Powerbook slow to sleep

[dgold105]

I have one of the new 17" powerbooks with the HD screen. Am running 10.4.3.

I am having a problem that often the powerbook takes close to a minute to go to sleep after closing the lid and on the odd occasions it doesn't go to sleep at all.

I have tied a PRAM reset, fixed permissions, done an archive and install, checked activity monito and startup items, run tech tool pro none of which have fixed the problem. The problems persists across any users.

Anyone know how I can work out what is causing the problem or how I can remedy it?

David

 

[mkrishnan]

Does it do this even if no programs are running? If so, I wonder, how much RAM do you have, and how much free disk space? Perhaps it is something to do with safe sleep that has become messed up?

 

[dollystereo]

Do you have any postFix enabled system to send email?
That usually makes insomnia PB, I solved that reading a tip from MACOXhints.com

Sorry I dont remeber

 

[darkwing]

I have one of the new 17" powerbooks with the HD screen. Am running 10.4.3.

I am having a problem that often the powerbook takes close to a minute to go to sleep after closing the lid and on the odd occasions it doesn't go to sleep at all.

I have tied a PRAM reset, fixed permissions, done an archive and install, checked activity monito and startup items, run tech tool pro none of which have fixed the problem. The problems persists across any users.

Anyone know how I can work out what is causing the problem or how I can remedy it?

David

Hi David. I have this problem and problems with it waking up as well. As usual, Apple gave us a product with crappy software. Imagine that.

Have you noticed that even with your energy performance setting on "better performance" it still scales the CPU frequency? It isn't even a custom option to turn that off anyway. If I play an MP3 with the system at idle, iTunes eats around 11% of the CPU time. If I open up a terminal window, and type "while true ; do echo hi ; done" which brings the CPU load up to 100%, iTunes CPU usage drops to <6%.

 

[dgold105]

Yes it does it if no programs are running. It also does it when rebooting in safe mode. I have 2GB RAM and 25GB free on my hard drive.

Is this the postfix link you were talking about:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050504131428334&query=postfix

Do you think it is worth trying this or just wait until 10.4.4 to see if it resolves it?

 

[crazzyeddie]

Its because of the Safe Sleep feature on the new Powerbooks. Its actually writing your RAM contents to the hard drive so that if the battery goes dead you won't essentially crash the system.

Its not crappy software, so don't speak out of ignorance.

However, I'm not sure why it doesn't go to sleep sometimes. You should try creating a blank user account and trying sleep from there to see how long it takes. If you still have problems, run top in the blank user account and look for processes that aren't standard. Those could be keeping the computer awake.

Making a new blank user account is better than an archive and install, since there is a chance that you have something installed in your user directory that is keeping that machine awake. Again, checking the terminal on a blank account is the best way to see what processes are running when you have "no apps" open.

 

[dgold105]

I have tried a new blank user account and the problem persists.

What is the command I use in terminal to see what processes are running?

Pardon my ignorance but what is "top"?

Thanks,

David

 

[darkwing]

Its because of the Safe Sleep feature on the new Powerbooks. Its actually writing your RAM contents to the hard drive so that if the battery goes dead you won't essentially crash the system.

Its not crappy software, so don't speak out of ignorance.

However, I'm not sure why it doesn't go to sleep sometimes. You should try creating a blank user account and trying sleep from there to see how long it takes. If you still have problems, run top in the blank user account and look for processes that aren't standard. Those could be keeping the computer awake.

Making a new blank user account is better than an archive and install, since there is a chance that you have something installed in your user directory that is keeping that machine awake. Again, checking the terminal on a blank account is the best way to see what processes are running when you have "no apps" open.

I think you're the one speaking out of ignorance. You can look at the latest technology document here:

http://images.apple.com/powerbook/pdf/20051018_PowerBook_TO.pdf

Look for the sleep swapping blurb, where it says the PB can maintain ram contents for a few seconds when sleeping so you can swap batteries without shutting down. Doesn't seem like a "safe sleep" feature to me.

My PB goes to sleep almost instantly, typically. Just sometimes it takes a while.

The way it SHOULD (and I think does, from what I can tell) work is that all pending I/O operations are completed before the computer actually sleeps.

I shudder to think how long it would take my computer to go to sleep if it had to dump 2 gigs of ram to the HD.

 

[darkwing]

I have tried a new blank user account and the problem persists.

What is the command I use in terminal to see what processes are running?

Pardon my ignorance but what is "top"?

Thanks,

David

Top is a program that lets you see essentially what the activity monitor shows you. Think of it as activity monitor for advanced users.

Type "man top" at a terminal for more information.

