Sleep kills 15 inch PowerBook?!?

[stoid]

Lately, my otherwise problem free new 15 inch Aluminum PowerBook has been acting a bit strange. Occasionally, when I close the lid to put it to sleep, it won't wake up properly. When I open the lid again, the screen remains off, I can hear an extremely faint whirring sound of some type coming from inside, not loud enough to be the fan, and maybe not even the HD. I've tried the brightness controls, as well as using keystrokes, mouse (built-in and USB) clicks, and clicking the power button to bring it back. It wouldn't accept a CD, and closing the lid again did not produce a comforting thrum of the white light although the whirring stops. The only way to bring it back is to hold down the power button until the whirring stops, (obviously force killing it) and then starting back up again. It starts up no problems then. I have not really found any pattern in the problem and it is somewhat infrequent. The only thing I can figure is that it generally only happens when I am moving around more and closing and opening the lid more frequently. Is there any other knowledge I can arm myself with before I call AppleCare?

 

[BrandonRP0123]

Lately, my otherwise problem free new 15 inch Aluminum PowerBook has been acting a bit strange. Occasionally, when I close the lid to put it to sleep, it won't wake up properly. When I open the lid again, the screen remains off, I can hear an extremely faint whirring sound of some type coming from inside, not loud enough to be the fan, and maybe not even the HD. I've tried the brightness controls, as well as using keystrokes, mouse (built-in and USB) clicks, and clicking the power button to bring it back. It wouldn't accept a CD, and closing the lid again did not produce a comforting thrum of the white light although the whirring stops. The only way to bring it back is to hold down the power button until the whirring stops, (obviously force killing it) and then starting back up again. It starts up no problems then. I have not really found any pattern in the problem and it is somewhat infrequent. The only thing I can figure is that it generally only happens when I am moving around more and closing and opening the lid more frequently. Is there any other knowledge I can arm myself with before I call AppleCare?

First thing I'd try is a PRAM reset. Fire up the machine and hold down command + option + P + R. Wait til the second chime and release.

Did this start when you updated to 10.3.3? Have you updated to 10.3.3 ?

 

[stoid]

I have updated to 10.3.3, but I don't know how long this has been happening. I sent it in to get the white spots on the screen repaired early January, and I know it wasn't happening yet then. I don't remember when it first started happening, but it's only happened three or four times I think, and I haven't tried to duplicate the problem (haven't had time to mess with it).

 

[Westside guy]

I used to have infrequent problems waking from sleep, and eventually traced it to a program I had running - an SSH key manager called SSH Agent. I replaced it with SSH Keychain, and haven't had a problem since.

My suggestion is to try consistently turning off running programs before "sleep", to see if you can narrow it down (assuming it's a program causing the issue). I'd imagine that's one of the first things the Apple Care tech will suggest anyway.

 

[wordmunger]

Make sure your battery is properly seated. I've had this same thing happen (even when plugged in) and it was just the battery. Just take it out and click it back in.

 

[stoid]

I'm in the middle of my last big college project before Spring Break next week, so I'll try some of this stuff over the weekend and get back to you all on the results. Thanks!

 

[7on]

hmmmmm, my powerbook has failed to sleep twice. Resulting in a required holding down of the power button. The first was due to Sound Studio and the 1h45min of audio I recorded Anyhoo, I have no idea what caused the second one this morning. I had only Safari, Mail, iChat (Beta) and iTunes open. It could have been iChat, but that hasn't caused me problems in the past.

Though I have been blaiming everything on my Bluetooth lately, maybe that's it?