Mac OS X 10.4: Wake-from-sleep issues
Some users' Mac OS X 10.4-upgraded systems will not wake properly from sleep, either refusing to wake completely or freezing upon wake-up.
ResourcesSolutions
Device removal Errant devices (or devices, one way or another, in conflict with a Mac OS X 10.4 installation) can cause problems with waking from sleep.
One reader describes a case in which removing an internal 160 GB drive connected via SATA resolved wake-from-sleep issues:
The reader writes:
"I have a Dual 2.5 G5 and I just installed Tiger onto a new 74GB Western Digital 10,000 rpm Raptor drive. I left the original 160GB Seagate Barracuda in the other drive bay (it still has 10.2.9 installed on it). The problem I have is now when I put the G5 to sleep in Tiger and then wake it up, the screen comes on but I get the dreaded spinning beach ball. The only thing I can do to get it working again is to do a hard reset. If I remove the original 160GB drive and boot from only the 74GB drive, I can put it to sleep and wake it with no problem. If I boot from the 160GB drive in 10.2.9, I can also put it to sleep and wake it with no problem (this is with both drives installed)."
Dylan Menges describes a case in which a FireWire/USB PCI card was causing similar issues:
Dylan writes:
"I had a similar experience where Tiger wouldn?t wake from sleep after an erase/clean install. Remembering that I had a media card reader plugged into an internal Orange Micro Firewire/USB board, I pulled the device from the board and restarted. Put Tiger to sleep and was able to wake immediately without any problems."
Finally, MacFixIt reader JD was able to resolve wake-from-sleep issues by unpairing a Bluetooth mouse manufactured by Kensington from his system.
JD writes:
"Since installing Mac OS X 10.4, I've had about five hard crashes of my system. The system becomes totally unresponsive, where not even the force-quit window can be launched. [...] This generally happens when the computer wakes from sleep. [...] However, I found that after removing my Kensington Bluetooth PilotMouse (actually taking the batteries out), the problem seems to have disappeared. Also, the problem occurred whether or not the Kensington MouseWorks software was installed. When I power the mouse back up, and re-pair it with my system, the problem returns. So, for now, I'm back to using a corded mouse (along with an Apple bluetooth keyboard, which works just fine)."
Resetting the PMU/SMU Another procedure that has resolved wake-from-sleep issues for some users is resetting of the PMU (power management unit) or SMU (system management unit) dependent on the Mac model.
Instructions for doing so are as follows for several systems:
Simply disconnecting your Mac from its power source (the method for resetting the Mac mini's PMU) may have similar beneficial results.
.plist files to blame? In some cases, it appears that problematic .plist files, particularly those located in the "ByHost" folder located in ~/Library/Preferences (your user-level Library folder) are to blame for wake-from-sleep issues.
MacFixIt reader Ernst Mulder provides a case example:
"I found out it (my wake-from-sleep issue) was a user-specific problem, with another newly created problem I didn't experience it.
"In the end I just deleted many old and suspect preference files from my ~/Library/Preferences folder. I deleted all 'ByHost' prefs, and all of the usual suspects. I also deleted a lot of very old preference files. After that the problem went away."
