Quite often in the past I’ve experienced a strange problem with my Macbook Pro where it would wake itself up shortly after I put it to sleep. I discovered that it only did this when the Airport card in my laptop was turned on.
After learning that I wasn’t the only one experiencing this problem, I wrote a program to solve the problem: Wireless Sleeper.
Just launch the program and let Wireless Sleeper do the rest. It’s a tiny, efficient program that silently sits in the background. When it discovers that your computer is about to go to sleep it will turn off Airport and wait 5 seconds to make sure that it’s off (this is necessary for the fix to work). Once your computer wakes up after its night of uninterrupted rest, Wireless Sleeper will turn your Airport card back on for you. It will even add itself to your list of login items when you run it so that you don’t have to worry about that too! 
Enjoy.
10.6 UPDATE: If you are running Snow Leopard please download this version instead.
Tags: apple, bugs, greg, wireless sleeper
Wimpus
January 13th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Thanks dude! It’s just where i was looking for
Possibly fix sleep problems associated with AirPort
January 14th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
[...] wrote a free program called Wireless Sleeper that fixes the issue. It runs quietly in the background and will make sure that the AirPort is [...]
SirPavlova
January 15th, 2009 at 9:22 am
I’ve been having this problem almost as long as I’ve had the MBP… thank you!
I’m always on a wireless network, so I never realised it was due to a bug in the AirPort handling. It seemed to me to be something related to ACPI, because it almost never happens if the power is unplugged, but almost always happens if it’s plugged in.
Joseph White
January 16th, 2009 at 4:13 am
I downloaded wireless sleeper and it didn’t fix my sleep problem. Now I can’t get it off my desktop. Everytime I try to trash it, it says I can’t because it’s open. There’s no quit or force quit option. Please help me uninstall this app.
MacBug.de » MacBook/Pro/Air: Wireless Sleeper bei Problemen mit Airport im Ruhezustand
January 16th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
[...] Er konnte das Problem auf die interne Airport-Karte zurückführen und schrieb daher das kleine Tool “WirelessSleeper”. (Download hier) [...]
Greg Slepak
January 16th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
@Joseph: Thank you for the question! There are two ways to uninstall it:
1) Open Activity Monitor in /Applications/Utilities. Filter it for “wireless sleeper”, select the process and click “Quit Process” button.
or…
2) Remove it from your list of login items in you Account preferences, logout, and relogin.
You’ll then be able to trash it. Wireless Sleeper does not fix all sleep problems, but it should fix the one described by the symptoms above.
Joseph White
January 16th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Thank you. Uninstall completed.
Possibly fix sleep problems associated with AirPort « MacRevu
January 19th, 2009 at 9:51 am
[...] wrote a free program called Wireless Sleeper that fixes the issue. It runs quietly in the background and will make sure that the AirPort is [...]
john Christiansen
January 20th, 2009 at 4:09 am
Nice thinking and nice job. Thanks.
adoption curve dot net » Blog Archive » Narcoleptic Macbooks
February 17th, 2009 at 8:02 am
[...] but that’s more work than it should be, particularly if you forget. The absolute cure is Tao Effect’s Wireless Sleeper, which automates the process – it intercepts a sleep request and turns off the Airport [...]
Ruhezustand mit Wireless Sleeper 0.1
March 20th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
[...] daran scheint die Airport-Karte zu sein und Wireless Sleeper 0.1 die Lösung. Die kleine Freeware-App soll dem Fehler begegnen, indem sie vor jedem Aktivieren [...]
Emmanuel Flores
May 13th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Hello:
I tried your program and doesn’t seem to work well with my computer. I am sure that is not about the program but about the computer. I just got my mbp five months ago and i deeply regret it; for sure,it is one of the worst generations of macs i can remember. The sleeping mode is really an annoying issue.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your program
gdl
June 5th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Hi, thanks for you app, fix kernel panic and/or black screen when my hackintosh with Atheros (168c:0013) wake up.
Scott
June 29th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
brilliant! this problem has been bugging me for months, I’d also figured out that turning off airport first would fix it.
This app works perfectly, sleeps every time now, thanks very much.
Adam
August 1st, 2009 at 11:35 am
Sleep works fine for me now. Atheros 168c:0013 just like a previous poster. Only problem is that it doesn’t reactive on wake. Not a huge problem, just two clicks and I’m back on.
Pees Ontsteking
August 4th, 2009 at 2:01 am
hh.. bookmarked..
Scott
September 1st, 2009 at 3:05 pm
many thanks for the Snow Leopard update
Ducky
September 4th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Yee Haw! Finally I can close the lid of my MacBook and not have my wireless die.
Problems with Snow Leopard | gallois' blag
September 10th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
[...] It was quite annoying since I almost never turn the mac off. The workaround was installing an app, wireless sleeper, that, besides turning the airport on on waking up, turns it off when sleeping. The second part is [...]
paolo
November 20th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
solved my problem too
my router always crashed when connected via airport and my mbp goes to sleep, thanks !
Mark S.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:53 am
I have used this little program for well over a year on my MBP & Airport, and it worked very well. With Snow Leopard & the new version, the computer is overheating while asleep–it seems to be trying to wake up while the laptop is closed. I’ve uninstalled all non-native power management software and tried this program again, but, alas, with the same result. So now (of course) the wireless connection doesn’t always wake up on opening : (
Greg Slepak
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Hi Mark, that’s quite odd! I haven’t received any other reports of such a thing happening, and I would be very surprised if Wireless Sleeper were to blame for the overheating issues (99% of the time it should use zero CPU).
If you can reproduce this consistently, I would strongly recommend taking your MBP to an Apple Store to have them check it out.