.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
fashizzle
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Oct 22, 2010, 12:24 PM
 
this happens to my new iMac every day....because I have another volume mounted on the desktop from a shared computer on the network. as soon as I unmount it, it works flawlessly. I always forget about this!

I have a hot corner set up BTW. I do the same thing (5 Macs in my office, I use one as a music player).
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Oct 23, 2010, 10:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
Vetliner, does your computer sleep when you make it sleep, like with option-command-eject? When I do that, my computer sleeps and stays asleep. But if I leave it and wait for it to sleep automatically, I can't count on it doing it by itself.
I use the power button on the back to put him to sleep. And he stays asleep. I only had a couple of instances where he fell asleep through the power button and awoke right away. The second sleep then lasted. But this happened only a couple of times.

I agree, just waiting for the iMac to fall asleep shows sometimes that he has insomnia...

Next time this happens I'll take a look if the browser is on, even if he's been moved to the background.
     
imitchellg5
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Oct 24, 2010, 05:36 PM
 
Does it wake for network access?
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Nov 1, 2010, 02:09 AM
 
I am not a part of a network here, but, of course, I have it connected to the web.
     
ghporter
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Nov 1, 2010, 06:46 AM
 
More specifically, do you have your Ethernet connection set to "wake for network access" (under Energy Saver)?

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Nov 1, 2010, 05:05 PM
 
No, the box is not checked.
     
imitchellg5
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Nov 4, 2010, 02:29 PM
 
Okay, your iMac has the same issue as mine then. Except mine does it almost the exact same time every day: 8:47 pm.
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Nov 20, 2010, 09:52 PM
 
Originally Posted by imitchellg5 View Post
Okay, your iMac has the same issue as mine then. Except mine does it almost the exact same time every day: 8:47 pm.
Gladly it doesn't do it at 6:66. Which would mean your iMac had been taken over by the devil. (Source: "The Exorcist" )
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Nov 20, 2010, 09:53 PM
 
My iMac developed another weird behavior: it doesn't go to sleep by itself.

I usually let it on overnight if I have things to do the next day.

But when I move the mouse, my Mac is on right away (which means, he doesn't sleep).

I have to press the power button to put him to sleep.
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Dec 28, 2010, 11:54 PM
 
I found this widget that turns the screen off (without having to access the energy saver menu).

sleepdisplaywidget - linestreet

What do you guys think of it?
     
imitchellg5
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Dec 30, 2010, 10:43 AM
 
Originally Posted by Veltliner View Post
My iMac developed another weird behavior: it doesn't go to sleep by itself.

I usually let it on overnight if I have things to do the next day.

But when I move the mouse, my Mac is on right away (which means, he doesn't sleep).

I have to press the power button to put him to sleep.
Mine does that as well. I have it set to go to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity, but it does not go to sleep at that point, only turns the screen off.
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Dec 30, 2010, 03:45 PM
 
Originally Posted by imitchellg5 View Post
Mine does that as well. I have it set to go to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity, but it does not go to sleep at that point, only turns the screen off.
Looks like you need to use the power button then.

Have you taken a look at the screen sleep widget I referred to two posts above?
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Apr 22, 2011, 04:06 AM
 
Old thread, but the screen problem still is not fixed.

Can't listen to music with a dark screen, wakes up all the time.

Bluetooth is turned off, no peripheral devices.
     
dbonneville
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May 27, 2011, 02:46 AM
 
I have confirmed that for me, my iMac 24 screen wakes up after ctrl-shift-eject ONLY if I have browser open that has Flash on it. I have tested this a bunch of times. My guess is that Adobe thinks if your screen falls asleep while Flash content is playing, you might be watching a movie, and it tries to wake the screen up.

Try it. Close your browser and sleep the screen. If it doesn't wake up in 30 seconds or so, wake it up and go to youtube and play a video. Sleep the screen, and it will wake up in 10-15 seconds or less. Even with the video paused, the screen wakes back up.
( Last edited by dbonneville; May 27, 2011 at 02:54 AM. Reason: typo)
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Jun 4, 2011, 08:48 PM
 
I don't think it has to do with flash.

I have tried it with all applications closed, and it still wakes up.

I live in California, so they 5 or so earthquakes per hour might cause my iMac to wake up
     
dbonneville
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Jun 5, 2011, 12:08 AM
 
There could be other apps, but I know for a fact that with quite a few things running, streaming Flash in a browser is the only thing that wakes my iMac up. Perhaps several things can, but we can include Adobe Flash as a main culprit.
     
olePigeon
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Jun 5, 2011, 01:58 PM
 
Try putting a piece of paper under your mouse. My Mac mini server would always wake the screen from sleep, but I discovered that the texture of the table refracted the sensor on the mouse so it'd think it was moving. I put a piece of paper under the mouse and now the screen stays off.
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
Veltliner  (op)
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Jun 7, 2011, 02:09 AM
 
Originally Posted by olePigeon View Post
Try putting a piece of paper under your mouse. My Mac mini server would always wake the screen from sleep, but I discovered that the texture of the table refracted the sensor on the mouse so it'd think it was moving. I put a piece of paper under the mouse and now the screen stays off.
I'll try that.

Interesting how light should refract without movement. Maybe it's the reflection of the red light that creates a hot spot on the sensor after a while, and he thinks the mouse is moving.
     
   
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