Mac Won't Sleep Properly

[gsparks]

Digital Audio G4 Power Mac (533)

I recently installed a USB 2.0 PCI card inside, since this system only came originally with USB 1.

Unfortunately, since then, it no longer sleeps properly. Using the energy saver pref pane, I have the monitor set to sleep after 15 minutes idle, and the computer itself after 30 minutes idle.

The monitor sleeps just fine, but the system never goes to sleep. Then, to top it off, if I force the issue (apple menu > sleep or even from the login window > sleep) the monitor sleeps properly, but the system won't sleep. The hard drive spins down, but the fan and system stay up and running. Moreover, it is then impossible to wake up. Keyboard combinations and mouse clicks will not wake the system (it stays "frozen" in this condition), and it takes a push of the reset button on the front to restart the Mac to get it back up and running. This is consistent and repeatable.

Short of removing the new USB card, any other potential solutions that I might try first? It's just a pain to get this unit apart (installed into a home-office workstation and hard to get to all the cables to unplug and pull out).

Much grass in advance,
GS

[trevor]

The only possible solution short of removing the new USB card is to update the new USB card's firmware to one that supports deep sleep. If no new firmware exists, then either live without deep sleep or remove the card.

Trevor

[gsparks]

Here's the response I received from IOGEAR's tech support department after I requested updated firmware:

"The problem regarding sleep mode and many third party PCI cards is an
Apple related issue. The architecture on some Apple models continues to
supply power to the card, even though the machine has gone into sleep
mode. This can either prevent the computer from successfully going to
sleep or from waking up.

We are an active member of the Apple Developer Connection (ADC) group
and continually test our cards with Apple products as they are
introduced to the marketplace. However, we do not know when or if this
issue will be resolved.

The only thing we can recommend is to disable the sleep mode and change
the power options to turn the monitor and hard drive off after its been
idle.

Thanks,
Service Support"

Any other ideas (other than buying a newer PowerMac)??

-GS

[Ambrose_M]

Thanks for posting about this. I just put a Belkin USB 2 card in my G4 FW800 and had the sane result. (sigh) Finding your post saved me hours of troubleshooting.

A.M.

[trevor]

"The problem regarding sleep mode and many third party PCI cards is an
Apple related issue. The architecture on some Apple models continues to
supply power to the card, even though the machine has gone into sleep
mode.

I don't believe IOGear's statement here. There are other cards that support deep sleep. So trying to blame it on Apple seems disingenuous.

PCI cards can be 'power-managed' or not. If IOGear doesn't understand, or doesn't want to take the effort to make their card power-managed, that's fine, but blaming that on Apple is feeble.

http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1309.html
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/Conceptual/HWtech_PCI/Articles/pci_implementation.html
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/Developer_Notes/Macintosh_CPUs-G4/PowerMac_G4_16Feb00/G4Rev3-87.html
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/Developer_Notes/Macintosh_CPUs-G4/PowerMacG4Sept02/4Expansion/chapter_5_section_3.html


Trevor

[hayne]

So trying to blame it on Apple seems disingenuous.
While I agree that IOGear's statement above is intended to make it seem that the issue is a problem in Apple's software/hardware, I think the phrasing is such that they can claim it is a simple statement of fact.
"an Apple related issue" = "the problem only happens on Apple hardware"

In other words, the statement is like Microsoft saying something like: "The recent security problem with Internet Explorer is an Internet issue."
:)