Mac OS X 10.3.7: Sleep Issues: More sensitive to external devices?
MacFixIt reader Bill Gibbon reports an odd situation where his PowerBook G4 12" has apparently been made more sensitive to externally attached devices switching power -- causing the machine to wake up from sleep where it previously would not:
"Having just upgraded my 12" powerbook to 10.3.7 I'm getting a strange effect when sending it to sleep.
"It's my main Mac. During the day it's always attached to a Bookendz dock, and thence to a large monitor, keyboard and copious other devices. Most nights I disconnect and take it home, but I often just put it to sleep and leave it. When I do, I leave it powered, but switch off the power to the rest of the devices. Never any problem before, but now that I've upgraded, the action of switching off the power to the other devices wakes it up so I have to power them all up to set it to sleep again. After trying a few times, I gave up and just left them all powered too. Not very energy efficient."
Paul Bradforth adds:
"Thought you'd like to know I've seen the same thing: I have a new 1.8GHz DP Power Mac and if I put it to sleep, then switch off a light which is plugged into the same strip, the machine will wake again. I can only sleep the machine after I've turned every external device off first. This doesn't happen with a Power Mac G4 which is plugged into the same strip. The difference here is that, having read of the various problems with the latest system update and the Firmware update, I've installed neither of them, preferring to wait until the problem is sorted. So, my G5 is running OS 10.3.6 and I still see this problem."
Ron Blanchard echoes reports of lights waking up Macs: "I have run into this strange phenomenon in that when I come into the room with my eMac sleeping and I turn on a light my Mac sometimes wakes up."
[We should note that Macs/PowerBooks/iBooks generally wake from sleep when they detect some sort of electrical activity from a peripheral (such as a keyboard or mouse); this explains the numerous reports from readers of printers and other USB devices waking their Mac.]
Resources
sleep, but wake 4 seconds later, right after the white glow light
gives it first pulse of light. By setting a scheduled sleep time in the
Energy preference, the computer will sleep as scheduled and
remain in sleep, but the pulsating white pilot light does not glow.
Disconnecting all devices does not help. I suspect it is the glow
light that is the culprit.
I have an iBook G3 600 which exhibits peculiar behavior regarding the glow light. If I manually put the computer to sleep the glow light comes on the screen goes dark and there is no hard disk activity. If I schedule sleep, the glow light does NOT come on, the display blacks out and there is occasional hard disk activity. This leads me to believe that these two sleep states are different and the when the glow light is not functioning the computer is not in its deepest sleep mode.
- by The G Man February 5, 2005 5:50 PM PST
- I also have been experiencing sleep problems since upgrading to 10.3.7. My
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(3 Comments)situation involves my wireless mouse. On my iMac G5, my Kensington
wireless mouse would prevent my scheduled sleep from working. Ironically,
its allowing my screen saver to come on, but not go to sleep. My iMac G4
seems to work fine with a different brand wireless mouse. So I just thought it
was a problem with the Kensington mouse. I since bought a Logictech
wireless and don't seem to be having quite as many problems but have to say
I still feel it is a little quirky. I am currently trying to find a trend to problem
solve. The most recent issue is that my screen saver, set to my iPhoto
slideshow, has frozen twice. I like the Kensington better so I might try it once
again or wait until Tiger comes out. Any thoughts?