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May 18, 2009 9:51 AM PDT
Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro sleep issues with Mac OS X 10.5.7 update
One of the issues reported by our readers regarding sleep issues with MacBooks and MacBook Pros after installing the latest update to Apple's operating system,
Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.7, appears to be a fairly significant issue.
MacFixIt reader "Roger G." reports:
Apple Support Discussions ... MacFixIt article Let us know! More from Late-Breakers
MacFixIt reader "Roger G." reports:
"The 10.5.7 upgrade (both with Combo and Delta from Safe mode) killed the ability of my white MacBook to sleep via clamshell closing. After a reboot, the system would sleep normally, but awakening the system and then sleeping would result in a system freeze. The monitor light on the case would not wax and wane in brightness but would stay on full. A few minutes later the fans would start spinning at full speed until the battery drained or the machine was rebooted."Apple Support Discussions user "smitty 195" writes:
"I am having the identical problem as everyone else (freezes on 2nd sleep attempt). I have a MacBook Pro, and upgraded to 10.5.7 yesterday."Apple Support Discussions user "Herbert Schulz" writes:
"'ve got a Macbook Pro from Autumn 2007 (model 3.1) and under 10.5.7 it all too often won't go to sleep and then won't wake up. The mouse arrow disappears and it will go to a dark screen, but is clearly not off, and seems to be saving memory to the HD but it never goes to sleep. This occurs randomly; sometimes everthing works fine."According to several reports around support forums and from e-mail correspondence from our readers, this issue appears to be related to the Ethernet settings on notebooks.
MacFixIt reader "Andreas S." reports:
"It appears that if the Ethernet is not enabled (airport only network settings) that on the MacBook Pro the sleep only works once and crashes the second time."To re-enable the Ethernet port settings:
1. Open System Preferences > NetworkNote: If you are having this issue and your Ethernet port is already enabled, try disabling it (using the gear wheel icon menu > "Make Service Inactive"). Log out or restart your Mac, then enable it. Be sure to "Apply" your changes.
2-1. If you see your Ethernet port in your list of network ports (on the left-side of the window) and it says "Inactive," activate the port by clicking the gear wheel icon and selecting "Make Service Active." Click "Apply."
2-2. If you do not see your Ethernet port in your list of network ports (on the left-side of the window), click the " " button in the bottom-left corner.
3. In the "Interface" drop-down menu, select "Ethernet."
4. Enter a name and select "Create." You should see your new Ethernet connection appear.
5. Click "Apply."
Test your MacBook or MacBook Pro by closing the clamshell. Be sure to try this twice as most reports point to the second attempt at sleep as being the culprit for the freeze. If it does not work, try resetting your Mac and test again.
Resources
Read this Apple Support Discussions forum regarding sleep issues on MacBooks and MacBook Pros caused by the Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.7 update.
Read this MacFixIt article covering different issues related to the Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.7 update.
Experiencing problems? Have feedback? Let us know!
Resources
I had the same freezing problems after closing the lid and going to sleep mode in my maxed up MacBook Pro (17" 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM, 250GB OCZ Vertex SSD). Very annoying! Nonetheless, after googling a lot, I apparently solved this proble by changing the sleeping mode modality from "3" (default in the newest machines) to "0" (older modality).
Here is a more detailed explanation:
After you launch Terminal, the first step is to determine which sleep mode your Mac is currently using (in case you wish to go back to it). You can both view and change the sleep mode using the Unix program pmset. To see your current settings, type pmset -g | grep hibernatemode. You should see something like this:
pmset -g | grep hibernatemode hibernatemode 3
Great, so your machine is using mode 3, whatever that might be. Well, thanks to the documentation for the handy Deep Sleep Dashboard widget, which puts your machine immediately into hibernation mode (so you don?t have to yank all the power sources to invoke it), we can tell exactly which mode is which:
0 - Old style sleep mode, with RAM powered on while sleeping, safe sleep disabled, and super-fast wake.
1 - Hibernation mode, with RAM contents written to disk, system totally shut down while ?sleeping,? and slower wake up, due to reading the contents of RAM off the hard drive.
3 - The default mode on machines introduced since about fall 2005. RAM is powered on while sleeping, but RAM contents are also written to disk before sleeping. In the event of total power loss, the system enters hibernation mode automatically.
To change your sleep mode, you use pmset again, providing the variable and value you wish to assign. So to return to the old style sleep mode (which is mode 0 from the above list), enter this command:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
Press Return, and you?ll be asked for your password. Provide it, and your sleep mode has been changed. Note that restarting is not required for these changes to take effect.
Recover some drive space
If your machine was previously set to mode 3 (or 7 ) and you?ve reverted to the old style sleep mode, you?ve got one more step to take: recover the drive space used up by the copy of your system?s RAM, which was created the last time you slept the machine prior to making the switch. In Terminal, enter these two commands, pressing Return after each and providing your password when asked (in my case it didn't ask for my password again after changing the sleep mode)
cd /var/vm
sudo rm sleepimage
In my case it released almost 8GB of disc space. I guess it will closely amount the amount of RAM your system has. Ironically, by trying to make a "super system" by paying $2,000 for 8GB RAM plus the SSD drive, it might have been to much RAM to copy and recover to the SSD every time the system goes to sleep and wakes up...as they say "the best is sometimes enemy of the good".
Good luck!
JR Mora