I can't sleep! Not me, my Mac Pro

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I can't sleep! Not me, my Mac Pro

Sadly, Apple removed the sleep indicator from the newer Mac computers. In the past, the power indicator would have a "pulse". This was very useful to know if your Mac was really sleeping. With newer Macs, there's no easy way to tell this, but there is a way. My 2020 Mac Pro will only go to sleep if done so manually.

I have a Cyberpower UPS for my 2020 Mac Pro. It displays the wattage being consumed. When I set my Mac Pro go to sleep after 10 minutes, I can see the power go down when the display goes dark. But I can tell by the wattage used that the computer itself is still running. If I put the computer to sleep manually the total wattage connected goes way down to about 10 watts, if I let my Mac go to sleep with the automatic settings, the wattage never goes below about 150 watts telling me the computer is still running.

My settings are to sleep after 10 minutes. The ONLY box checked is "Put hard disks to sleep when possible". The box that reads "Prevent your Mac from automatically sleeping when the display is off" is unchecked.

Posted on Nov 21, 2021 12:32 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Erica_S1

Community Specialist

Nov 22, 2021 11:30 AM in response to Ziatron

Ziatron,

We're glad to hear that information was helpful, and that the issue seems resolved after resetting the SMC.

You can submit feedback regarding the power indicator here: Product Feedback

Feel free to post again if you have any questions in the future.

Take care!

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Answer 2

Erica_S1

Community Specialist

Nov 22, 2021 9:30 AM in response to Ziatron

Hi there Ziatron,

We understand you're experiencing an issue with placing your Mac Pro to sleep, and we'd like to share a resource that can help.

Take a look at it here: If your Mac sleeps or wakes unexpectedly

We hope this helps.

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Answer 3

Ziatron Author

Level 5

4,186 points

Nov 22, 2021 11:28 AM in response to Erica_S1

Hello,

Thank you for helping me.

I really wish Apple would restore the "pulsing power indicator" when the computer is sleeping. This is an important energy saving feature.

I may have had success by resetting the SMC. In my initial test after restarting my Mac Pro it did fully go to sleep.

Regarding the Bluetooth suggestions. Click Advanced, then deselect “Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer.” I don't get that dialogue when I click on Advanced. I get the below instead. I have a 2019 Mac Pro running 12.0.1

By the way, I also posted this question under Operating Systems > Monterey, my question was deleted by Apple. Did I do something wrong?

Thank you.

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Answer 4

Dec 28, 2021 4:00 PM in response to Ziatron

Ziatron,

I use the following two sets of commands in the terminal to see what might be stopping my Mac from sleeping, as well as its sleeping pattern over the last few hours:

To check what is currently preventing sleep:

pmset -g assertions | egrep '(PreventUserIdleSystemSleep|PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep)'

To check the sleeping pattern over the last few hours:

pmset -g log | grep -e \" Sleep  \" -e \" Wake  \" -e \" DarkWake  \"

(You can copy these individually into Terminal and then press return to see the results. Also - if you want to run these commands frequently, you can past these into your .zshrc file in your home directory as an aliases for sleepless and sleeppattern respectively):

# Alias to show why the Mac isn't sleeping
alias sleepless="pmset -g assertions | egrep '(PreventUserIdleSystemSleep|PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep)'"

# Alias used to see when the computer recently slept
alias sleeppattern="pmset -g log | grep -e \" Sleep  \" -e \" Wake  \" -e \" DarkWake  \""

I hope that helps you.

Best - Jonathan.

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I can't sleep! Not me, my Mac Pro

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