Battery backup/ surge protector and sleep power cycle on my iMac

I have a simple question regarding whether my iMac is going through a power cycle when asleep. The situation: my iMac and various peripherals are powered through an APC battery backup/ surge protector. The iMac is plugged into the master outlet on the battery backup of course.


I have a set of very good computer speakers which are plugged into the outlets controlled by the master outlet; these power down when the master outlet device (the iMac) goes to sleep. The strange thing is that while iMac is asleep I hear the speakes ocassionally power on (the bass cube makes a noise that indicates this). So it seems there is a powering down and on cycle going. Is this normal? Should I change anything in my setup. APC recommends plugging peripherals (like speakers, which they name specifically) into these controlled outlets to save energy.


It may be that I simply need to contact APC to change the threshold sensitiviy, however, it is currently set to medium (the recommended default).


Thanks for your help.

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Early'09

Posted on Jan 17, 2014 9:26 AM

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3 replies

Jan 17, 2014 9:46 AM in response to DanG77

Mac's do not power down when sleeping unless the power is totally cut. As far as I know this could occur in your situation only if the battery in the UPS is dead and the main power is cut off. Otherwise your speakers require a specific amount of power and either your iMac when sleeping is not providing it or your UPS may be underpowered for the items you have plugged into it.

Jan 17, 2014 10:07 AM in response to rkaufmann87

I may have mistated. The APC manual states the following:


"To conserve electricity, configure the Back-UPS to recognize a Master device, such as a desktop computer..., and Controlled peripheral devices, such as a printer, speakers, or a scanner. When the Master device goes into Sleep or Standby mode, or is switched OFF, the Controlled device(s) will be switched off as well, saving electricity."


The thing is that I seem to hear the speaker going on.. (thus they must be also going off) from time to time while the iMac is asleep. Again this may be a question for APC.


Thanks for your help.

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Battery backup/ surge protector and sleep power cycle on my iMac

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