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Screen won't turn on after sleep for newest macbook pro (Feb 26 2011)

Hi!

I just bought the 13' Macbook Pro with an 2.7GHz dual-core i7 processor and 500GB of space, the $1500 model. I am having a problem with the screen and I am wondering if I should be worried about it or if anyone else has noticed it. If it continues, I will have to take it into the store and see if I can get it fixed.

My macbooks screen will not turn on after it falls asleep for a long period of time. The first night I had this computer, it was playing music and I turned the screen brightness all the way down/off and then I fell asleep. The energy settings were set so that the computer would fall asleep after 20 minutes. Pathfinder, F.lux and iTunes were the only application running at the time. When I woke up the next morning, the light on the computer's side indicating it was asleep was slowly fading in and out (as expected). I hit some keys on the keyboard and the keyboards backlighting turned on after a few seconds.

But the screen did not turn on. I tried adjusting the screen brightness on the keyboard and nothing happened. After a few minutes, I held down the power button and heard the computer turn off. I turned the computer back on, AND THE SCREEN LOOKED VERY STRANGE. I could see part of iTunes fragmented/segmented into 5 or 6 sections across the screen. There were also strange lines going across the screen. It looked kind of like a leftover image of iTunes that could be solved with a screen refresh. I turned off my computer again and turned it back on about two more times, and then the screen would simple just not turn on.

As I was packing up to go to the Apple Store, I tried one more time to turn my computer on and the screen was working fine. This was yesterday, and for the rest of the day the computer seemed to work fine. However, I don't think I let my computer fall asleep all day yesterday because I was using it so much.

Basically the same thing happened this morning when I woke up, except to a lesser degree. My computers screen was unresponsive after keyboard input, but I was able to get music to play from my speakers. I restarted it and it seems to be working fine. I didn't see the screen do that weird fragmentation thing this time.

I think something about the sleep function is interfering with my computer's screen. Or perhaps Pathfinder or F.lux have something to do with it. F.lux, by the way, is a application that turns the screen a dark yellowish at night to help your eyes. But I have friends that use this application and I myself have used it for a while and we have never had this problem. Then again, none of them have a 13 inch with an i7.

Does anyone know about this problem and have advice that would save me a trip to the Apple store?

thanks!

13' Macbook Pro, 2.7GHz dual-core i7, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Feb 26, 2011 8:39 AM

Reply
70 replies

Mar 16, 2011 7:25 AM in response to matthewadams

Matthew - seems odd that the wake for ethernet access entry shows up about 20 seconds before the Book drops into the endless cycle of kernel messages.
I'm going to disable the Wake on LAN setting and see if we encounter the same problem. Wish I could figure a way to trigger it so we didn't have to let is sleep for a day to see if it locks up.

Mar 17, 2011 1:06 PM in response to Bloodydawn

Well, after a bit of R&D I think for me the issue is caused when the dynamic graphics card switching is enabled and the Intel graphics card is being used (i.e nothing is using the Radeon graphics processor) and the MBP goes to sleep. If the Radeon is being used and it goes to sleep then all is well.

So a workaround for now is to either disable dynamic switching or to ensure some app (e.g Parallels) is always running that ensures the Radeon is being used.

Here's hoping for a fix sooner rather than later for this...

Steve

Mar 17, 2011 1:38 PM in response to hallio

Hey Steve,

I did not want to write before because it was more gut feeling than knowing - but exactly that was what I suspected the last days... whenever the Radeon is working, nothing bad happens, when it switches to the Intel, it seems to happen.

Still hope for a software fix, that is the only bad thing of the machine so far.

Torben

PS: Just a little workaround to save you work: in case you run into the black screen when it should turn on - do not do anything else but close the lid and let it go to standby. Once the LED is blinking, open it again and it will wake up and be where it was before. Just never (dis-)connect the power cable or press too many keys - at some point then it will not go to sleep anymore.

Message was edited by: kic

Mar 19, 2011 10:33 PM in response to jahuda

I just had the will-not-wake-up-from-sleep issue with my maxed out 2009 17" unibody MBP with 256 Gb SSD - I put it into sleep manually last night but this morning it would not wake up, in fact I thought it was dead - black screen, totally inert. Pressing the power button did nothing. Only after pressing a buch of keys simultaneously did it suddenly wake up! ***? I was just about to admit defeat and ring the Apple shop.

Is the sleep function or manually activating it a problem all of a sudden?

Mar 20, 2011 12:33 AM in response to jahuda

Same problem here with my 2011 17 i7. I installed gfxCardStatus to force intel gfx as the system seemed to always automatically chose radeon for some reason. Since forcing intel the system has done this once so far

In the name of conserving battery, i'll keep intel running until this happens again, but force radeon back otherwise.

Here's hoping 10.6.7 is out sooner rather than later

Mar 20, 2011 5:33 PM in response to tomster230000

I just had the same problem AGAIN! Only this time my MBP was not stuck in sleep mode, it had been shutdown all night. In the morning, the power button did not work, it was dead, nothing, even though it was plugged into power and the battery level was OK.

I discovered I could start it up by holding down the power button plus the command key. Anyone know what that does? I have now reset the PRAM to see if that solves the issue.

Mar 20, 2011 8:08 PM in response to The Tik-Tok Man

Same here except that it happens EVERY TIME. When I close the lid, or put on sleep on the menu, it won't wake up. In fact, it seems that it does not sleep at all, because after a while it get's very hot and drain the battery.

The screen goes off, the keyboard goes off, but the light remains steady on (not blinking), so I assume it never goes to sleep. In order to wake it up, I have to do the shift-control-alt-power trick, and loose all the work.

When I had safe sleep on, the machine would return as if it was hibernating. Now every time I let the computer sleep I loose all my work.

I live in Brazil, bought the computer in the US, so I will be able to return it to a apple store only in my next trip, that would take a while.

I already formated from scratch and did a recovery, reseted PRAM and NVRAM, disabled safe sleep, disabled graphics switching, disconnected everything... What else could I try?

Thanks,

Ricardo Fernandes
ricardo@jaera.com.br

Mar 20, 2011 8:44 PM in response to The Tik-Tok Man

Funny you mentioned that, because the problem just started after I did TEMPORARILY put the "never" to sleep in order to restore a time machine backup that would last few hours and i did not want to give the mac a chance to sleep. But I had set up that correctly and the problem continued.

Anyway, I removed the cover and unplugged the battery for a while. This solved the problem. Probably the SMC "software" reset is not good as the old remove battery procedure.

Thanks for the support and I'll let you guys posted of any further weirdnesses,

Ricardo Fernandes
ricardo@jaera.com.br

Screen won't turn on after sleep for newest macbook pro (Feb 26 2011)

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