 

[crazzyeddie]

Look for the sleep swapping blurb, where it says the PB can maintain ram contents for a few seconds when sleeping so you can swap batteries without shutting down. Doesn't seem like a "safe sleep" feature to me.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302477

and...

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302732

That sure seems like even Apple is saying that it takes a while for the computer go to go sleep...

(note: before someone says it, the double-layer superdrive model is the HD model)

I shudder to think how long it would take my computer to go to sleep if it had to dump 2 gigs of ram to the HD.

Exactly my point.

 

[crazzyeddie]

http://images.apple.com/powerbook/pdf/20051018_PowerBook_TO.pdf

Look for the sleep swapping blurb, where it says the PB can maintain ram contents for a few seconds when sleeping so you can swap batteries without shutting down. Doesn't seem like a "safe sleep" feature to me.

My PB goes to sleep almost instantly, typically. Just sometimes it takes a while.

Oh, and by the way, the swapping feature has been in Powerbooks since the Wallstreet, or maybe even the original G3 Powerbook... its nothing new at all. The safe sleep feature is, though. If you search these threads, you can get a pretty good idea of what it is and how you can use it on your older Powerbook, too.

 

[darkwing]

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302732

If you actually take the time to read this, you'll notice this only happens when the battery is completely depleted. He's just going to sleep and waking up. I've never actually seen what's listed in the picture here.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302732

This one proves my point entirely. The hard drive stops writing information (waiting for all I/O operations to finish) before entering sleep. All noise stops and my light starts flashing within about 5 seconds when I close the lid. Pulling the plug out of it does the same thing when in clamshell mode. HOwever, if I'm in clamshell mode and unplug the video cable and the USB cable, it takes more like 20 seconds. I think this is to give you time to plug the cable back in.

His problem isn't safe sleep. Xbench said my top write speed is 45.31 MB/sec with my 100 gig 7200 rpm drive. It would take over 44 seconds for it to write two gigs to the drive at that speed. I've never had my computer take even half that time.

 

[crazzyeddie]

If you actually take the time to read this, you'll notice this only happens when the battery is completely depleted. He's just going to sleep and waking up. I've never actually seen what's listed in the picture here.

1) Do you have an HD Powerbook?

2) If you actually take the time to read...

Prior to your system entering sleep, Safe Sleep automatically saves the contents of main memory—such as desktop settings, open applications, and other work in progress—to the hard drive. In the event the battery becomes completely depleted while the system is asleep, the computer will shut down.

 

[crazzyeddie]

Upon reading many more user reports on Safe Sleep, I think that there may be more than one thing happening here. First, there is some process that is being a bitch (not letting the computer sleep quickly) and Safe Sleep. It seems that even with 2GB of RAM, the longest it takes to sleep is 30 seconds (with many apps open).

How often do you restart your computer dgold105? If you go a long time without reboots, it could be writing some unnecessary RAM contents to the hard drive, prolonging the time it takes to sleep.

 

[darkwing]

1) Do you have an HD Powerbook?

2) If you actually take the time to read...

Yes I do. The latest 17". And this discussion is going nowhere. I have 2 gigs of RAM, and have already shown it would take over 44 seconds for my computer to sleep. I have said my computer never takes more than 5 seconds before the light starts pulsing (which apple says means it's asleep) which means it cannot be writing the ram to the hard drive. The thing you quoted is for a progress bar appearing, which I have NEVER seen. This means that my computer is not entering "safe sleep."

I don't doubt that it saves some stuff before entering sleep.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284

Read that. The last paragraph. It suggests safe sleep only occurs when the battery is fully depleted.

 

[themacmaestro]

I have a new 15" and sometimes it takes a bit to go to sleep and finally does/ Do you have all the applications shut down in the background> I have found this to be a culprit at times.

 

[dgold105]

Response

I have taken out the 2Gb RAM and replaced it with the original 512Mb that came with the machine. There is no change to the problem. The sleep time is not any faster and it hasn't resolved the problem.

I restart regularly and the problem exists immediately after startup (if I put the system to sleep) and also when I boot up in safe mode.

Anyone got any further ideas about what I can try? It seems it is some kind of software issue but short of a clean install I can't think of what else to do.

David

 

[dgold105]

Files

I have logged in with a blank clean new user file. Problem still exists. I have run top and ps. I have attached results in a file. I also ran Activity Monitor and attached a sceenshot. Can anyone see anything out of the ordinary here?

 

[mkrishnan]

I think you might be rapidly approaching "bug Apple or clean install" time. At least, I don't see anything obviously wrong in your list of processes...that stuff is supposed to be running.