I'm having a problem where the hard drive on my early 2011 MacBook Pro won't stop running when the computer goes to sleep, and this condition only occurs when Boom is running. As unlikely as it seems, I have a repeatable test case that proves that the issue occurs when Boom is running, and that the issue stops when Boom is not running.
The issue is one that many Seagate drive owners are having, although the number of them running Boom is likely very small. Specifically, when the computer goes to sleep, the drive remains running. There are several threads on Seagate's support forums that deal with this issue, none of which have provided a resolution.
I noticed the problem after reading about it in a review of the new Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive that I put in my MBP. I observed that my drive was experiencing the same problem. I started investigating it by changing the settings of my main user account so that the MBP would sleep after 1 minute. I saw that the computer would sleep, but the drive would remain spinning. I found that if I switched to another test account and ran the test, the drive powered down when the MBP entered sleep mode. I also tried it with the Guest login, and saw the same results - drive powered down with sleep mode. Switching back to my main account, the drive exhibited the problem again. It wouldn't sleep unless I selected Sleep from the Apple menu.
I removed all the items from the startup items list in my main account, and then systematically replaced them, running the sleep test for each one. Eventually, I determined that the Boom app was involved in the sleep issue. When Boom was running, the problem occurred. When Boom was not running, the problem does not occur.
I'm not sure what to think about these findings. On the one hand, I know that this app is somehow involved with the drive sleep issue. On the other hand, it doesn't make much sense, since Boom is an audio processing app. I know that Boom is not solely to blame, but it's obviously doing something that's preventing the drive from entering sleep mode. The fact that so many other people have this problem with their Seagate drives that aren't running Boom is puzzling. Why can I make the problem stop by quitting Boom, when others who don't even have Boom installed still have the problem? Is Boom doing anything that affects power management (I've seen sleep issues mentioned in the Boom forums)?
If anyone has any insights to this problem, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.
Comments
Thank you for your insights on the sleep issue.
Few Boom users have reported the same issue mentioned by you.
When Boom is running, system does not go to sleep automatically.
We have noted down the issue and our developers are working on their highest priority to resolve the issue.
Thank you once again for reporting the issue. We will look into it.