17" iMac with insomnia

[Arcus]

My new 17" iMac cant seem to sleep well some nights. It seems that is likes to wake up spontaneously. iChat off, iTunes off. No ssh, no web server.

I googled around a bit and only founf one solid match but the guy seems to think its related to his microwave coming on or power issues.

Is anone else having this issue? Any clue on how to get it to sleep.

[mad jew]

What Bluetooth devices do you have, if any? If you have some/any, go to the Bluetooth pane of System Preferences and uncheck Allow Bluetooth Devices To Wake This Computer. :)

[Arcus]

Bluetooth is off. iTunes off. Sharing in iTunes off. Just boot and it wont sleep.

Im going to try and repair permissions.Seems to be a catch all.

Side note: Auy tutorials on makeing things like permission repair automated that you guys can recommend?

[wetbaloney]

yes -- I'm having the same problem (among others). People at the Apple Store suspect a system board problem, but I just haven't had a chance to bring it down there yet. I am decidedly unimpressed with this new system. Quality control is poor. Came with a keyboad that had some dead keys. What a pain!

[Arcus]

yes -- I'm having the same problem (among others). People at the Apple Store suspect a system board problem, but I just haven't had a chance to bring it down there yet. I am decidedly unimpressed with this new system. Quality control is poor. Came with a keyboad that had some dead keys. What a pain!


System board problem? WTF. Thats crappy. Lovely.

[mad jew]

Maybe try resetting the SMU before getting too worried. Do this by shutting the machine down, pulling out all the cables, leaving it for about ten seconds (maybe a touch more) and then plugging the power cable back in as you hold the power button. Then press the power button again to actually start the machine up and plug all your other cables back in. :)

[Willis]

Do you have a screen saver on before it goes into sleep?

If so, maybe movements in the mouse are 'resetting' its cycle.

[Arcus]

Do you have a screen saver on before it goes into sleep?

If so, maybe movements in the mouse are 'resetting' its cycle.


Well, you are right about the screensaver. After turning it off sleep now works correctly in both the timed sleep and when I manually put it to sleep.

Oh well, no biggie. Glad it wasent the system board.

[Arcus]

Just an update for those interested or with the same problem -

Its seems that it still will wake out of sleep on occasion. Happened at 3:44 AM this morning. This actually was the same time that an email came in. Although MAIL isnt running I noticed that it will stil update its dock icon with the number of unread pieces of mail.

Im going to shut this off and see if this can get rid of this lats bit of sleep disorder.

[mad jew]

Weird. That's about the same time the machine usually runs its daily maintenance tasks. In the Energy Saver pane of System Preferences, what Wake Options are checked? Did you reset the SMU? :)

[Arcus]

Weird. That's about the same time the machine usually runs its daily maintenance tasks. In the Energy Saver pane of System Preferences, what Wake Options are checked? Did you reset the SMU? :)

The only option I see is the "Wake for ethernet network admin access" and that is not checked. I didnt reset the SMU yet. Will try and report back.

[mdntcallr]

bring it in for a repair. hell you bring it in enough. they may give you a whole new unit.

i would bring it in. hope its fixed. if not bring it in again. if not... then they may give you a core 2 duo replacement.

hell never know

[Arcus]

bring it in for a repair. hell you bring it in enough. they may give you a whole new unit.

i would bring it in. hope its fixed. if not bring it in again. if not... then they may give you a core 2 duo replacement.

hell never know

WHy should I bring it in for repair? Is it broken? Im not the type of person just to bring something in to be a pain in the rear. IMHO thats being childish and I may risk damaging the unit further with all the travel.

Oh and uhh...it is a CD2. *points to siggy*

Ill reset the SMU and see what happens. *goes to google what the heck the SMU is*

[Shadow]

I *think* theres a problem with the Mighty Mouse driver that causes it randomly to move to the top-left corner of the screen. This happens occasionally with my (wired) Mighty Mouse. Try unplugging the Mighty Mouse and see if it still happens-but only if you have/use a Mighty Mouse.

