Forget star signs, what key do you press to wake up your computer from sleep?

The "any" key, of course.

Usually space
- I mash space bar! At work I mash Ctrl alt delete
- Same here. Whenever I need to wake up my PC I send it on a suborbital spaceflight. The forces of launch and reentry move the mouse a lot and it wakes up once I recover it from the ocean.

I move the mouse.
- Team mouse wiggle!
- My computer always drops the first character or two when waking, making me screw up my password. So I wiggle the mouse and by the time my hand is back on the keyboard I can type my password with confidence.
  
  At work I just start typing the password. Sometimes I am faster than the screen coming back to life

Space
- The final frontier

ESC
- Can't believe I had to scroll this far. Always Escape!

I pick up the mouse, hold it to my mouth and say, "Computer...?”

Space key. That way it won't accidentally enter an actual letter or command that could be passed to the current active application.
That's not really much of a problem anymore these days (serious issue in WinXP era), but it's still the safe key, so I use it.
Edit: I totally botched this. I meant Shift key. Derp.
- Space bar is "accept" in many interfaces. If the screen was off but not locked, and a dialog box was focused, hitting space will submit that in some OS.
  Control, on the other hand, won't.
  
  I always wake up with space and I have had that problem once. That was on a PC that was installing using PXE.
  Otherwise my PC is pretty much always locked if the screen has gone to sleep.

I like ctrl as well.
Less alarming and obtrusive. To the computer? For me?
I prefer left Ctrl, but will press the right ctrl if I'm feeling wild that day.
This is a great question.
- I love them question.
  I’m a left CTRL grill. It doesn’t press things that might input text or navigate. It’s a humble modification-key.

Shift because it can't trigger an action on its own.
<Tinfoil hat> Using space, enter, control, or alt can trigger functions in windows if another key is stuck for a weird reason. </Tinfoil hat>
- Me too for same reason. Also I am shifting the computer out of being asleep (ok I made that up)
- this is the way. or Ctrl.
  
  Ctrl can run functions which it why it is in the list.

A nice open palm slap on the middle of the keyboard does the trick for me
- The "cat" method.
- 😹

Spacebar

Arrow keys
- I press the down arrow key!
  
  Left for me

Mouse wiggles
- That's just uncivilised.
  
  It's optimal

qwerdsffyjiluiop;hjmdb
sfg [waggle mouse] qqwthr

Space - The Final Frontier
These are the voyages...

ctrl is the only correct choice obviously. it's the only key that does nothing by itself and it's positioned at a corner so it's hard to mistype
- Whatever method gets the job done is fine but this is the most correct answer.

Any single modifier key by itself, in case it’s just the screen that’s asleep and I’m inadvertently typing into a text field.

Shift.
They're big enough I don't have to aim. They're located on both edges (at least on TKL). They do nothing on their own.
- Yeah I really expected this to be the vast majority of answers, it just makes the most sense. Ctrl is too small and space will type a space into my password box that I'll have to delete before I can unlock my screen
  
  Control is easier for me to hit because it's the corner of the keyboard.

I shake the mouse then start entering my login before the screen turns on, works 50% of the time.

Up arrow

I always turn off my computer when I'm done. I like to get a fresh boot
- +1 to linux - windows requires a reboot *by default these days to get a fresh boot, go figure.
  
  My machine's boot time is pretty fast because of Linux.
  
  Do you mean quick boot? Because that can be disabled.
- That’s more taxing on the hardware over time
  Edit: downvote all you want but frequent power cycling DOES reduce the life span of capacitors over time more than just leaving it in a low power or hibernation state, and also generates rapid thermal changes in components that puts more stress on them. Source: 20 years of experience in hardware repair and IT
  
  Uuuh, I'm pretty sure 13s of CPU time is not that taxing on the hardware.

My 2 year old, when prompted to hit any key, hit the power button instead.
Anyway, the answer is a swift kick of my desk to move my mouse cause that seems to wake it up.

I always shutdown even for a short break.

Up arrow

Left Ctrl

I shake the mouse
- Then sometimes it doesn't work and you just end up looking like a frantic mousemoving maniac.

Been using spacebar but what I would like to do is set up a midi drum pad as an input device so I can wake my computer up by smacking it with a stick.

Mouse click.

I spam escape but I usally disable sleep on all my machines and use hibernation instead. Too many issues with sleep. Randomly wakes up, USB devices aren't recognized, a monitor stays black...
- I wouldn't hibernate on an m2ssd qlc degradation killed my samsung 980 pro. it got corrupt sectors so bad that the samsung magician software just gives up after scanning
  
  Wasn't that the drive that got insane write amplification due to a firmware bug?
  Edit: yup, definitely wasn't cuz you were actually writing to it an unusual amount. Those drives would wear themselves out during normal use for seemingly no reason. I've been hibernating to a WD Black for years, and it's fine.
  
