Hi all, A strange problem this..
A few days ago, my iMac wouldn't wake from sleep properly - in actual fact, the screen didn't wake-up (though I didn't realise that at the time) - I could hear the disc going and, since I have the Mac set to require password on wake from either sleep or screen saver, I should get a login window - but the screen remained black, with no mouse cursor. I tried a few random key strokes (to try and "wake" it) and got the "beep" that tells you that is not appropriate (ie I needed to login first). At the time, I was worried my screen had died (and me just a month out of warranty!) and decided a forced shut-down and re-boot should be tried. However, as I was pressing the power button, the log-in window appeared (together with a message about incorrect password - obviously referring to my random keystrokes when the screen was black). I then logged in without problem and everything was OK - I have since surmised that when I went to force the shut-down I actually pressed the power button twice - which put the computer to sleep and then re-awakened it (together with the screen, this time). At the time, I just put it down to some random gremlin - was relieved my screen was not dead - and forgot about it! Until this morning... Go to wake up the computer, can hear activity but the screen stays blank - this time I try just blindly entering my password and hitting return - the login obviously works and I can hear entourage (left running when the mac goes to sleep) retrieving emails from various accounts - but the screen stays black. I fired up the laptop and the iMac can be seen on the network. I try Google (from the laptop) and find a 5 page MacRumours forum on "27"iMac won't wake from sleep" stretching from to November 2009 (the vintage of my iMac) through to December 2010 (ie, basically, now): <http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=825871> This showed LOTS of people having sleep problems - though the problems and circumstances are far from identical - several of the posts seemed similar to my problem and the consensus seemed to be that the screen was not waking up and that perhaps the computer had failed to go completely to sleep. This reminded my of my power button pressing previously - so (more observantly this time) I pressed the power button once and did, in fact, hear the computer go to sleep - I then pressed the button again and the computer awoke correctly and presented me with the login window. Unfortunately, though there are MANY theories on the forum - there appears to be no clear cause/solution: Some people have blamed USB hubs and wireless keyboards - not applicable in my case. Some people point to hardware and have had Apple replacing power supplies, logic boards (sometimes multiple replacements) and even new computers - this may fix it for some people - but others have the problem re-occur - even over new computers. Others point to this as indicating a software problem and advocate complete re-installations of the operating system - again this has worked for some (or appeared to work for a while) but not for others - and the problem seems to span several versions of Snow Leopard. For myself - I had the computer for over a year before the problem appeared - but it then re-appeared within days. I haven't recently changed any hardware (& don't have a usb hub connected). I haven't had any major software changes (haven't yet gone to 10.6.6) - though I may have installed a few small programs/utilities? I tend to feel that the problem MAY be down to the sleep process hanging (after the screen has been put to sleep but before the computer has been fully put to sleep) as one strange thing I have noticed is some entourage error messages reporting failure to connect to server - at times when the computer should have been asleep - but these are isolated and not recurring on the 20 minute schedule that entourage checks for mail. Anybody else experienced or experiencing similar problems? Any ideas? At present it is not too big a problem since (unlike some posters) I don't have to force shutdown to get out of the problem - and it's only happened twice - but if it starts to get more frequent it could get very annoying! Cheers Neil -- Neil R. Houghton Albany, Western Australia Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 Email: n...@possumology.com -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:wamug-unsubscr...@wamug.org.au>
