Early 2009 Mini's internal hard drive slow after sleep

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Level 1

71 points

Early 2009 Mini's internal hard drive slow after sleep

I'm posting this in the hope that somebody else may have the same problem, and may have a fix. My Mac Mini doesn't go into full sleep, usually it just shuts off the monitor. And that doesn't bother me, because I know it's on account of my third-party mouse and keyboard.

What does bother me is that after waking from sleep, the mini is very sluggish. Anything that requires you access to the internal hard drive results in a spinning beach ball and bouncing Application icons in the dock. A quick check of the activity Monitor showed very little going on CPU–wise. If one application that might have been able to shed some light on the subject, Drive Genius, was unable to work on the internal drive because it was the boot drive. I would've had to reboot, regarding new would have solved the problem.

At that point I gave up and decided to restart the machine so I can get some work done. As soon as I selected the “restart” from the Apple menu, got a kernel panic. At this point I'm concerned about the integrity of the internal drive. The mini is only about a year old, and I have AppleCare, but I'm hoping it is not that serious. The drive checks out in Disk Utility, BTW.

Any ideas?

Mac mini 2ghz 2GB 120GB HD, 16GB iPhone 3GS, Mac OS X (10.6.3), Ext 400gb media drive +1Tb Time Machine HD, 160gb Apple TV

Posted on Jul 21, 2010 9:10 PM

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Answer 1

Boece

Level 5

6,264 points

Jul 21, 2010 9:45 PM in response to KonKrypton

What third-party mouse and keyboard do you have? And did you install any special software for them?

BTW are you sure the Mini isn't sleeping? When it sleeps, the light on the front right of the Mini slowly pulses.

What applications are typically running when you leave the Mini and it goes to sleep?

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Answer 2

KonKrypton Author

Level 1

71 points

Jul 21, 2010 10:54 PM in response to Boece

The keyboard is a Macally Bluetooth (full size) keyboard. I bought it because I didn't like the little Apple BT kbd. No special drivers for the kdb.

The mouse is a Targus BT mouse, and it does have a System Preferences pane because it has 2 programmable buttons on the side (besides left, right, and center/scroll).

The system is set up as a server as well as my personal machine, so it has "wake for network access" checked in Energy Saver settings. It never goes to sleep fully unless I turn off the kbd and mouse and then push the power button. Then it pulses. Otherwise, it just turns off the monitor and stays awake, I assume.

Often I leave Safari and Mail running, and I know Mail is constantly getting stuff because both accounts are IMAP accounts. But even when those apps are closed, it still doesn't fully sleep. I have it set to display sleep in 5 min, complete sleep in 10, and to put HD to sleep when idle.

Hope those answers help, thanks for taking the time to respond!

K.

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Answer 3

MacProCT

Level 2

366 points

Jul 30, 2010 9:53 PM in response to KonKrypton

KonKrypton wrote:
...Drive Genius, was unable to work on the internal drive because it was the boot drive...

If you have the DRive Genius feature "DRive Pulse" enabled, I would turn it off. It could be causing this slowness.

Likewise, if you have a TechTool control panel installed (in system preferences), I would disable it.

If neither is effective, I would try running the Mini with fewer external devices connected. IF the system runs better this way, then add the devices back one by one and see when the problem returns.

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Answer 4

KonKrypton Author

Level 1

71 points

Jul 31, 2010 10:47 AM in response to MacProCT

Good suggestions all, however it turned out that replacing my Belkin router with an Airport Express made a HUGE difference. The Mini now goes to sleep even if the mouse is awake (on).

Thanks for the help!

KK

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