Hi Neil, that is a very clear articulation of a problem you're
experiencing and sorry to hear it. I'm also sorry I don't have any
wisdom on this, but am imminently going to get myself into a 27" iMac
and wonder if this Sleep issue will pervade my new machine (to be). Also
do you have any other comments or wisdom about ordering such a machine
and any recommended upgrades (Applecare, wireless or Bluetooth devices).
I still have my old Magic Mouse that I got for SWMBO's Macbook (not very
magical actually) as constant Bluetooth dropouts and ravenous battery
consumption (1-2 weeks between replacements) led me to get a Logitech
Nano VX which is brilliant - and still on the original batteries from 9
months ago! But I believe the iMac 27" comes with the Magic Mouse
'thrown in' and presumably now non-problematic as I observed from 12
months ago as I see no chatter about it on this forum.

Thanks for any feedback.

Regards

Peter..

-----Original Message-----
From: wamug-ow...@wamug.org.au [mailto:wamug-ow...@wamug.org.au] On
Behalf Of Neil Houghton
Sent: Thursday, 13 January 2011 11:01 AM
To: WAMUG
Subject: 27"IiMac - screen wake-up problem


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





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