Macbook Pro Sleep Issue

[Techguy98]

Hello all,

I have been having some recent trouble entering sleep mode on my early 2008 Macbook Pro. It has a recent fresh installation of OS X, and I use this mac as an auxiliary mac for light duty stuff. Right after the fresh install I can't seem to get it to go into or out of sleep properly. I have shut the lid, chose sleep from the apple menu, and let it try to go to sleep on its own after a period of time. None of these work. What happens in all three of these cases is that the mac goes immediately into a black screen with the fans and the Hard Disk still running. The Sleep light on the latch button remains fully lit. It stays like this indefinitely. When I open the lid or try to wake it up with the keyboard, it simply will not respond. Just a black screen and very slight fan noise. The only way I can get it back to normal operation is to force shutdown and reboot. After that it works great... at least until I ask it to sleep again. I have tried resetting the SMC and the PRAM to no avail, and I have also re-installed several different versions of OS X to attempt to remedy the issue. Nothing seems to work. Any suggestions?

 

[DeltaMac]

Is your battery in good shape?
Does it make a difference if running on battery (no power adapter connected), or running with power adapter attached?
Try running without the battery installed. Can you sleep then? Be sure to disconnect any connected devices including ethernet and USB hubs, leaving only the power adapter attached.

 

[Techguy98]

Is your battery in good shape?
Does it make a difference if running on battery (no power adapter connected), or running with power adapter attached?
Try running without the battery installed. Can you sleep then? Be sure to disconnect any connected devices including ethernet and USB hubs, leaving only the power adapter attached.

No, there is no difference when running with or without the battery/power adapter. I have nothing else connected to this Macbook Pro. Just the charger at times.

 

[DeltaMac]

Just a thought... Do you have an ExpressCard in the slot on the side?

Do you have a hard drive, or an SSD? (An SSD might need some firmware update, and a standard hard drive likely wouldn't have THAT issue)

Do you still have an optical drive installed? Or have you replaced that with another storage drive/hard drive (so you can have two internal storage drives...)
If you still have an optical drive, does it work?

As you have the same response to sleep, which seems to be that the video turns off, but nothing else happens to continue into normal sleep, then that would explain why you get the result that you can't get response to that, probably until you force it to shut off. My suspicion is that the graphics card is failing, or the power circuitry that powers (and shuts down) the graphics chip. Either way, the fix will be the same - logic board needs fixing/replacing.
You MIGHT have some luck with doing a "reball" of the logic board, or trying the "bake in the oven" trick that can help with some logic board chip issues for MBPros in that era. If it were me, I would find another similar MBPro. I'm kind of a "fixit" guy, but I don't like pulling logic boards to put the same back in. More often, I've not had good luck doing that - maybe you will have better luck. I prefer putting a tested (ebay) one right back in...

 

[Techguy98]

Just a thought... Do you have an ExpressCard in the slot on the side?

Do you have a hard drive, or an SSD? (An SSD might need some firmware update, and a standard hard drive likely wouldn't have THAT issue)

Do you still have an optical drive installed? Or have you replaced that with another storage drive/hard drive (so you can have two internal storage drives...)
If you still have an optical drive, does it work?

As you have the same response to sleep, which seems to be that the video turns off, but nothing else happens to continue into normal sleep, then that would explain why you get the result that you can't get response to that, probably until you force it to shut off. My suspicion is that the graphics card is failing, or the power circuitry that powers (and shuts down) the graphics chip. Either way, the fix will be the same - logic board needs fixing/replacing.
You MIGHT have some luck with doing a "reball" of the logic board, or trying the "bake in the oven" trick that can help with some logic board chip issues for MBPros in that era. If it were me, I would find another similar MBPro. I'm kind of a "fixit" guy, but I don't like pulling logic boards to put the same back in. More often, I've not had good luck doing that - maybe you will have better luck. I prefer putting a tested (ebay) one right back in...

I have had both an HDD and an SSD in the main disk bay. I was having this issue with both the hard disk and the brand new ssd. The stock optical drive is still installed, and it does work. I can boot to a Leopard install DVD no problem. The Leopard DVD installs fine aswell, but as soon as I ask it to go to sleep, it refuses to do so. I have read quite a lot about the graphics chip problems that this specific model. I was afraid that the graphics chip was the issue. I have another mac that has been the interim replacement for the troubled machine for the time, and I think it will serve just fine permanantly in the position. I think I'll sell it and see what I can get for it. The body is still positively gorgeous, so it might still be worth something in parts.

Thanks for all your help DeltaMac.

~Techguy98

 

[DeltaMac]

- Now you have me curious -
How is it possible that you have both an SSD and an HDD installed in the hard drive bay, and keep the optical drive installed, too?
I know there are some thin devices available, but there's still a 12.5mm max height in the hard drive area, correct?
Followup question - how do you have the two stacked drives connected?

 

[Techguy98]

I do not have two drive connected at the same time. Sorry about that confusion. At first I had a hard drive in it, and began experiencing problems that seemed to be caused by a hard drive failure. I then bought a SSD and installed it as a replacement. It worked well for about a week, but then the same problems re-occurred. I fresh-installed the OS after I installed the SSD also, if that makes a difference. What I meant by my original statement was that I had tried it with a hard disk and a SSD separately, not at the same time.

Thanks again DeltaMac!