[Arcus]

I *think* theres a problem with the Mighty Mouse driver that causes it randomly to move to the top-left corner of the screen. This happens occasionally with my (wired) Mighty Mouse. Try unplugging the Mighty Mouse and see if it still happens-but only if you have/use a Mighty Mouse.


Oh oh!! Another clue!! Ill try that also. Awsome!

[Shadow]

Oh oh!! Another clue!! Ill try that also. Awsome!
Make sure to report back-I hope it solves your problem. Good luck. :)

[Arcus]

Since the mighty mouse test was easy to do I tried that tonight. I unplugged the mouse and let the power management system put her to sleep. The computer went to sleep for about an hour and woke up. :(


Next....resetting the SMU.

I just did it. So far so good. Ill let you know in the morning....

[Arcus]

Update:


Well, I woke up this morning to find that my iMac was already awake.

I think I made a mistake but it may have lead to an interesting clue. After resetting the SMU I happened to notice that the backgroud was set to change every day. Hmmm.....So I turned it off. The background was set to the Apple desktop picture of lightning. After changing that I put it to sleep.

The odd part is that when I woke up and noticed the iMac was up it had a different background.

I put it to sleep again.. then woke it up to find that it had the lightning background again. What the??

Anyway, now that the SMU has been reset I will try it with the mouse unplugged again. I will try repairing permissions before doing this.

Off to work.

[Shadow]

Have you tried fsck-ing it? Instructions are on Apple Support.

[Arcus]

Have you tried fsck-ing it? Instructions are on Apple Support.


Havent tried that yet.

[Razorhog]

I'm having the exact same problem with my 24". This thing is barely a week old... It will not automatically sleep, and it I manually tell it to sleep it wakes up at some point because the sleep light is not flashing the next time I get to the computer. Flashing = asleep, solid light = monitor off but computer awake
This is very frustrating. Thanks for any help or suggestions.

[Arcus]

I'm having the exact same problem with my 24". This thing is barely a week old... It will not automatically sleep, and it I manually tell it to sleep it wakes up at some point because the sleep light is not flashing the next time I get to the computer. Flashing = asleep, solid light = monitor off but computer awake
This is very frustrating. Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Razorhog Ill keep posting till its solved.

[Arcus]

Maybe try resetting the SMU before getting too worried. Do this by shutting the machine down, pulling out all the cables, leaving it for about ten seconds (maybe a touch more) and then plugging the power cable back in as you hold the power button. Then press the power button again to actually start the machine up and plug all your other cables back in. :)


Question: I read on apples support site that this process is correct except that you are not supposed to hold down the power button while plugging it in.

Going to try the Apple way of resetting the SMU tonight..

[Arcus]

Found the difference. The intels have an SMC which is reset differently. the process MJ posted is for a G5 iMac.

[Arcus]

Thursday 10/19 Update:

Reset the SMC as per Apple's instructions. Still no go. The dam thing still wakes up.

Im running out of ideas. The only one I can think of is maybe that I have some power fluctuations and its waking the unit up.

So far:

Shut off bluetooth
No screen saver
No switching backgrounds
Shut off Wi Fi
Reset SMC
Unplugged everything from the back of the unit (I will have to do this test again. Im not 100% sure I unplugged the printer.)

I didnt do fsck yet.

[Arcus]

Ok..It appears that I found the culprit. I really cant understand why but I cant argue with success.

The winner is......

*drum roll*

My iPod cable!

Yes..it was the only thing that I had not unplugged. Why? because there was no iPod plugged into it so I figured no harm right? Wrong!!

So far the iMac as been sleeping well. This actually makes sense . After bringing it home and synching up my iPod with it I havent plugged the iPod in the the computer. Ive been using the wall wart charger. About the time that I stopped pluggin it into the computer is the same time this started happening.

As odd as it sounds , the cable with no iPod attached seems to have been the issue. Ill update again tommorow one way or another but until then, nighty night little Mac.

