My iMac is an insomniac!

[monty77]

After much nagging from the wife I've finally gotten around to looking at my iMac's sleep issues .. basically it goes to sleep as told then wakes up a few mins later for no good reason.

Wake for network access is unticked, wake on bluetooth likewise.

I unplugged everything from the machine USB wise and set it to sleep, then checked the console log and saw this:

19/05/2011 11:48:21 kernel The USB device Card Reader (Port 5 of Hub at 0x26000000) may have caused a wake by issuing a remote wakeup (2)

By process of elimination I determined that port 5 is the SD card reader, which was empty at the time. Curiously when I leave a card in there it seems to sleep just fine.

Hardware issue? Known software bug? Design fault?

iMac is out of warranty sadly which is a shame as it's always done this.

Cheers!
M

 

[maflynn]

This may not be all that helpful but my Macs seem to have sleep issues and they always have. I've never found the cause and have done similar steps as you documented.

 

[MacmancUK]

Have you checked:
System Preferences
Energy Saver
Options
Wake up for Ethernet etc


My old G3 iMac used to keep waking up from sleep, it was Mail checking for mail, even if not connected to Internet.
My solution was to quit Mail before sleep.

This constant checking whilst sleeping seems to have been cured in later versions of OSX
My G3 was on something like 10.3

Or even knocking the mouse will wake iMac from sleep.

 

[monty77]

Have you checked
System Preferences
Energy Saver
Options
Wake up for Ethernet etc


My old G3 iMac used to keep waking up from sleep, it was Mail checking for Mail, even if not connected to Internet.
This constant checking whilst sleeping seems to have been cured in later versions of OSX
My G3 was on something like 10.3

Yup .. it us unticked. In the logs the cause of wakeup is very clear - code EHC2 .. USB.

Cheers,
Monty

 

[maflynn]

Have you checked:
System Preferences
Energy Saver
Options
Wake up for Ethernet etc

Wake for network access is unticked, wake on bluetooth likewise.

You really didn't read through is his post I gather

 

[MacmancUK]

You really didn't read through is his post I gather

Missed that line !!

 

[maflynn]

Missed that line !!

I can't tell you how many times I missed stuff like that

 

[MacmancUK]

Tell me about it !

Me too.

 

[applemagic123]

record a video

Record a video of your mac. Make sure the keyboard and mouse are visible in this recording. Do it several times. Take the video into the apple store and tell them about the problem. If they are unable to "reproduce" the problem they're basically going to try to tell you that you are crazy or something so make sure you have the video.

This happens with my iMac but only it will wake up a split second after I put it to sleep. Very annoying, then I have to put it to sleep again.

 

[monty77]

I think I have it sorted.

It kept waking up, writing various things to the console as it did so.

On the advice of another poster I added a scheduled wake up (once a week at an obscure time) to Engery saver settings and all of a sudden it sleeps perfectly.

Strange but true!
Monty

 

[JediMeister]

While you may have found a workaround, give a look at the support article discussing sleep/wake issues and applicable troubleshooting steps found here.

 

[digitalhen]

I think I have it sorted.

It kept waking up, writing various things to the console as it did so.

On the advice of another poster I added a scheduled wake up (once a week at an obscure time) to Engery saver settings and all of a sudden it sleeps perfectly.

Strange but true!
Monty

Monty - wow! I've been trying everything to fix my insomniac 2010 MBP for months; code, utils, wake on lan settings... nothing worked, except this tip of yours.

Perhaps not your original idea, but I found your post first, so thanks!

 

[McRCN]

I think I have it sorted.

It kept waking up, writing various things to the console as it did so.

On the advice of another poster I added a scheduled wake up (once a week at an obscure time) to Engery saver settings and all of a sudden it sleeps perfectly.

Strange but true!
Monty

Interesting idea. I have the problem, so I will give it a shot. Thanks for sharing!

 

[iLidz]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Do you have any open applications when putting the Mac to sleep. Not just open windows but also any dock icons with the little light on. This is what seems to have been causing my Mac to wake for no apparent reason. After quiting all open apps before sleep my mac's sleep problems went away.