  That sucks but as another said that seemed to have been a firmware bug. I have hibernated thousands of times with 32GB RAM and had no SSD die on me yet.

I have to press the power button because the dumbass enters deep sleep.

Lawful Neutral, ctrl.

I stomp on my usb foot pedal
- Uuu, nice. Always wanted one of those. What do you use yours for?
  
  To wake the computer up from sleep.
  
  I use mine for Star Power in Clone Hero (Guitar Hero-ish game)
  Way back in the day I always wanted one to use as my push to talk key for Ventrilo... But these days with noise reduction algorithms, boom mics with cardioid sensitivity spaces, and adjustable activation threshold, I just leave my mic on auto activate.
  I should probably find something else to use it for...

I just smack the keyboard or press a bunch of keys at once.

Wait... You guys actually only push one button?
I slide my entire hand across the keyboard like I'm waving to the computer haha

Fingerprint scanner power button thing

Backspace, because my cat likes to step on my keyboard and then characters are often left in the password field that need cleared.

Depends the OS.
Windows its Space
On Linux shift since space will fill in the password field with spaces
- In the first second I was taken aback by such a silly decision from the designers' part, but then I realised it was actually a cool idea; you don't have to wake up your computer. You just start typing immediately. How cool is that?
  ... Also, why the heck do you need to start with shift then? : )
  
  Because years ago I made my PC password with Capslock on since a warning would show.
  So genius 13 year old me said, "hey even if someone knew my password, they'd never know how it was inputted."
  So my actual wake key is capslock.
  Only my PC uses this old password method now, everything else is passphrase+uniquekey
  Like google+lemmyworld

Escape is kinda hardcoded as a safe button in my headspace and spacebar is just fun to press.

Any key
- I can't find it on my keyboard 😉
  
  Call tech support, we love this one

my computer doesnt go to sleep.
It must stay awake, at all times, awaiting my input.
- As nature intended
- That's the way. Turning computers off isn't good for them anyway.
  
  yep, thermal cycling from on and off is worse on the hardware than just leaving it on and idle.

I just stare at it loathfully until it wakes up out of shame.
(Or maybe it's my enraged vibrations transferring to the mouse through the table and causing it to move, same difference.)

I hit the "wake on lan" icon on my phone, since my computer is in a different room from my monitor and the usb doesn't work for waking it up directly. But if I could, left ctrl all day!
- Idk how anyone does anything else. It’s in the corner, easy to hit…. It’s basically only a modifier key, so it will do nothing but wake the computer.
  I don’t want to type a space, or accidentally close something.
  
  It’s in the corner
  Angry ThinkPad noises

Esc like 3-5 times (to also prompt the login input) or mouse wiggle

The power button. I've disabled usb-wake because my wireless mouse keeps waking up my computer
- Same problem, now I just flip it upside down when not in use.

I'm a mad man I click different shit every time.

Caps lock because it doesn't do anything like enter or other keys might do and if I see the light blink then I know that the computer/keyboard is not frozen.
- Interestingly, I use the shift key for the same reason of "it does nothing". Who knows if I left half a command in the terminal or something like that. I don't have a caps lock led, but that's a good idea!
- I've never heard of a frozen keyboard. That is definitely not an issue to worry about every single time anyway.
  Plus when it works you need a second press to turn it back off before entering the password. Way too much work.
  I usually use the up key as that is one of the few buttons I know of that will open the password field (I'm assuming down also works, but I haven't tried many others). I usually turn my monitor off (can't just leave it on as it's in my room and if a cat moves their ear too quickly that will wake up the screen and I can't have that while I'm comfortable in bed) at night, so the first time I use it in a day I will turn it on, smack the up arrow and the login screen is gone before the screen turns on all the way. Which is a little sad I don't get to see it much since I did pick out a theme and background for it, but can't be helped.
  
  Wireless keyboards go to sleep and can disconnect. Modern ones are sometimes smart/quick enough to send the first keypress but older ones less so. Also if the computer's off spamming caps lock won't turn on the light and let you know to hit the power button.

I push the power button on the tower.

I have a BLE keyboard and a BLE trackball, so they lose connection when PC is sleeping. To wake it up I press the power button

i rapidly press as many keys as i can within a 1 second time frame
or i just slam the enter key a few times

Left arrow up arrow right arrow. over and over and over again until the computer comes up

I press my whole hand into the keyboard hitting like 20 keys probably
- This is me

I plop my furry balls menacingly on the keyboard and inevitably hit at least half the keys

Sleep? I run Linux. It's on. Or it's off. So power? I guess?
- Linux has sleep tho
  
  Sure does, if your motherboard plays nicely with it.
  Personally, my acer laptop doesn't; if it goes into sleep mode, I have to hard-reset it to get it working again.
  
  Maybe it does? I have never used it.
- Why would it ever be off, except for the first time..?