Partial wake from sleep

Question

Level 1

52 points

Partial wake from sleep

I have been trying to sleep/wake my Early 2009 MacPro without success. Sometimes it wakes completely; other times it comes up with the clock advancing but with no keyboard responsiveness. The only way to get thing working is a power reset which is a major pain. Been through the PRAM SMC reset loop.

In looking at the kernel log, I see all kinds of activity after the Mac is in sleep mode, both when it returns properly and when it does not. I have a power meter on the UPS feeding the Mac Pro and some other components. When the Mac first goes to sleep, the power drops to around 75 VA (volt-ampers, similar to watts except with power factor included). From this condition (deep sleep?), I must power cycle to get responsiveness. Some times it reports around 170 VA (light sleep? - the power led still indicates sleeping), and it does return successfully from sleep with full responsiveness.

The only USB connections are the 27" LED monitor and the keyboard. Other peripherals are plugged in to the monitor.

Given my usage patterns, I'd like to take advantage of the power savings sleep affords but have been unable to do so.

Any ideas or thoughts on how to resolve this issue?

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2), Parallels for XP-32, W7

Posted on Nov 15, 2011 7:29 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Nov 15, 2011 7:46 AM in response to JohnZonie

I have been having a possibly similar problem, which begin immediately upon upgrading to OS X 10.7 (the day it was released).

Every so often (sometimes multiple times per hour) while my MacPro 2,1 is sleeping and without any user interaction, the fans and drives will spin up, with the fans running at full speed, but the monitors will stay in sleep mode. After about 25 seconds, everything will shut back off, and it will go back to sleep.

I do not have any way to check for power drops, and also don't have a wired USB keyboard or mouse (I use the Apple BlueTooth keyboard, mouse and track pad).

I have tried resetting the PRAM and the SMC, but neither have made any difference...

Reply

Answer 2

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Nov 15, 2011 8:04 AM in response to JohnZonie

Please read this whole message before doing anything.

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find nothing has changed after you complete it.

Boot in safe mode. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:

Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).

During startup, you will see "Safe Boot" on the login screen, which appears even if you normally log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.

Safe mode is slower than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including your login items.

Test. Same problem?

After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)

Reply

Answer 3

JohnZonie Author

Level 1

52 points

Nov 16, 2011 6:24 AM in response to Linc Davis

Same problem!

Safe boot executed. After a few minutes of inactivity, system was put to sleep @ 2054 local time. Hit the space bar at 0715. Display came on but everything was frozen, including the clock this time. I had set the activity monitor icon to display memory usage. All 16 GB(!) was reported as "wired". Had to power cycle to get system working again.

Reply

Answer 4

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Nov 16, 2011 6:38 AM in response to JohnZonie

Try this first:

Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM

If there's no improvement, then you should reinstall and re-update the OS after backing up all data. You won't need to restore from backup unless something goes wrong.

Reply

Answer 5

JohnZonie Author

Level 1

52 points

Nov 16, 2011 7:03 AM in response to Linc Davis

Thanks for the thoughts. As mentioned in my original post, I had already reset PRAM and SMC. I should also mention that this was a clean Lion installation with a reinstall of all apps.

Before adopting a Windows-like troubleshooting approach of reinstalling the OS, I will try something else. I have a separate clean Lion install partition with no apps. Tonight I will again reset PRAM, safe boot into the clean partition, sleep and see how that wakes from overnight sleep. I intend to set up Activity Monitor so I can see whether the wired memory usage consumes all available memory. Unlike my main OS partition, which uses an SSD, the clean Lion partition is on the original 640 GB HDD the MacPro was received with.

Reply

Answer 6

JohnZonie Author

Level 1

52 points

Nov 17, 2011 6:21 AM in response to JohnZonie

Test last night, sample of one, showed a successful recover from sleep for the clean Lion partition, safe boot. Tonight I will make sure no apps are running and do a safe boot on the SSD partition.

Reply