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Why does my MacBook Pro do this...?

It's hard to describe, but this is what it does when the monitor is closed/in sleep mode for too long. I'm not just talking about a couple hours. I'm talking if I go to work for a five hour shift and come back, it does this, along with the start-up sound. After that, everything becomes fine and I'm able to use my computer as normal. I got my model three years ago, in Feb 2013. Do I have reason to be worried? It only started doing this a couple or so weeks ago.

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MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), null

Posted on Feb 13, 2016 10:43 AM

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Feb 13, 2016 12:29 PM in response to tomewriter1892

A computer with a factory-installed SSD (including Fusion Drive models of the iMac and Mac mini) will enter an energy-saving "standby" mode after it has been in sleep for more than a certain time—either one hour or three hours, depending on the model. In standby mode, the contents of memory are saved to a file, and then the power to memory and some other subsystems is turned off. When the computer wakes up, the contents of memory are restored from the file. As a result, waking from sleep takes somewhat longer than it otherwise would.

If waking from standby is slower than usual, please make sure that the right disk is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.

When a portable Mac is on battery power, and the battery is almost discharged, the machine will enter a "Safe Sleep" mode. In Safe Sleep, all power is turned off, and waking takes longer than it does from standby, but usually not as long as starting up from a complete shutdown.

Macs from mid-2012 and later are configured to enter Safe Sleep automatically after four hours in sleep while on AC power, in order to comply with a regulation of the European Union. All Macs, not just those sold in Europe, are configured this way.

Standby and Safe Sleep are different modes. To modify them, you have these options, neither of which I recommend:

1. You can increase the delay before standby is triggered, or disable standby completely. This is an unsupported option and you're on your own as to the consequences.

These instructions are for advanced users only. They must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Please back up all data before making any changes.

Drag across the line below to select it, then copy it to the Clipboard:

sudo pmset –a standbydelay

Don't copy the blank space at the end of the line.

Launch the Terminal application and paste into its window. Press the space bar, then type the delay you want, in seconds. For example, to change the standby delay from one hour to two hours, enter 7200. To disable standby, enter 0 (zero.)

When the command is complete, press return. You'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. After running it, quit Terminal. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.

2. To disable the four-hour Safe Sleep timeout, enter this command:

sudo pmset autopoweroff 0

This setting should not prevent Safe Sleep that is triggered by a low battery, but I haven't tested to confirm.

To reenable the timeout:

sudo pmset autopoweroff 1

Why does my MacBook Pro do this...?

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