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MacBook doesn't sleep when closing lid with external monitor attached with Lion

Up until yesterday (with Snow Leopard), closing the lid would cause my MacBook to sleep whether or not the external monitor was connected.

Since upgrading to Lion last night, closing the lid when the external monitor is attached just tosses all windows to that screen and keeps going.

I realize I can sleep via the Apple menu or keyboard before closing the lid. I'd rather not have to, and I'm wondering if there's a setting to restore the sleep-on-close behavior.

Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 9:37 AM

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66 replies

Jul 30, 2012 1:41 AM in response to admgtz

Hi guys, the same problem here. I talked to tech support and here is one recommendation from them - report this bug as a feedback here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/ ... if there will be more reports, hope they put it as any "option" in Preferences. But they told we need to report this in feedback form. I reported it as a Mac OSX bug, so here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Aug 14, 2012 4:35 AM in response to chfn

If your Mac does not go to sleep at all (independend of an external monitor) you have a complete different issue, which is discussed in several other discussions, like: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1070629?start=0&tstart=0

Apple advice to this is here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1776?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

But it seems there is no help, if the sleeping issue only occurs when the external monitor is connected.

I found out, that it will work, if either the external monitor or the power supply is disconnected for the moment when closing the lid.

Aug 14, 2012 4:53 AM in response to jk10003

jk10003 wrote:


...

sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0"

...

One snag was that I had to run it with the external monitor disabled, but it worked great!


Yeepee, it finally worked. My MPB (late 2008) with OSX 10.7.4 is sleeping again, when closing the lid, even so the external monitor (and power) is connected.

The trick came from jk10003 above AND the comment of having the external monitor "disabled" when doing so AND doing a reboot. Only after typing the command in terminal again (confirming this with my password), while having my external monitor DISCONNECTED, and rebooting again, I have the "normal" behaviour again. :-) 🙂

Nov 29, 2012 2:29 AM in response to admgtz

There are several reason why your laptop may be staying on, when I shut my lip the laptop would continue to run but if you disconcerted the power cable it would then go to sleep. If you enter "System Preferences" this click on the "Sharing" button you will see all types of sharing options. If you have any of the "Sharing" options ticked (The ones with sharing at then end of the word) you will find that your computer does not sleep, untick these and your computer when you close the lip should sleep 🙂

Jan 14, 2013 12:22 PM in response to admgtz

I have been suffering with this for ages and not wanting to "insert code" or "turn off sharing" as others have suggested i hadnt found a solution until tonight.


I just happened to shut the lid with no power cable connected.

Both my MBP and my external monitor went to sleep.


so i tried again with the power in and this time my External monitor stayed on and the desktop transferred to there.


I cannot recall if this was the case before Mountain Lion but i find it really easy to just pull out the power cable before shutting the lid, certainly much easier than disconnecting the external monitor.


Hope this helps. (sorry if this has already been suggested)

Feb 8, 2013 3:04 PM in response to admgtz

This is really confusing.


As a first-time Mac user (Macbook Pro 2012), I found that no matter what I did, I couldn't get the laptop to stay awake when the lid was closed. No preference for it - that confused the **** outta me! - and nothing I could see or find in the online documentation regarding sleeping.


The responses to that enquiry led me to believe that everyone's Macbook automatically went into sleep mode when the lid was closed. In fact, there are third-party apps that specifically disable this functionality (unfortunately they break each time a new OS update is released, but still...).


So finding this thread, where everyone posting seems to assume that it's normal for the exact opposite thing to happen, is really making me scratch my head!


Could someone clarify this for me please? Is the Macbook Pro supposed to always sleep when the lid is closed (which is what mine does, as well as around a dozen other Apple expert users), or is it supposed to stay awake, and you have to do something to make it sleep when the lid is closed (which is what this thread's users seem to find)?


Thanks for any clarification!

-Pete


N.B. Really? The word h.e.l.l. is censored? My apologies. I wasn't aware this was a fundamentalist religious site.

MacBook doesn't sleep when closing lid with external monitor attached with Lion

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