Q: Dual Quad-core Mac Pro reboots from sleep

yvonnejim wrote:
My Mac Pro has "behaved" for over 2 weeks now. If I can only figure out what did it. I've installed XP with Bootcamp on a partitioned internal drive in Bay 2. I've also done a Carbon Copy Clone of my Main HD on an External HD. And I tried all the other "fixes" first, but they did not help. Or maybe I have just been lucky for 2 weeks.

Mine hasn't rebooted at wake again either. It only did it a couple times before I tried all the steps listed in the forum so I'm not sure what really worked. Everything seems to be working OK now, but of course now I'm paranoid. I wonder why some machines are doing it every time and some have only done it a few times??

Mr.Squidward wrote:
See >http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/appleaday/blog/2008/03/howi_solved_my_mac_prosreboo.html

That's a good suggestion in my opinion... I noticed, finally, what I did since I'm not getting restart anymore in these days: I mounted an ATA EIDE HardDisk on the second optical bay of mac pro. It's strange, but it's working with no restart anymore... I also have a second sata HDD, except original one in bay1, for windows xp.
I did so: mounted ATA HDD (I had this hdd in external firewire box before), unchecked option "let hdds stop...", and unselected booting hard drive in preferences panel.

Message was edited by: clagom

Message was edited by: clagom

I agree that it's important for us to do our best to narrow this down. Apple is likely trying to do the same thing. I've heard mixed reports of their admission of the problem, though. Someone I know just spoke to Apple and they denied any knowledge of a specific issue (even a Level 2 tech said that). So it seems to depend on who you get when you call. I haven't talked to anyone there for a week or so, but I think I will call and let them know I'm still having the problem and see what they say.

In my case I've tried everything except for swapping drives. At this point my motivation to try new things is diminished, because it doesn't seem like there's anything that works consistently for everyone. I'm hoping Apple figures this out soon, or at least acknowledges the problem publicly. If they do that, I'll feel a little more confident that a solutions will be forthcoming - one way or the other. But as long as they continue to ignore it, I'm nervous because that means as far as they're concerned the problem is ours - not theirs.

This is Apple's problem, and they need to acknowledge that. Soon.

sw_i_t_t_e_rs wrote:

This is Apple's problem, and they need to acknowledge that. Soon.

Amen to that.

My new MAC PRO 8-Core 3.2 had the same problem - reboot from a "long" sleep, but a simple PRAM and SMC RESET fixed this problem. No more reboots, etc. I have owned several PowerMACs and other MAC Pros.

I'm not discounting that others are having a problem, but I question if people are doing the RESETs properly. I followed the instructions and the machine is working perfectly. I know some people are not unplugging ALL of the cables and waiting a minute when doing the SMC reset.

Ummm, yeah. I've owned Macs since the Apple IIe. Many others in this thread are also long-time Mac users. I know how to reset PRAM and the SMC, and I've done just that more times than I can count while troubleshooting this issue. It sometimes helps for a little while, sometimes not at all - but neve resolves the problem.

Glad it worked for you, though.

Clearly this is a strange issue. Why are some people able to solve the problem with a simple SMC or PRAM reset? Why are some able to resolve it with a drive swap? Why do others, like myself, have no success at all despite trying all of the solutions?

I agree that it is weird that many of us seem to have the same symptoms, yet some resolve it and others can't. As you noted, many of us have been using Apples for a long time - you more than me ( I started about 7 years ago). All I can offer to folks is that I had the problem right out of the box. A slow sleep cycle would work fine, but having the machine sleep for 1+ hours would cause it to reboot upon wake.

I did a PRAM RESET and shutdown the machine right after. I disconnected all of the cables for the SMC RESET. I then followed the exact order of connecting the POWER cable FIRST, then the keyboard/mouse. I then reattached the 30" MONITOR and the rest of the firewire/USB devices.

I've never paid too much attention to the connection order before, but then again my MAC PRO was acting flaky..., so I followed Apple's exact instructions. And now I have a perfectly working MAC PRO.

Maybe I got lucky.

The last MACBOOK PRO I bought had a similar sleep issue - it would hang. The forum was full of similar problems - a PRAM and SMC RESET fixed that machine and it has been trouble free for several months.

I am not convinced that nobody has been able to solve the problem with a simple SMC or PRAM reset. The failure is intermittent and aleatory and you can easily think that it's solved when you have just got a good streak.

I suppose it wouldn't kill me to try it that way. My keyboard and wireless mouse are plugged into a hub, so I haven't done the exact order because when I plug the hub in there are other devices being connected besides the keyboard/mouse.

I doubt it will matter, though, and I'm fairly certain others have followed those instructions here. This is too widespread of a problem to be solved by a simple SMC and PRAM reset.

I called apple support and toghether with the guy on the phone we looked at this thread, he advised me to shut own my mac pro 8 core and remove all cables, wait a minute and then while starting up pressing optionapple+pr, and hold these keys until the booing was heard for 4 times. I tought it would not be fixed, but i must honestly tell that it's fixed now for over 2 days, each time i get out of sleep all works fine!!!

so i'm a happy 8 core mac pro 4gb ram 8800GT owner!!!!!!!

FYI that is called a PRAM reset and pretty much everyone in this thread has tried that several times, and it hasn't worked. Or, it does for a short time but then the problem returns. Not to rain on your parade, but the improvement you've seen may be temporary. At least it has been for most in this thread.

Ok, just mentioning that it works for the moment, i asked the guy to make a ticket and to give that ticket number to me, i got it here hanging with a post it on my 30" they get a call directly when it's un-fixed

Same thing, new Mac Pro 2.8 Ghz "Early 2008" restarts when I try to wake it up from sleep.

Apple's quality control has really gone down the tubes lately. I guess they are too busy worrying about iPods and iPhones to make sure their pro software and pro hardware are ready to go out the door.

Just to inform and give hope to would be buyers: I don't have this problem on my new Mac Pro, and I was literally afraid to buy one after reading this thread. Maybe this problem will appear later, but I'm sure I will handle it, because at least now my Mac runs just fin.

Specifics: I have base Mac Pro (early 2008). First I installed all the updates, then I started transferring data from my old PowerBook. I didn't use Migration Assistant. I installed software from original packages. One thing I noticed: when the computer starts and when it returns from sleep fans are running loud for about a second. I know earlier models didn't behave like this, they started quietly. Maybe it has something to do with SCM which controls fans as well besides power modes.

Some pages before in this thread, you can read how my unit worked flawlessly during the whole first week. Then the syndrome began and never went away. I put my computers to sleep quite often.