Wake up iMac
July 11, 2006 10:45 AM Subscribe
Every time my Intel iMac sits idle for a few hours and goes into sleep mode, it won't wake up. I have to restart it. Any ideas on programs running or software issues that might be causing this? Any other suggestions?
Do you have any weird USB or Firewire devices connected? Especially ones that require their own drivers? It's not unheard-of for them to cause sleep/wake problems, so try unplugging them and see if the problem persists.
posted by xil at 11:26 AM on July 11, 2006
posted by xil at 11:26 AM on July 11, 2006
What xil said. I had this problem all the time with my old G3 if I left my USB digital camera plugged in when the computer went to sleep. It's probably an attached USB peripheral. Thankfully this hasn't happened to my Intel iMac yet.
posted by lekvar at 11:33 AM on July 11, 2006
posted by lekvar at 11:33 AM on July 11, 2006
All the preceding advice is sound, but you may just be having a problem with Safe Sleep*. Either the image file may have become corrupted or you don't have enough free disk space to create it. If that's your problem, you can disable it by going to the terminal and typing 'sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0' (without the quotes) and giving your password when prompted. If that fixes your problem, go into the /var/vm (it's invisible so you'll have to use the Shift-Command-G shortcut in the Finder and type it in to get to the folder) folder and throw out the 'sleepimage' file since it's probably corrupt anyway. You can re-enable it using the command above replacing the 0 with 3 (or with 7 if you're using Secure Virtual Memory).
* Safe Sleep is Apple's version of hibernate on windows. Basically, it saves all your memory contents to a sleepimage file before going to sleep. That way, if it loses power while asleep it can read that file back in to get your computer back into the same state when it restarts.
posted by boaz at 11:35 AM on July 11, 2006
* Safe Sleep is Apple's version of hibernate on windows. Basically, it saves all your memory contents to a sleepimage file before going to sleep. That way, if it loses power while asleep it can read that file back in to get your computer back into the same state when it restarts.
posted by boaz at 11:35 AM on July 11, 2006
here is a strange one: this happens to me on my macbook. the macbook has an atheros wifi chip. there is a bug in the driver that causes it to drop the airport connection when the connection is idle too long. this bug can also cause the machine to 'die' in its sleep.
the bug is only triggered by linksys wireless base stations, running older linksys firmware, or open source firmware like dd-wrt. one workaround is to change the 'beacon interval' to 50mS from the default of 100mS.
since i did this, no more sleep-death. it drops the connection occasionally but before the change it was like every 10 minutes.
also the 10.4.7 update brought a new atheros driver and the problem came back, so i had to revert to the atheros driver from 10.4.6.
do you have a linksys wireless base station? i'm not sure if the iMac uses the same wireless chipset.
posted by joeblough at 11:55 AM on July 11, 2006
the bug is only triggered by linksys wireless base stations, running older linksys firmware, or open source firmware like dd-wrt. one workaround is to change the 'beacon interval' to 50mS from the default of 100mS.
since i did this, no more sleep-death. it drops the connection occasionally but before the change it was like every 10 minutes.
also the 10.4.7 update brought a new atheros driver and the problem came back, so i had to revert to the atheros driver from 10.4.6.
do you have a linksys wireless base station? i'm not sure if the iMac uses the same wireless chipset.
posted by joeblough at 11:55 AM on July 11, 2006
This happened to me for a while - Apple had a firmware update that cleared up that problem.
Can you run software update and see if there are any updates you're missing?
posted by Arthur Dent at 1:56 PM on July 11, 2006
Can you run software update and see if there are any updates you're missing?
posted by Arthur Dent at 1:56 PM on July 11, 2006
This happens to me when I have HP printer/scanner utilities running.
posted by mzurer at 3:27 PM on July 11, 2006
posted by mzurer at 3:27 PM on July 11, 2006
Response by poster: Thanks everyone for the advice. I'll check these suggestions out and let you know what happens. And if anyone else has anything to add, please do.
posted by visual mechanic at 5:56 PM on July 11, 2006
posted by visual mechanic at 5:56 PM on July 11, 2006
Exact same problem on my 20" Intel iMac. Check your firmware - chances are you need to upgrade to 1.1f5. This will fix problems with the System Management Controller, which looks after power issues. Fixed it for me.
See here for the problem, and here for the upgrade. Don't worry about the "early 2006" stuff - I bought mine two weeks ago and the firmware was only 1.1f2.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 6:24 PM on July 11, 2006
See here for the problem, and here for the upgrade. Don't worry about the "early 2006" stuff - I bought mine two weeks ago and the firmware was only 1.1f2.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 6:24 PM on July 11, 2006
In the meantime, you can turn off sleep in the 'Energy Saver' System Preferences. Move the sleep slider to "Never" and leave the Display Sleep slider wherever you want it. Then you won't get any rude unawakenings.
posted by bcwinters at 6:57 AM on July 12, 2006
posted by bcwinters at 6:57 AM on July 12, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
Best you contact Apple ASAP and make them aware of the issue, see what they've got to say. It might take a while of intermitent failure before they'll replace it. Oh! Needless to say, backup early and backup often.
posted by Mutant at 10:54 AM on July 11, 2006