Can a MacBook Pro reliably wake a Cinema Display when both are sleeping?

I use a MacBook Pro with a Cinema Display and every time when I wake the MacBook Pro, the cinema display wakes first and the MacBook Pro display seems to stay in a sleep mode until I press the Detect Displays button in Displays Preferences. The most annoying part is that I need to rearrange all open apps' windows every time I wake my Mac.

Does anybody have any idea how to fix this problem?


You ask for a fix where one of your screens does not wake up. I have a fix for a similar problem as my second screen on my MacMini (server 2011) does not wake up. It's not pritty but it is a fix.

I noticed that the screen wakes up after you change the screens refresh rates, so I use cscreen to do this. After my computer wakes up I run the following script. There are multiple solutions to run scripts just after waking up your machine (like Scenario and Power Manager).

#!/bin/bash
# b.nelissen

# cscreen: http://www.pyehouse.com/cscreen/

# wake up screen when one of these two displays are found
if [ "$(cscreen -l | grep '2b1052d0\|3c0c07c2')" != "" ]; then
    echo "Display found"
    # Dell screen does not wake up, switch back and forth to wake her up
    cscreen -i 2b1052d0 -d 32 -x 1280 -y 1024 -r 60 # small dell screen
    cscreen -i 2b1052d0 -d 32 -x 1280 -y 1024 -r 75 # small dell screen
    cscreen -i 3c0c07c2 -d 32 -x 1920 -y 1200 # big compaq screen
fi

# exit

What it does in short

  • Check if the screen is connected (I switch screens between home and work)
  • Refresh rate for displayID '2b1052d0' first to 60 than to 75 (to wake up the screen)
  • Set the second screen to her normal settings.