With the release of Apple’s 10.9 Mavericks, they ‘updated’ the power button functionality across all their PCs such that any time you tap the power button on the upper right of the keyboard, the computer instantly, with out any warning whatsoever, goes to sleep. This is extra annoying since the key is 5mm from the backspace button, which is among the most used keys on the board (at least for me). I feel like this is absolutely change for change sake from Apple. I can’t see the benefit of this. Why would I want my computer to insta-sleep at the push of a button with no warning?

Anyways, here’s how to fix it. Someone much smarter than I basically reverse engineered the buttons operation AND created a fix. It took me a couple tries to get it working, so here’s a simple guide in layman’s terms.

Step 1: Download this – power_fixer (compiled)

Step 2: Open Terminal.app

Step 3: Navigate to the directory where you downloaded the power_fixer file. (Chances are it’s in ‘~/Downloads’, so type ‘cd ~/Downloads’

Step 3.5: If you type ‘ls -a | grep power_fixer’ you should see the file listed. Now you know you’re in the correct directory.

Step 4: Type ‘sudo ./power_fixer’ to run the program. Enter your password if/when prompted. It should be the one you use to log in to your mac. You should see output like:

power_fixer v0.1, by binchewer

------------------------------

Found loginwindow with PID 82

loginwindow base_address is 0x0000000106d46000

loginwindow text section found at offset 0x4e10, 387004 bytes

Found potential timer setup at 0000000106d9308f

Found new timer value at 0000000106d9b5ca: 0.000153

Writing value 00008533 to address 106d93093.

All done.

 

I’m not sure what the output looks like when it doesn’t work, but that’s what you should see.

Step 5: Press your power button. You should see the dialog pop up where you can sleep, restart, etc.

And finally, it ‘just works’…

Also, the source code