[mjstew33]

That's really weird, glad it worked out. :)

[mad jew]

Found the difference. The intels have an SMC which is reset differently. the process MJ posted is for a G5 iMac.


Thanks for that mate. I'd read somewhere that the process was the same but it's good to know it isn't. :)

[Arcus]

Just a final update:

First , thanks to everyone for the help. As wierd as it sounds it inspired me to find the problem.

The removal of the iPod cable was definately the issue. If I plug it in I can reproduce the problem and reproduce the fix. If the iPod is plugged in its fine. All is well again in my Apple world.

[mad jew]

Does the iPod end of the cable look bent or crushed? Could the connectors be touching when the iPod isn't connecting, forcing mini short-cirtuits and subsequently your problems? I guess it doesn't matter so long as you remember to pull the cable each time you unplug the iPod. :)

[I'mAMac]

WHy should I bring it in for repair? Is it broken? Im not the type of person just to bring something in to be a pain in the rear. IMHO thats being childish and I may risk damaging the unit further with all the travel.

Oh and uhh...it is a CD2. *points to siggy*

Ill reset the SMU and see what happens. *goes to google what the heck the SMU is*
It is actually C2D not CD2... just a tidbit of info

[mad jew]

Thanks for the correction. Now I can sleep at night.







Okay, where's the groaning smiley? :o

[Arcus]

Does the iPod end of the cable look bent or crushed? Could the connectors be touching when the iPod isn't connecting, forcing mini short-cirtuits and subsequently your problems? I guess it doesn't matter so long as you remember to pull the cable each time you unplug the iPod. :)



Holy crud!! You are right. Looking at the end of it I see there is a ton of gook on the one side. Wow. Nice call. Thats a quick fix with a new cable. The iPod seems fine. I used a firends cable to make sure it synchs up.

You guys rock.

[mad jew]

No worries mate. I had the same problem but on the iPod end. It collected a bunch of crud from being in my pocket so often. :)

[I'mAMac]

Thanks for the correction. Now I can sleep at night.







Okay, where's the groaning smiley? :o
My pleasure.

[Mogenshu]

Not to beat a dead cat but I had the same problem and unplugged my ipod from my imac when i went to sleep and lo and behold, it was awake when i awoke the next morning. :(

Any one else have any idea what may be causing this? I'm going to try cleaning all my ports, usb and firewire. Does anyone know the best way to do this? Would a q-tip be alright to stick in there? I wonder if there isn't something weird going on with my usb slots because i got a "this usb port is drawing too much power" warning the other day, my printer sporadically gets into a weird mode where all its lights light up and my mouse went weird and i wasn't able to scroll to certain parts of the screen.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Mogenshu]

Looks like it could have been my apple remote desktop server that was the culprit.

[Gaijin de Moscu]

My 24" iMac never sleeps by itself. With or without wires. It's already several months old.

It sleeps well when I manually put it into sleep -- at least it doesn't wake up.

I've done everything I could think of (including OSX reinstall), didn't help.

[estifmacuin]

My 24" iMac never sleeps by itself. With or without wires. It's already several months old.

It sleeps well when I manually put it into sleep -- at least it doesn't wake up.

I've done everything I could think of (including OSX reinstall), didn't help.

hi!,

any updates on this behaviour? I'm experiencing the same problems since 10.4.9 update in a 20inch C2D.

Thanks

[kixsand]

My 24" iMac won't sleep as long as my usb hub -- Belkin 4 port hub -- is plugged in. If I unplug it she'll go down for the night but if it is plugged in it will not go down.

I'm going to check with Belkin to see if they have a firmware upgrade or anything that addresses this issue.

darren

[estifmacuin]

I finally detected the "problem". My imac won't suspend by itself while connected to my WPA encrypted wifi. I had to turn off my wifi encryption, in order to install another computer that had to be updated in order to support more than WEP enc. This was the moment I realized my imac suspended. Now I'm wondering what's between WPA wifi and auto-suspend of my imac.

[BioChron]

That has happened to me a couple times with my iMac. It is usually input devices that stay on even with the computer sleeps that will wake it up.