Q: Dual Quad-core Mac Pro reboots from sleep

Wow, that's a powerful incentive for me not to go through the hassle of reinstalling a fresh copy of the OS, removing all of my drives, etc. and taking my MP down to the Apple Store.

This indicates 1) it's a firmware or software problem, or 2) it's a hardware problem they don't have a handle on.

Has anyone received a replacement that has solved their problem?

Mine is now rebooting again upon wake-up. I guess I can take it down to the Apple Store and hope I get one that works, or just wait it out and hope that Apple acknowledges the problem and releases a software fix or gives us new boxes.

What command or operation seemed to fix the problem in Cocktail?

Sandylp wrote:
I have always used Cocktail to resolve any issues on my G5 and my new MP. As soon as my MP restarted from sleep, I installed Cocktail and started using it and haven't experienced the problem since.

4/5 say "no major problem"
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=420235&page=5

After countless more hours without resolving this issue, I would like to know if there is any clear agreement on WHEN the reboot happens:

In my case, if I manually put the machine to sleep, or it does it itself, it will wake up if it has been sleeping for less than an hour (e.g., lunch break).

For longer sleeps - all afternoon or overnight - it almost always reboots.

My Mac Pro is plugged into a 1300 VA UPS, which has never kicked in. But, I wonder if there are issues with the internal power supply such that during long sleeps, the memory isn't provided with enough power to sustain its contents...thus preventing a proper wake.

So: quick survey -

1. Does the reboot happen for you only after 'long' (hour or longer) sleeps, or even short ones?

2. How much memory is installed in your Mac Pro, utilizing how many sticks? [I've got 10 GB on 6 sticks.]

Thanks,
Karl

I have the standard 2GB. I get reboots both with short sleeps (like a minute or two) and overnight. I also have had it survive long and short sleeps without problem. I have a feeling that it is a combination of which software is running and what it is doing when it sleeps that is causing my problems, but I haven't had the time to narrow it down.

I'm with Reed. There's no consistent pattern, or if there is, I haven't identified it. Often it won't reboot with short sleeps, but it sometimes does. It almost always reboots with longer sleeps. Seems less likely to reboot with minimal software running, but that's less certain.

I'm really angry I am wasting so much time on this.

There doesn't seem to be any consistency at all. Mine has rebooted after sleep three times and one was over night while another time was just after an hour. I usually wake my MP via the monitor, but today I've started connecting and disconnecting the USB cable to my printer to wake it up. I just wanted to see if it made any difference. So far, it has come awake very fast with a minimum of fan noise. I've also changed the bluetooth mouse and keyboard to not wake it up. I'm just experimenting because I am used to sleeping my computer off and on during the day and this feature is important to me. Incidentally, I have 4GB of memory installed (4 sticks).

Message was edited by: Sandylp

Okay, I just did a complete fresh install of Leopard onto an internal Seagate 1TB drive that tested perfectly.

THE VERY FIRST TIME I put it to sleep and tried to wake it (just a few seconds later), it rebooted.

I am taking this to the Apple Store, as I'm convinced it's a hardware issue at this point. Hopefully I get one that works.

Getting ready to take it to the Apple store I removed the TransIntl RAM and left in the factory standard 2 GB. Since I hadn't tested the RAM yet I thought I'd see if the problem occurs with only the factory RAM.

So far I've put it to sleep 10 times and woken it up successfully without a problem. I haven't had the chance to do a longer sleep yet, though.

In the past resetting the SMC has helped temporarily, which is of course what happened automatically when I unplugged the box and took out the RAM. The improvement may just be from that. I guess time will tell.

I think I recall that a few others on this thread had TransIntl RAM. But of course that can't be the only problem, because others with only Apple RAM are having this issue.

Well everyone,

I called Apple Support on February 20th to find out what Apple would suggest I do about this sleep issue (and a few other small issues I've had). I was on the phone for probably an hour and the two folks I spoke with were very kind and helpful.

They didn't have me do ANYTHING to my system, but immediately told me they wanted mt to bring in my MacPro (new stock config. dual 2.8 quad core) and they were going to be giving me a brand new one. They didn't even suggest that they'd try working on the unit.

Needless to say, I was at the Apple store the next day ad I've had the new machine since then. I haven't had any sleep/wake issues yet, but it's only been 3 days so I'll post an update if anything else develops.

