Q: Dual Quad-core Mac Pro reboots from sleep

I don't know if this is helpful or not. I have only had the reboot problem once, and that was after I updated the 2600 firmware. That card crapped out, and Apple sent a new one which I have not updated and no problems with the Mac rebooting from sleep here. I did notice something kind of odd, when I reboot, smcfancontrol stays running, that is I do not have to relaunch after a reboot. When the Mac wakes from sleep, the program is no longer running and I have to physically start the program again (and the Mac did not reboot). The other little things running, chronosync back grounder, yahoo widgets all seem to work fine. I am not sure why that would be. I have 2 usb hubs hooked up, with an Apple modem, Epson Printer, card reader, MS Wireless keyboard and mouse, 4 drives, 10gb ram, a My Book firewire 400 drive and a My Book firewire 800 drive hooked up. I also have a second 2600 (not updated) in the Mac now as well. The Mac will not automatically go to sleep, but if I put it to sleep it wakes up with no problem and just the fan control needs to be restarted.

Willy

Willy

The Gibbon wrote:
My comments have been misinterpreted. I was not suggesting that people not use third-party ram, but whether having having hard drives in "correct bays" might be similar to having paired memory in their proper slots for optimal performance.

I didn't mean to sound like I was criticizing you. Far from it. My comments were directed at Apple. I think it's terrible that Mac Pro users like you and me would have to run for days on end with stock RAM (usually 1-2 GB) and only one drive in order to figure out why our computers aren't working. Many of us cannot get much work done with that configuration.

I appreciate your comments and your idea about the bays. It was definitely worth a try!

The Gibbon wrote:
The 2 ways i know of to "not select a startup disk" are:

1. After your computer is booted up, insert your restore dvd. Open system preferences and select the dvd as the startup disk and close system preferences. Eject the dvd. Restart. Voila. No startup disk.

2. Install the operating system onto an external firewire drive. Same procedure as above. Select it as the startup drive. Shut down. Remove drive. No more startup disk selected.

NOTE: from hereon, at bootup the computer will have to search for a bootable drive since no startup drive is selected, so it will take longer to boot every time.

And has this continued to work for you?

The problem with this, for me, is that I have two bootable versions of OS X installed on my computer. I wonder which one the Mac Pro will default to when there is no start-up drive selected? Does it have something to do with which bay the start-up drives are in, i.e. would it start looking in bay #1 and then choose the first start-up drive it finds?

Good question. I happened to have just the set-up to test this out. I have 2 bootable versions plus a Firewire External Bootable version. So I did just as described and my computer chose the original Mac HD version in Bay 1. And in System Preferences there is no Disk selected now. I can see how this works for a while, but I also may have to switch over to my Windows XP disk occasionally, so long term I will not be able to see what happens.

The problem with this, for me, is that I have two bootable versions of OS X installed on my computer. I wonder which one the Mac Pro will default to when there is no start-up drive selected? Does it have something to do with which bay the start-up drives are in, i.e. would it start looking in bay #1 and then choose the first start-up drive it finds?

Same problem with my Mac Pro.

Restart from sleep after night, but only occasional.

Mac Pro 2.8 GHz Quad-Core. 2 GB stock RAM. ATI HD 2600. Two WDC3200 AAJS. 23" Cinema Display and 20" Cinema HD. Mac OS 10.5.2 (9C31).

Hans-Jürgen Koepp-Bank wrote:
Same problem with my Mac Pro.

Restart from sleep after night, but only occasional.

Mac Pro 2.8 GHz Quad-Core. 2 GB stock RAM. ATI HD 2600. Two WDC3200 AAJS. 23" Cinema Display and 20" Cinema HD. Mac OS 10.5.2 (9C31).

Here we have someone running a completely stock Apple configuration with the problem. It has nothing to do with 3rd party RAM.

sw_i_t_t_e_rs wrote:

[snip]

The "don't select startup disk" really confuses me. When I open "Startup Disk" in "Preferences", there is NO WAY to deselect all startup disks. One of them must be selected.

Am I missing a trick here?

My understanding is that the startup disk selection is saved in PRAM. So if you zap the PRAM and don't select a new startup disk you should be good. As I said, though, I didn't go down this path since I'd rather wait for the real fix.

As with every other voodoo witchcraft dance like smc resets, etc it seems to be a temporary fix. I was merely replying to another poster's question on how to have no boot drive selected.

I don't think third party ram makes a difference as well. My questioning is whether it's a faulty sata channel. He has a stock system, sure, but the stock system has the hard drive in bay 1.

It would be a faulty logicboard, and rare.

I just realized that My Mac pro not only restarts from sleep but also doesn't auto sleep. The monitor will auto-sleep but the computer will not. Anybody else in this thread with the same problem?

V.K. wrote:
I just realized that My Mac pro not only restarts from sleep but also doesn't auto sleep. The monitor will auto-sleep but the computer will not. Anybody else in this thread with the same problem?

I haven't even checked that because I never use auto-sleep, but I had that problem on my old G5 and could never resolve it even after 50+ hours of troubleshooting, Level 2 techs, etc.

Autosleep problems are generally because some device or software is polling the system for activity/inactivity. Attached usb devices have sometimes been culprits, like scanners that check for connectivity. Another possibility could be software like Microsoft Entourage constantly checking to see if there are any "reminders" which it needs to alert you of, thus interfering with the sleep timer. Older systems couldn't go to sleep because third party pci cards weren't capable of entering properly into sleep mode, like scsi or firewire cards.

thanks, i knew this in general but none of it seems to apply to me. the only external devices i have are the keyboard and the mouse. Don't have MS office installed. I have the same software setup on the 1 year old Mac pro in my office which sleeps just fine.

Is it a hardwired keyboard and mouse or bluetooth/other wireless. The latter can interfere with the sleep cycle as well. Another thing could be if you have file sharing enabled. If neither of those apply, an smc reset may be helpful.