iMac sleep question

[stealthboy]

I just got an iMac last week, and have noticed that many times when I log out, the machine will not go to sleep after the specified time (I have it set to 10 minutes in the preferences). Sometimes it will, however. If I restart the machine, it'll then go to sleep after 10 minutes just fine.

If I choose sleep manually (from the apple menu or on the login screen) it sleeps just fine. It just seems to be the Power Saving mode setting that doesn't always kick in. The display will go blank, but the white throbbing light will not come on.

I called Apple tech support once about it and the guy had me remove a preference setting file and restart with the option-apple-P-R key combo to reset it, and it seemed to sleep fine for a day, but then yesterday it would not.

Are there certain things that would keep the machine from sleeping even though I've logged out? BTW, It's a new 20" iMac with OS X Panther.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[stealthboy]

It seems to sleep fine right after I reboot. But as soon as I log in and log back out, it will not sleep using the power saving settings (manually clicking 'sleep' will make it sleep, though).

Any ideas at all on this?

 

[Fabrix2003]

unsure about this it seems like a technical hick, surely mac techs shold of known the problem, but depending on what you are doing at the time if watching something like a movie it will not go into sleep mode. dunno what you are doing at the time you leave the machine what application are you playing with at the time you leave your machine to other things?

 

[flyfish29]

could it be that your mail program is automatically checking for mail and keeps it "active"? I know my screen saver works everytime at the specified time, but the computer doesn't always go to sleep at the specified time either...nothing major, but I wonder if having DSL and mail being checked every few minutes keeps this from happening??? I will play around with mine and see if I can get it to work fine or not. I don't really pay much attention to it, but more to the screensaver part as I have a 3 year old that would love to screw around with the computer so I keep screen saver going with password protect to keep him in check. 😀

iMac 17" with Jaguar

 

[stealthboy]

could it be that your mail program is automatically checking for mail and keeps it "active"? I know my screen saver works everytime at the specified time, but the computer doesn't always go to sleep at the specified time either...nothing major, but I wonder if having DSL and mail being checked every few minutes keeps this from happening??? I will play around with mine and see if I can get it to work fine or not. I don't really pay much attention to it, but more to the screensaver part as I have a 3 year old that would love to screw around with the computer so I keep screen saver going with password protect to keep him in check. 😀

iMac 17" with Jaguar

But I'm having this no-sleep problem when I'm logged out. Therefore no applications such as Mail.app are running. So I'm wondering if there is some background processes that may be blocking the normal Energy Saver settings. If I select "sleep" manually on the login window, it'll sleep just fine. The problem is that it's not doing it automatically as it once did. I've only had the iMac for a week, and for the first two days it went to sleep on its own just fine at the login screen.

 

[Colonel Panik]

I've had an iMac 17" for over a year now, and I have never used the 'sleep after x minutes' function, mostly because the machine is so quiet that I don't mind if it's on. I do set the display to sleep, and I'm always changing the value depending on what I'm doing. When I want it to sleep, I usually do it via the menu.

In order to test your problem, I tried changing the 'put the computer to sleep when it is inactive for' value, and I've found that it's a bit peculiar. If I set the value to '1 min' then I find that the display will go black after 1 minute, but the machine will not sleep at that point. But if I leave it a while then it will sleep, but it's not after 1 minute. Perhaps it's counting the time wrong, e.g. x minutes from when the screen goes black...

I've disconnected all peripherals and the network, quit all User processes, but I still don't get the expected behaviour. This is on Panther. I can't tell you how it behaved under Jaguar, because I never used the function.

I'll look at it again and if I find anything, I'll let you know. I'll also give it a go on my other macs.

 

[abhishekit]

But I'm having this no-sleep problem when I'm logged out. Therefore no applications such as Mail.app are running. So I'm wondering if there is some background processes that may be blocking the normal Energy Saver settings. If I select "sleep" manually on the login window, it'll sleep just fine. The problem is that it's not doing it automatically as it once did. I've only had the iMac for a week, and for the first two days it went to sleep on its own just fine at the login screen.

reset the power manager, it has a lot to do with sleep and wake...
cheers