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HELP! iMac keeps going to sleep, I think.

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eyedoc_00

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 25, 2005
208
0
About 2 months ago i had a problem with my video card. Brought it to the apple store and had the video card replaced. It is out of warranty.
iMac worked great for about 1 month and then it started to power off by itself at random times. Brought it back to the apple store and they told me they found a problem with 1 of the fans and a loose bluetooth connection. They fixed those for free.

It is now about another month since it was in and now the monitor will go to sleep at random times. I can feel air coming from the bottom vents and the mouse still lights up showing that the computer is still on. I can not get the computer to start back up by tapping the mouse or keyboard. Sometimes the computer monitor will turn back on when I hold the power button down for a couple of seconds. Other times it will not turn back on and holding down the power button turns the computer off.
I have turned off the monitor going to sleep as well as the hard disk. the problem still occurs. Seems to be happening more frequently in the past 2 days.

Any thoughts on the problem?

Thanks.
 
superbovine

superbovine

macrumors 68030
Nov 7, 2003
2,872
0
eyedoc_00 said:
About 2 months ago i had a problem with my video card. Brought it to the apple store and had the video card replaced. It is out of warranty.
iMac worked great for about 1 month and then it started to power off by itself at random times. Brought it back to the apple store and they told me they found a problem with 1 of the fans and a loose bluetooth connection. They fixed those for free.

It is now about another month since it was in and now the monitor will go to sleep at random times. I can feel air coming from the bottom vents and the mouse still lights up showing that the computer is still on. I can not get the computer to start back up by tapping the mouse or keyboard. Sometimes the computer monitor will turn back on when I hold the power button down for a couple of seconds. Other times it will not turn back on and holding down the power button turns the computer off.
I have turned off the monitor going to sleep as well as the hard disk. the problem still occurs. Seems to be happening more frequently in the past 2 days.

Any thoughts on the problem?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

What was the original problem with the video card?

Do you think the fan was broken prior to you taking the Mac in for the original video issue?
 
E

eyedoc_00

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 25, 2005
208
0
superbovine said:
What was the original problem with the video card?


Do you think the fan was broken prior to you taking the Mac in for the original video issue?
Click to expand...

The screen was fragmented and you could not make out the desktop. It was replaced.

I do not think so. When I took it back the second time they told me they fixed a fan and that the bluetooth connections was loose. They fixed both for free.

Now the screen goes to sleep and I can not get it back on. It goes to sleep randomly. Sometimes it will work for an hour other times 5 minutes after turning it on. The computer is still on because the mouse still shows power. Sometimes when you tap the computer it beeps. I have turned off the setting of the computer monitor going to sleep as well has the hard drive.
 
superbovine

superbovine

macrumors 68030
Nov 7, 2003
2,872
0
It is going to hard to troubleshoot without swapping parts. If the fan was broken the first time and no one noticed your video card could have failed due to heat. All other failures could be from the heat as well. Bad power supply would cause the video issues as well.

It could also just be another bad part, but as I said originally, it will be hard troubleshoot this without swapping parts.
 
V

Victor Star

macrumors member
Dec 3, 2008
65
2
It sounds like the problem some people, myself included, are having with the display turning off. Next time it happens try pressing "ctrl + shift + the eject key" and move the mouse to basically wake up the display.

Next dim your display down 1 notch and see if it happens again. If it does shut off again turn the brightness down another notch and wait. I'm having to run my display at half way on the brightness scale. Mine is a mid 2010 27".

There are a lot of search engine results of you look up "iMac display turning off".

Hope that helps.
 
E

eyedoc_00

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 25, 2005
208
0
Victor Star said:
It sounds like the problem some people, myself included, are having with the display turning off. Next time it happens try pressing "ctrl + shift + the eject key" and move the mouse to basically wake up the display.

Next dim your display down 1 notch and see if it happens again. If it does shut off again turn the brightness down another notch and wait. I'm having to run my display at half way on the brightness scale. Mine is a mid 2010 27".

There are a lot of search engine results of you look up "iMac display turning off".

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

I found this on the apple support web site. I turned the brightness down last night and it did not turn off all night. This hopefully will be a fix for now. My iMac is from late 2009. I am not going to buy a new one now since I think they are coming out with new models in the fall. I wonder why having the brightness at a higher level causes the display to go to sleep and not wake upon touching the mouse?
 
V

Victor Star

macrumors member
Dec 3, 2008
65
2
I just wanted to post an update to this problem. My iMac kept getting worse until I could only use it with the brightness turned all the way down. I did some searching and found that some people were having luck using fan controller software to keep the temps down. It's been several days now that I've been running at ¾ brightness with no problems.

I downloaded Macs Fan Control software and I'm running the fans with these settings. (I'm making small changes and monitoring the temps.)
ODD - 2500RPM
HDD - 3750RPM
CPU - 2100RPM

Hope this helps.
 
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