Q: Dual Quad-core Mac Pro reboots from sleep

A few days ago, I found that my computer had put itself to sleep. Somehow, the energy saver panel setting had changed on its own. And, I have found that iChat keeps going online during the night when I have set it to offline. I haven't noticed anything else, but those were just strange.

I'm going to take some time this weekend to investigate my system, and try all the resets and whatnot.

I get the same problem. Cannot even "reset pram", as the keyboard combination does NOT work on start up after complete shut-down.
Whilst machine working fine, the sleep issue is not good. I even installed brand-new OS on new/different harddrive.

No I didn't. I removed the memory, packed back the Mac and called the Apple Store demanding a refund. I'm not engineer but I have some experience with bad RAM (kernel panics, application closing etc.) but a reboot instead of waking from sleep...??? I don't know...
Personally my intuition makes me suspect an electronic failure. Software doesn't show wear nor get stressed nor grow old, and many of the affected units, like mine, seem to show symptoms after some days of use. And Apple's silence only reaffirms my bad thinking.

I have been following this thread for awhile as I too have experienced the problem of rebooting rather than waking properly form sleep. As has been described previously I can report that resetting the SMC and the PRAM worked for me in correcting the problem. While I have, so far, gone only two full days without the problem returning I have done quite a few shut downs and sleep cycles. The sleep cycles have lasted anywhere from just a few minutes to several hours.

Hi Magnitude,
Hope it keeps working. Mine did for a few days, then went back to old ways. By the way, i am using an apple wired mouse (too wired to sleep, i guess)
LZ (aka sleepless in hilo)

I reinstalled OS X and did the PRam reset as well as the SMC rest. All seems well for now as far as the reboot from sleep goes. But, now my system will not go to sleep automatically. I set my sleep time to 10 minutes in the energy saving prefs to test it and after 2 hours my system was still running as normal.

It will sleep though when I press the power button..

Message was edited by: kolson76

Just had Apple call me. Their telephone support is superb! Apart from offering help, they also stated, that I can have a new machine if the problems don't subside.

Now that is the quality I am used to from Apple.

And trashing the SystemConfiguration files in /Library/Preferences seems to do the trick (for now)

Yes, I agree that this is the kind of service we deserve. Did you ask to speak to a Level 2 tech? Did they acknowledge that this is a known problem?

And did they suggest trashing the SystemConfiguration files?

I believe I saw this suggested earlier in the thread, and I think I even tried it (if I did, it didn't work). Anyone else tried it?

sw_i_t_t_e_rs wrote:

And did they suggest trashing the SystemConfiguration files?

I believe I saw this suggested earlier in the thread, and I think I even tried it (if I did, it didn't work). Anyone else tried it?

I tried it (trashed com.apple.PowerManagement.plist from Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration

This did nothing for me. From the widely varied advice people in this thread got from Apple care it's obvious they don't know how to fix it or why it's happening and are just clutching at straws. I find it really annoying. I wish they would just acknowledge the problem and say they are working on a fix (I sure hope they are).

Unfortunately, I think they're as clueless as we are. If they knew what was going on, and how to fix it, we wouldn't be posting to this thread anymore. Sigh.

well, as i recall the fix for the screen freeze on iMacs took several months. In the end the problem was fixed by a firmware update. That's what I'm hoping for in our case as well.

Yes, It was level 2 (or back office), and they now put a note on my file that I will speak to them again, as the trashing of sys config files has -alas! - not helped.
He merely said, "don't worry, we'll stick a new Mac in the post to you"; so even though I ordered it online, Apple's help is great. They'd deliver new machine first, then take old one back.

But I did say to him that this topic has been raised by hundreds of people and the Mac Pro (early 08) is only just come out.

I happen to run Leopard on my (older) Intel Mac Book ("only" Core Duo, NOT DUAL core Duo) and Leopard works fine and I am very pleased with it. So it must be something to do with the new Quad Core. I cannot even use the key combination cmdoptn+PR to reset PRAM.

I have the same restart from sleep problem as most people here.
One things thats seems clear is that it is not consistent at all with regards to the amount of time the computer needs to be in sleep mode, for the restart to happen.

As I found out, when I stupidly forgot about the all this sleep problem, and put the computer to sleep with of course work still left open on it! Having realized my mistake a second after the computer went to sleep, I tapped the keyboard, and the computer immediately rebooted.

So it seems you can't always follow the rule that the computer will give you at least a few minuets in sleep mode before a restart.

If there's any way you could get the name of the rep you spoke with and post it here or perhaps send it to me offline I'd appreciate it. I've never heard of anyone at Apple offering anything close to the service you're being offered on this. The best they could do for me (and this was a Level 2 tech) was tell me to bring it in to an Apple Store (I bought it online, not at an Apple Store) and leave it there for an unspecified number of days until they could "fix" it.

Having no confidence at all that the Apple store could fix it, or that even a new machine would help (since many who have replaced their machines simply have the same exact problem with their new machine), I've decided to wait for a fix from Apple. I continue to call them and let them know I'm still having the problem, though, mostly because I want it documented in case it's a hardware issue and they try to say something like "it's too late to replace your machine".

Sadly, I don't have the positive experiences with Apple service that you do - so I'm a bit paranoid.

P O S S I B L E S O L U T I O N

I have the dual quad-core 3.2 with the Radeon HD 2600 card.

I had the restart on wake from sleep problem on my new MacPro, but after I added two of the Sonnet Allegro Express USB cards, the problem went away. Before I added the cards, I noticed that when I pulled out the keyboard from the usb port and put it back it woke without shutting down but if I touched the button it restarted so maybe there was something going on in the usb system. I've been problem free for a week after restarting about 5X a day, so it seems to be problem solved.

A also had the crash problem where the mouse would move but the system locked up and nothing could be clicked on. I must have crashed the system about ten times a day for a week until I read on a post here than adding a second monitor would solve the problem. I added another monitor and sure enough the problem went away. It's been 2-3 weeks now with no crashes.

Message was edited by: Jeffinnyc