However, I have had 3 total system crashes so far, all requiring hard restarts. I went and checked my system logs and each crash has began with a problem with the GPU. I'm assuming this is in regards to the many issues folks are having with the Radeon 2600's.

Each one has started a Kernel Panic, and each has started with:

2/24/08 6:04:07 PM kernel ** Device in slot: SLOT-1 **
2/24/08 6:04:07 PM kernel ** GPU Debug Info Start **

And of course it runs through the debug business and then continues to sit there crunching numbers until I shut it down.

Regardless, I think I'm going to try and order one of the Nvidia 8800 GT upgrade kits when I've got the money. It seems like most of the folks running the Nvidia cards are having fewer problems in general.

That's too bad. Sounds like you traded one problem for another - and a worse problem, IMO. Seems like these machines were not quite ready for release.

I've now woken my machine 20 times without a reboot after removing my TransIntl RAM, but I still haven't done a long sleep so it's too soon to tell. I'll know more by tomorrow morning.

sw_i_t_t_e_rs wrote:
I am taking this to the Apple Store, as I'm convinced it's a hardware issue at this point. Hopefully I get one that works.

Early in this thread there are a few posts from a user who experiences the reboot when awakening in the Mac OS, but who says it never happens if the machine is running Vista (natively). That suggests to me that it's an OS or firmware problem, NOT hardware.

Good point. Perhaps I should install a Windows partition and see if I have the same experience.

Earlier today I took out the 6 GB of TransIntl RAM I bought and went back to factory standard 2 GB. So far I haven't had a reboot on waking from sleep yet, and I've done it about 25 times. The longest stretch was 2 hours, so I won't know for sure until tomorrow morning. I plan to add back the RAM modules two at a time and see if I have problems.

I suppose it's possible the problem has nothing to do with the RAM, and was solved by the SMC reset that occurred when I took the RAM out - but I had done four or five SMC resets in the past, and while they seemed to solve the problem temporarily, they were only good for about three or four "wake-ups" before it started rebooting again.

Question: if it's an OS or firmware problem, why isn't EVERYONE (or even most people) experiencing it? Why is it limited to 20% or less of users? I don't understand much about how firmware works, so not clear on the mechanisms here.

Fair enough - and maybe the memory played a role on your case.
But we know for a fact that memory - be in Apple or 3rd party plays no role in the grander scheme of things as stock Apple systems - including the ones in the Apple Stores have the problem - and certainly are not using any 3rd party RAM....

Okay, guys.. I'm going to maybe sound a bit daft here.. but have any of you fiddled with your Energy Saver control panel settings and changed the timer that sets sleep more than once between booting up? For some reason, you can only set the sleep timer ONCE between boot ups. More than once, and it starts to act up and DOES cause problems - it gave me fits with my beige G3 running under Panther until I fingered it out.

Also, do you have your systems set to sleep the disk drives whenever possible?

The thought occurs - and this happened a lot to me on my beige, that if I had the unit sleep (either by setting it manually, or letting the timer do it) when the hard drive was already sleeping, it would crash on the wake. THAT was a never fail thing. Now that I had/have the beige running an XPostFacto install of Panther - and what with it being unsupported and all, I put it down to that.

But reading here, I'm thinking that in some instances, there may be a similar thing going on with your new machines - look at what the complaints are tied to.. hard drives and displays and sleep and all THREE are controlled by the Energy Saver control panel in one way or another. It does access the hardware in a different mode than the manual sleep and may be conflicting.

The fact that I can see it reported by a few that sleep running under Windows works is a BIG 'heads up' for me. My bet is a software/firmware clash.

Then again, I may just be blowing smoke in the air here.. but I'm feeling a bit chuffed that I managed to get the problem nailed for another gent who had the same sleep issue with his MacPro that I have - and the solution that I suggested works for my beige!

I have NO idea if this will help any of you, but check in your Energy Saver settings - un-check the hard drive sleep, set the display sleep timer and CPU sleep timer to never sleep, then reboot.

Use ONLY the manual sleep that you set from the menu bar and see if your system sleeps then wakes w/o problems.

If you need to have the machine sleep after a few minutes or hours of inactivity - set the timer only ONCE (between reboots) and see if that holds.

Could someone try this and see what happens? I'd be interested to know what results, if any, people have. It may work, stupid as it sounds.

Deb.