Q: Dual Quad-core Mac Pro reboots from sleep

In my last 3 calls the product specialists acknowledged the problem and that they are working on a software fix. Hope I am allowed to say that.

sw_i_t_t_e_rs wrote:
What's most disturbing is the lack of acknowledgment from the product specialists. Certainly they could at least admit they know there is a problem when we call in, without making any public announcement.

Add me to the FUMP list (Frustrated Users of a Mac Pro).

Apple's attitude is simply unacceptable and don't get your hopes up when emailing to Steve Jobs – he taught himself not to care about things like this and he's busy evaluating market strategies for the iPhone, so please don't bore him with silly problems that don't exist.

Though if you call Apple Support the help they provide is great, I must confess: First they have never ever heard of The Problem, of course. Then, for starters, why don't you "restart your Mac Pro", "reinstall the OS" and "update your software". That's it. It's great, you know, because you get this nonsense for free for 90 full days.

They will probably solve this problem by deleting this threat.

If only this company would split itself into Entertaining and Work.

yvonnejim wrote:
In my last 3 calls the product specialists acknowledged the problem and that they are working on a software fix. Hope I am allowed to say that.

Guess you got lucky. I've spoken to no fewer than four specialists and NONE of them acknowledged a "known issue". That's troubling.

I went thru my normal list of fixes last night: ( still looking for others )

TrashMacHD/lib/pref/SystemConfig/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist

Shut down computer - unplug everything - wait one minute - plug everything back in - restart -

Zap PRAM

And this morning it rebooted from sleep.

I was in Hawaii and went to an Apple Store to help fix my friends macbook and asked the "Genius " about this issue and after a while of harrasment he told me he had cornered an Apple engineer on this issue and the guy said that the way to temporarily fix the issue was to go into preferences,
"Start up ?"and deselect your hard drive, i.E. have no disk selected and it would fix the problem until there is an update. Problem is that you must select either you "Macintosh HD" or "Network disk", anyone know how to deselect both so that neither is selected?

This has been suggested before and is kinda tricky. But one way is to select an external HD start-up disk, like a FW drive with a Clone on it, restart with the external drive. Then shut down. Unplug the FW drive, then turn the computer on with the power button. The computer will start up with your main HD and nothing will be selected in the Startup Pane.

"Start up ?"and deselect your hard drive, i.E. have no disk selected and it would fix the problem until there is an update. Problem is that you must select either you "Macintosh HD" or "Network disk", anyone know how to deselect both so that neither is selected?

I'm almost scared to say this, given the temporary nature of the many "fixes" people have tried, but I think this actually works. I did it a couple of weeks ago, and had no reboots since. I added a new drive 2 days ago, selected it to test it, forgot about the "deselect startup drive" thing, and the reboots on wake came back. I deselected the hard drive again, and no reboots since.

Mike

P.S.: I really hope that this means the permanent fix is simply a software/firmware update, and that no hardware replacement will be required.

Hi everybody. I just have the same problem like so many of you: Brand new Mac Pro 2.8 EightCore, Nvidia 8800 GT, 6 GB (yes, six) of RAM. And of course, waking it up from sleep always results in a restart.
Nothing new, I know, I just wanted to post this here, knowing that many of us are better than a few. Hopefully Apple will hear our voices and realease a patch for this issue within the next weeks.
I am one hundred percent sure, that our problems are not a hardware problem but a system software issue.

That's all,
see you
Saschek

null

To answer your inquiry about deselecting the boot drive in preferences....After you do the PRAM reset (Option, Command, P & R), go to Preferences and click on start-up disk. You should now see that none of the harddrives are highlighted. When I called AppleCare, I was told to do this and I haven't had any reboot at wake since.

My box is behaving fine since deselecting the startup disk. So I'm a happy camper until the software (or firmware) update comes which fully resolves this. Just to remind folks of the steps involved:

1. restart and hold down Command-Option-P-R
you'll hear a total of two startup chimes (one after zapping PRAM)

2. now just don't select a startup volume
you can confirm no volume is selected by checking the startup disk preference pane

Before this fix I had disabled sleep since it would restart at least once a day.

I haven't had any restart issues with my dual Quad 2.8 Mac Pro since it arrived over a week ago. This is with an 8800, dual monitor setup and 6gigs of RAM (from OWC). This includes reported 2nd display issues.

Knock on wood...

Just want to let the list know that after installing the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Firmware Update that came on on 3/10, my Mac Pro has worked flawlessly. Has anyone else had the reboot from sleep issue go away after the update?

I too bought the stock 2.8 Octo from the Apple Store. I bought mine in Tucson, Arizona in early March 2008. I installed 8 additional gigs of RAM and two 1TB drives. I cloned the original drive to one of the new ones, placed it in bay one and wiped the original drive after verifying the new clone as good. I have my Soundsticks, HP ScanJet 5550, Griffin iMate, Logitech MX series laser mouse, the stock Apple mouse, Hollywood bridge, and the stock Apple keyboard plugged into it. I'm not sure if there's a common device amongst us, but when I read that someone had Soundsticks, I thought it may be a peripheral device causing a problem.

I've always suspected my iMate of causing problems, as I constantly ground myself on it at home and it causes a kernal panic with my PowerBook G4 (15" aluminum) when I unplug it. I love the **** out of it, and hope that I don't have to give it up.

Anyway, I had a stick of my new RAM go bad within a week on slot 3 of riser A. When the RAM went bad, I started getting restarts randomly when using Handbrake to make backups of my DVDs. Sometimes, I would get a kernal panic or just an application failure, but most of the time, it was just a restart in the middle of everything. Decided to check my new RAM and saw two sticks not registered. Swapped the sticks around the slots to narrow the bad one to slot 3, riser A. I also want to pull the stock 2GB of RAM and see if the sleep issue surfaces; maybe it is a bad lot from the factory, undetectable by hardware tests, but sensitive to something associated with sleep (i.e. low power). This doesn't cost anything to research and easy to resolve if it works.

I don't think resetting the SMC will work, as it has only worked sporadically within this group. I think I reset it when I had everything unplugged and moving the computer around, but it didn't make any difference. The PRAM reset seems like something that may work. I'll give it a try after removing the stock RAM. I think it's a hardware or possibly firmware issue.

After trying the various "solutions" I did the deselect the start up drive and so far so good. It may make sense in that resetting the PRAM seemed to help for a while. It may be that it helped until I set the start up drive to a particular drive. If this is a temporary fix, it will do until Apple figures out what the real fix is.