Dual Quad-core Mac Pro reboots from sleep

Just want to add my name to the list. All of the same symptoms on my Mac Pro bought early Feb 2008.

Usually reboots from sleep, sometimes flat out fans and then nothing (requiring hard stop), and occasionally wakes up just like my old PowerBook always did. Tried all the remedies mentioned in this thread - sometimes goes OK for a day or two, but then back to the above.

Frustrated with no announcement from Apple; I've waited many years for a machine like this, and, apart from this annoying fault, it's amazing.

Can't understand how Apple can ignore a discussion this long!

Wow, I saw this thread before I purchased my machine and now here I am.

I had not had this issue until now. For the first MONTH I did not have this issue. It just started a couple days ago. I had problems with a network printer and while attempting to fix this the OS got really hosed. I installed Leopard on another drive and did a full restore of my "main" drive from Time Machine to recover. Once I did this, this boot-on-wake issue surfaced. After reading through this thread the only interesting fact is that I now have two drives with an OS so I had to select the TARGET.

John

Has anyone else tried booting from an external FW or the install DVD, shutting down, and then disconnecting the FW drive or ejecting the DVD? This is the method for "de-selecting" the startup disk, as stated in a previous post by someone else.

Curious to know if it works for others. I may try it myself if I have time later.

I'm also seeing the reset on wake problem. I noticed one possibly interesting related thing: I have a Dell 24" LCD with USB hub built-in. When I put the computer to sleep, and then turn off my monitor (standard thing to do, no?), my Mac Pro immediately reboots. When I made sure that all my USB devices were plugged into the Mac Pro itself, this doesn't happen. So something about the external USB hub powering off while the computer is in sleep is making things worse.

I've also observed the problem occurring "normally" too - the old "hit the keyboard and get a chime". It's starting to be a very stressful thing to hit a key on the keyboard 🙂

-elan

This seems to work reliably for me:

Reset the P-RAM but do not re-select a startup disk using System Preferences (this may be why the symptom "returns after a while" for some people). Requires your boot disk to be in drive bay 1.

I'm in the process of testing this now. I don't think it's necessary to have the boot drive in bay 1, though. I plugged in my external FW drive and selected it as my startup drive. I then shut down the computer, and unplugged the FW drive. When I hit the power button, there was a short delay while it looked for a start up disk, but then it found my boot drive (RAID 0 in bay 3 & 4) and started up.

Now, when I open "Startup Disk" in System Preferences, nothing is selected.

I've successfully "awoken" from sleep without reboot twice, but that doesn't mean anything. Other "solutions" have worked for up to five days before the problem came back. But I'll report back after a few days.

I have no USB hub (other than the one built into my ACD 23"), and I still experience this problem. There are others who have reported that all of their USB devices are plugged directly into their Mac Pros, and they still have the issue.

However, one person reported a while back that he bought two Sonnet Allegro USB 2.0 PCI cards. When all of us USB devices are plugged directly into those ports, instead of the ones on the Mac Pro, he had no issues at all.

This would of course suggest a USB problem, which is not uncommon in the history of Macs. My G5 tower had horrible USB issues (it wouldn't go to sleep on its own, and I'm pretty convinced that was a USB issue, for one).

The cards are $35 a piece. I've considered trying it out, but I think I'll wait in the hopes Apple finally fixes this.

Put me down as another Mac Pro user suffering from the "RAW" problem.

Has anyone noticed, you can force your MP to reboot after waking, simply by using VMware Fusion or Parallels, prior to setting the computer to sleep? Like clockwork, it will consistently reboot. I'm not saying it's a problem with Fusion/Parallels, but at least we have a way of demonstrating the issue in front of the Apple "geniuses".

Do we know that this is a hardware problem? Will my machine need to be replaced?

Between this, and the ATI Video/freeze problem with my previous Mac Pro (2007), Apple and their apparent total lack of QA is really starting to **** me off. I'm an inch closer to Solaris/Linux.

JasonBee wrote:

Has anyone noticed, you can force your MP to reboot after waking, simply by using VMware Fusion or Parallels, prior to setting the computer to sleep? Like clockwork, it will consistently reboot. I'm not saying it's a problem with Fusion/Parallels, but at least we have a way of demonstrating the issue in front of the Apple "geniuses".

This is helpful. Only problem is it gives Apple the chance to say "it's a problem with third-party software (VMWare or Fusion), not us." Of course that's nonsense, but they'll take that out if they can.

I agree about QA. In my case it's the reboot problem, dropped Airport connections (several very long threads on this) and iPhone sync difficulties.

SOME ONE TRY THIS SOLUTION

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1434203&tstart=120

Just to follow up, it has now been 28 days without the reboot problem since I "pushed the button" and zapped the PRAM.

Of note to those thinking it may be a USB issue. I am using the standard Al keyboard and a Wacom Intuos both plugged directly into the tower along with the the Cinema Display. The only thing I have plugged into the USB on the display is the receiver for the Logitech MX Revolution. I bring this up as I also unplugged everything from the display USB hub and plugged everything but the receiver into the tower the same day as I did the above.

After learning that I had pushed the DIAG button on Feb 24 and not the RESET button on March 11, I gave it a quick push for good measure as well.

Other possible relative info. I had the problem happening with the original stock 2GB from Apple, a combination of the original 2GB from Apple/8GB from OWC, and with my final configuration of 16GB of TransIntl. I have 4 hds with the system on bay 1, files on bay 2 and 3&4 software raid 1 for Time Machine. And yes, hatter I have an external FW for secondary **.

I did not apply the ATI firmware update as this came out a couple of days after I had received my 8800gt upgrade kit. But still had the 2600 in after I did the original push of the button, PRAM, USB config on Feb 24 until that time without incident.


s w_i_t_t_e_rs, etal just thought you would like to know. Don't know if it helps or not.

Thanks for the update. I'm super glad it's working for you - whatever it is!

I'm in the process of trying the "de-select the start-up disk" solution. So far I've had 6 successful wakes without a reboot. Of course that doesn't mean much, but I do notice that the computer wakes up very quickly and without the big fan blast. That seems like a good sign.

I'll report back in a few days if the success continues. You'll hear from me sooner if it doesn't!

s w_i_t_t_e_rs - thanks for the positive thoughts. Just woke my MP (again no problem) as I'm writing this from the MBP and checked my Start Up disks settings and I don't have anything selected as well. I think I did this as well sometime around Feb 22 after reading this somewhere, Mac Rumors, maybe? or here.

On the USB front, one thing I have noticed is that when I go to put the MP to sleep using the Apple Menu (never use the power button for sleep) I have to rush to turn off the Logitech and place it in it's recharge cradle before the tower goes into sleep or else it will wake right back up. It's pretty touchy, but then again my G5 would behave the same way at times.

No they can't; my Mac Pro has never had either virtualization solution installed.

Going all day after "deselecting" target HD. As you've stated not enough time has past but ...crossing fingers.

John

r210 wrote:
No they can't; my Mac Pro has never had either virtualization solution installed.

Just sayin' that if someone took their MP into an Apple store and booted up VMWare or Fusion and then put it to sleep and the machine rebooted, the Apple rep could claim it had something to do with VMWare or Fusion. The previous poster suggested it as a potential way to "prove" this is an issue with Mac Pros and not an individual user problem. The best way to prove that, IMO, is to demonstrate the problem with a fresh install of OS X and all Apple hardware (which I've been able to do, by the way).