why does my imac sometimes wake up immediately and sometimes require a couple minutes?

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Level 1

14 points

why does my imac sometimes wake up immediately and sometimes require a couple minutes?

When I come to my iMac in the morning/after a few hours away, it does one of two things: Either it (a) wakes up immediately and I can log in, or (b) takes a much longer period of time before it shows me the log in screen and I have no response from mouse/keyboard. This is not random on a daily basis, rather, it tends to be a few weeks of one, then a few weeks of the other, so something seems to be triggering the change in behaviour. Needless to say, I want option (a) above.

I should say I usually go to dark screen mode (cursor to bottom corner) when I leave the iMac rather than shutting down.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

iMac 21.5", macOS 10.12

Posted on Mar 14, 2019 2:21 AM

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Answer 1

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den.thed

Level 9

77,314 points

Mar 14, 2019 7:43 AM in response to soranami

Keep in mind that Display Sleep and Computer Sleep are two different things. Plus that, Computer Sleep has different levels or depths of sleep depending on the selected settings.

Display Sleep using the Auto timer or your HotCorner, only sleeps the display.
Computer Sleep using the Auto timer or Drop Down menu sleeps both the display and computer.
Put hard disk to sleep may also have an effect on how long it takes for the system to wake-up and respond.

4. Scheduled... sleep times may also have an effect on the depth of sleep and how long it takes to wake-up and respond.

Personally I would start by re-adjusting those Energy Saver preference settings and then test it for a week or so.

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Answer 2

soranami Author

Level 1

14 points

May 1, 2019 12:23 AM in response to den.thed

Thanks. I monitored this for a while and the problem persisted. However, I recently changed the keyboard and mouse (from a Windows keyboard and non-Apple wireless mouse I'd been using a few months after struggling to connect the Apple keyboard/mouse to the iMac) back to Apple hardware (after successfully pairing them) and the problem seems to be resolved - immediate wake-up every time since.

Thanks for your help.

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why does my imac sometimes wake up immediately and sometimes require a couple minutes?

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