I have a newly acquired FW800 G4 1.25ghz x2. When I wake it up from sleep the machine seems to turn on but The screen remains black, I also cannot remote into it. I have replaced the PSU from another fw800 (single 1ghz) and sleep worked in that one. Reseated all pci, agp card, and ram. I have also reset pmu, nvram, and PRAM. Also tried a fresh install of 10.5.8. Another symptom is occasionally it will not restart from the Apple menu. Can anyone think of anything else I can do short of replacing the logic board?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Resolved Powermac G4 won’t wake from sleep
- Thread starter bjar
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I am booting from a sata controller, which worked perfectly in the other machine. I will go pick up some ide/sata bridges and try that. Video card is a GeForce 4mx which I assume is a Mac version. It was also pulled from the other machine. Maybe should just pop the dual 1.25 processor in that machine and just call it a day. Don’t want to deal with removing whatever resistor it is to up the bus speed though.
For me, this symptom is always related to one of the PCI cards not supporting sleep or an incompatible kext file of the card. Try removing all the unnecessary cards.
It could be more subtle as well, for example, in 10.4.11, if I use my bluetooth dongle from one of the USB2 ports of my PCI card, it won't wake up from sleep. But it will be fine if the dongle is plugged into one of the Mac's own USB1 ports. This issue doesn't appear in 10.5.8.
It could be more subtle as well, for example, in 10.4.11, if I use my bluetooth dongle from one of the USB2 ports of my PCI card, it won't wake up from sleep. But it will be fine if the dongle is plugged into one of the Mac's own USB1 ports. This issue doesn't appear in 10.5.8.
PowerMac G4's can be fickle with controller cards in my experiences. Specifically with things like system sleep and drive sleep. Try turning off drive sleep in the energy saver preferences, and also turning it off instead of sleeping it. If you insist on sleeping the system then you'll likely need to boot from a PATA drive, or use a SATA to PATA adapter on a SATA drive and connect it to the built in ATA100 connection at the back of the case.
I have tried repairing permissions and a lot of permissions differ for kext files, and it refuses to repair them, just lists them. Not sure if that could be in. I tried to install the 10.5.8 combo update twice and then donpermission repair again but doesn’t work. I read somewhere that would fix it. However, after the install I clicked restart and the machine froze. So thinking there is probably something more serious going on.
[doublepost=1544468293][/doublepost]
Yeah turning it off is not really a problem. I don’t use it every day, just the kind of person where I want everything to work perfectly. But I understand that an $18 machine from goodwill will probably not be perfect.
Did you start from a fresh install of 10.5.0 first? If not, third party's kext files still remains.
If the image is made from a retail 10.5.4 install DVD, it should be OK.
About the permissions repair, it's normal for some of them not being repaired.
The list is here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203172
Another good question is what brand and model is the controller card, and do you have the newest firmware available?
It is a generic siig 3114. Guess it was flashed but someone. Got it off eBay a while back. Couldn’t find a sonnet card. I’ll check in to the firmware. It did work flawlessly is the other machine though so thinking it’s not the issue but it still a variable. When I get the ide bridge I will test without the card.
Two more possibilities…
Do you have any USB devices connected when the Mac goes to sleep? Some USB devices don't support sleep and that can cause the Mac to lockup on wake.
Second, are you using a Western Digital Green drive at all? WD Greens have a tendency to sleep and ignore OS touch and wake commands. Waking the Mac while the drive is sleeping can also cause this.
I've had both issues in the past.
Do you have any USB devices connected when the Mac goes to sleep? Some USB devices don't support sleep and that can cause the Mac to lockup on wake.
Second, are you using a Western Digital Green drive at all? WD Greens have a tendency to sleep and ignore OS touch and wake commands. Waking the Mac while the drive is sleeping can also cause this.
I've had both issues in the past.
My boot drive is a crucial ssd. I have western digital red in there that I pulled from a nas for storage. I have already tried with that removed though. The only thing I have plugged in to usb is my 20” Cinema Display with an Apple pro keyboard and pro mouse are plugged into that. I have the Bluetooth module installed but nothing connected. Also have AirPort Extreme installed. I moved all of this stuff stuff over from the single 1ghz machine which worked flawlessly with all of it. Tonight I will just remove pretty much everything and reinstall leopard and start from scratch. Also for information, I ran AHT extended and passed.
Ok so I have an update. I removed pci cards. Plugged the ssd into an ide/sata bridge. Left other drive unplugged. Sleep is still not working. Still have black screen upon wake. However, I installed the hibernate preference pane I found which installs nvram patch for hibernation. So now I can hibernate and it wakes from that. Go figure, something that is not supposed to work on these machines works great. Only thing missing during hibernation is the led pulse and you cannot wake from the mouse or keyboard, only from power button, which I guess is fine. Now to find a use for this machine, I wanted to set it up complete with an old cinema adc and pro speakers in the living room but the wife said no. 
Also, what is causing this weird video glitch around the grid stack? See screenshot.
![Picture 1.png]( "Picture 1.png")
Also, what is causing this weird video glitch around the grid stack? See screenshot.
Last edited:
Your graphics card isn't Leopard Core Image compatible - I've had similar glitches with non-compliant GPU.
That is what I figured. Will probably find a G5 card and do the pin taping thing.