You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Gabe-A Author

Level 1

12 points

SD Card Slot Disappears After Sleep (Gone Until Reboot)

I love my new Macbook Air 2013. Its speedy Core i7 and lightening-fast 256GB SSD make for quite a wonderful experience in Windows 7, too. But I have a problem that is proving to be quite the frustrating little niggle, and I just can't sort it out. So I've turned to you guys for help.

Here's the thing: the SD Card (the slot, the device, the card, the folder, the drive, everything) just vanishes after the MBA wakes up from sleep. I've tried it with various cards with different filesystems (FAT32, NTFS, EXFAT) and capacities (32GB, 64GB, 128GB) -- always the same. I've reinstalled Windows 7 Pro x64 multiple times using up-to-date boot camp assistant and Apple Support Drivers.

The card works fine. Until, of course, the computer goes to sleep. When it awakens, the card is gone -- even from the device manager -- until the computer is rebooted. That's right, plugging the card (or any other card) into and out of the slot doens't fix it. Neither does resetting the NVRAM or SMC. Neither does adding an event to the Task Scheduler to disable the device prior to sleep and re-enable it on wake (it doesn't re-enable, the entire device vanishes).

Here are some more details:

- Putting the card in for the first time while the computer is asleep is okay -- the card appears when the computer is awakened. But putting it back to sleep afterwards causes the same behavior -- the card and reader disappear until reboot.

- The computer can go to sleep and wake up many times without a card inserted without the device disappearing. I can put a card in and have it recognized propertly after any number of card-free sleep-wake cycles. But the moment the computer sleeps with card inside, the reader disappears until next reboot, no matter what.

- This behavior does not occur in OSX to my knowledge (although OSX handles both mounting AND sleep states VERY differently than Windows, so I can't directly compare).

I have tried everything short of scripting a reset of the root USB hub (a highly unrecommended procedure that can disable the keyboard/mouse/etc). I've even tried new USB hub drivers (intel 8.10) to no avail.

Anyone have the same issue? Does this work for you? Does anyone have a copy of older SD card drivers (maybe the latest ones are screwy?). Thanks

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), Windows 7, OSX 10.8.5 too.

Posted on Oct 3, 2013 8:08 PM

148 replies

jerry824

Level 1

0 points

Mar 3, 2015 5:01 PM in response to Loner T

Agree. Apple is forcing users to worship their products instead of using the others.

Loner T

Level 9

59,526 points

Mar 3, 2015 5:04 PM in response to jerry824

The Broadcom SD works very well, why fix what is not broken yet!

jerry824

Level 1

0 points

Mar 5, 2015 5:28 PM in response to Loner T

Just checked yesterday. Apple accept that it is a bug in the system when running with bootcamp and they are trying to fix its. Don't know when

Loner T

Level 9

59,526 points

Mar 5, 2015 6:14 PM in response to jerry824

Do you have a Bug ID?

This is one that i can find - Mac computers: Don't change SD cards while computer sleeps - Apple Support.

jerry824

Level 1

0 points

Mar 5, 2015 10:28 PM in response to Loner T

Sorry I didn't ask

vagaerg

Level 1

0 points

Mar 8, 2015 9:32 AM in response to Gabe-A

That's great!!! Thank you for submitting the bug.

I am also a Windows user on the MacBook Pro and this issue is really annoying, hope they solve it anytime soon. I think that the issue is related to the USB hub where everything is connected, because I have also put the computer to sleep with a USB Hard Drive and after wakeup it didn't recognise it either.

warbabyy

Level 1

0 points

Mar 11, 2015 6:36 AM in response to Gabe-A

Guys I think i have found some work-around for this problem!!1

Just turn off the "USB Selective Suspend" feature in your windows control panel.

It seems work for me, I close my computer the whole day and when I wake it, the sd card is still there.

the details process is here : http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-fix-annoying-windows-usb-problem.htm

copy as:

Open Control Panel
Go to: Hardware and Sound->Power Options
Find your preferred power plan and click “Change plan settings”
Click “Change advanced power settings”
A dialog box similar to the example in the graphic below will open
Find the entry “USB settings” and expand it
Expand the entry “USB selective suspend setting”
Use the drop-down menu to disable or re-enable the setting as shown in the graphic below
Click "OK"

vagaerg

Level 1

0 points

Mar 11, 2015 4:51 PM in response to warbabyy

Thank you for the suggestion. I do not have my macbook with me now, but have you tried it and did it work for you? Even after a long period of sleep?

Thanks

warbabyy

Level 1

0 points

Mar 11, 2015 4:59 PM in response to vagaerg

Bad news, after sleeping and waking my self 😁, I found it is still the same problem....

agridi57

Level 1

4 points

Mar 12, 2015 11:15 AM in response to Loner T

I have tried this but it does not work for me either. My conversation will Apple technical support has been absolutely useless. They claim that this is a Windows issue not an Apple driver issue. Obviously Microsoft/Windows technical support states that they don't support windows on a MacBook. I have reached a point now that the SD drive does not show up even when the system is rebooted or cold started. Drive works fine on OS X side. Hopefully Apple will address this soon.

Loner T

Level 9

59,526 points

Mar 12, 2015 11:38 AM in response to agridi57

The only reason to point to the OS and not the driver, can be because the driver does tell the OS on wakeup out of sleep that there is device, but the OS does not take any action. You can check if this is the case in the Windows Event Viewer. I have a 2012 model, with Broadcom SD driver which works well.

There is a caveat Mac computers: Don't change SD cards while computer sleeps - Apple Support and the general FAQ About the SD and SDXC card slot - Apple Support.

vagaerg

Level 1

0 points

Mar 12, 2015 12:27 PM in response to Loner T

I have checked the event viewer and there is nothing. If you go to the device manager (devmgmt.msc) you can check that windows detect a few USB hubs and the SD card reader as being "Disconnected from the system". I have tried to uninstall Apple Driver and install the Microsoft Generic one to no avail

Loner T

Level 9

59,526 points

Mar 12, 2015 1:11 PM in response to vagaerg

This will become a football contest between Apple and Microsoft. 😟

vagaerg

Level 1

0 points

Mar 12, 2015 1:28 PM in response to Loner T

Well, to my mind it is Apple who should at least take some action in this case. I reckon a somewhat big part of their sales is based on compatibility with Windows, in my case I bought it solely because of its supposed "compatibility" as I had no interest whatsoever on OS X. To my mind, having the SD card disconnecting, together with an issue that we had with the efi and windows and the trackpad's lack of functionality is not what I would call "total compatibility".

The EFI issue was solved, the trackpad is easily solvable by using trackpad++ or by configuring the Apple driver with a bit of care, but what about the SD card? It does not happen on my Surface Pro 2, so don't say "Windows' to blame" because it is obvious that it does not always happen, and the only customisation made to the os is apple drivers.

Loner T

Level 9

59,526 points

Mar 12, 2015 8:51 PM in response to vagaerg

This may temporarily provide some relief. Get VirtualBox (it is free). Import Bootcamp as a VM. Connect the SD Card to the host OS which is OS X and the card works properly in it. This will allow the VM to see the device as long as the host can see it. You can also allow device passthrough to the Guest (Windows) from the Host (OS X).

SD Card Slot Disappears After Sleep (Gone Until Reboot)