There are perhaps a dozen threads going on this forum and at MacFixIt.com about the problem of OSX Jaguar machines that won't go to sleep when the time set in the Energy Saver pane is used up. In this note I shall try to summarize the problem and the various solutions that have been proposed for it.
Here is the problem: You set the sleep time in the Energy Saver panel. When the time is used up, instead of going to sleep, the machine dims its screen (even though you have not requested separate screen dimming). The hard disc does not spin down. You can make the screen come on again by moving the cursor. The machine is not asleep.
I have counted at least five prescriptions for dealing with this problem. I've tried them all and they all don't work. So here is my quick summary of what doesn't in general work (BTW, others of you have reported as well that some of these didn't work for you):
1. Many people wrote in to suggest zapping the prom. That didn't work for me.
2. Many suggested that personal sharing might have been on. The won't sleep
but happens even with all forms of sharing disabled.
3. Some have suggested that the problem has to do with some USB devices. I
can confirm that my mac is insomniac even with all USB devices detached.
4. One person says the problem is due to iTunes running in the background. It
happens for me with iTunes not running.
5. Some say it's a Palm problem. I disabled the palm desktop and the
synch feature. Still happens.
I read here that the heart of the problem is that Apple has implemented auto sleep only for laptops, not desktops. But there were lots of people complaining of insomnia on laptops as well.
I reasoned that in our old world, we'd have trashed the pref file, which may have been corrupted. I tried trashing the prefpane from System/Library, but when I did, the energy saver would not open (it won't rebuild the entire pref pane when it finds it missing). So I tried trashing those elements of the prefpane that it was willing to rebuild. It dutifully replaced the missing stuff, but still wouldn't sleep.
So . . . I come up empty. Any additional suggestions welcome.
t.
Here is the problem: You set the sleep time in the Energy Saver panel. When the time is used up, instead of going to sleep, the machine dims its screen (even though you have not requested separate screen dimming). The hard disc does not spin down. You can make the screen come on again by moving the cursor. The machine is not asleep.
I have counted at least five prescriptions for dealing with this problem. I've tried them all and they all don't work. So here is my quick summary of what doesn't in general work (BTW, others of you have reported as well that some of these didn't work for you):
1. Many people wrote in to suggest zapping the prom. That didn't work for me.
2. Many suggested that personal sharing might have been on. The won't sleep
but happens even with all forms of sharing disabled.
3. Some have suggested that the problem has to do with some USB devices. I
can confirm that my mac is insomniac even with all USB devices detached.
4. One person says the problem is due to iTunes running in the background. It
happens for me with iTunes not running.
5. Some say it's a Palm problem. I disabled the palm desktop and the
synch feature. Still happens.
I read here that the heart of the problem is that Apple has implemented auto sleep only for laptops, not desktops. But there were lots of people complaining of insomnia on laptops as well.
I reasoned that in our old world, we'd have trashed the pref file, which may have been corrupted. I tried trashing the prefpane from System/Library, but when I did, the energy saver would not open (it won't rebuild the entire pref pane when it finds it missing). So I tried trashing those elements of the prefpane that it was willing to rebuild. It dutifully replaced the missing stuff, but still wouldn't sleep.
So . . . I come up empty. Any additional suggestions welcome.
t.
