Waking from sleep problem

I have a brand new MBA with the 128 SSD and am running Snow Leopard. I also have a 23" cinema display.

My usual approach is to connect the MBA to my external keyboard and the display and then turn it on. It boots just fine and I end up with dual display (cinema and MBA). I then close the lid and the machine goes to sleep. Clicking on the mouse or keyboard NEVER wakes it up. Unplugging and replugging the USB keyboard sometimes wakes it, but not often. Doing the same with the monitor makes it turn off and on and off an on.

My goal is to boot the machine, close the lid, and use the external display only, but it just won't do it without a lot of guesswork and fuss. I have searched this forum and the help forum and not seen this identical problem. Am I missing a setting or doing something wrong here?

Thanks for the help.

 

Thanks. I tried that and it does not work. I did try booting the machine with monitor attached and immediately closing the lid as it booted and that did seem to work. Sees a bit buggy to me though...