Last week's "Sleep Bug" piece resulted in a lot of user feedback
that may have raised more questions than it answers. Sleep problems
have been noted in PowerBook 1400s, two models of Power Mac G4s, and
iBooks. The bug seems to manifest in some versions of OS 9.1 and X, not
just 9.2.2. Possible culprits include third party hard drives and the
Palm HotSync software. One recommended solution is shareware, so you
can try it at no cost.
Additional feedback is welcome. Please email Charles W. Moore with your
comments.
"Sleep Bug" in Mac OS 9.2
From Chris Searles
Hi Charles,
In your your article on the "Sleep Bug" in Mac
OS 9.2, you forgot to mention that people should try using the
shareware Sleeper to cure such ills. My wife had the same problems on
her iBook running OS 9.2, and using Sleeper instead of
Apple's Energy Saver CP took care of them.
Regards,
Chris Searles
- Hi Chris,
I didn't forget; I didn't know about it. ;-)
Thanks for the tip.
Charles
Sleep of Death
Mike Paulus
Hi Charles,
Man, I have this problem on my Pismo,
and it's horrible. I'm going to "downgrade" to 9.1. I was wondering, is
there a way to downgrade the OS without doing a clean install (wiping
the HD and starting over from 9.0.4).
Mike
Mike Paulus
Creative Director
- Hi Mike,
You could try going through the System Folder and chuck all the
specifically 9.2.2 stuff but leave everything else, then running the OS
9.1 installer (or 9.0.4 and then the 9.1 updater).
I don't know how well this will work in this case, but a similar
procedure worked for me in downgrading from OS 9.0.4 to 9.0 when the
former didn't work so well on my WallStreet.
It's good to stuff a copy of your System Folder first before trying
something like this, so you can restore the status quo easily if it
doesn't work out.
Charles
Re: 'Sleep of Death' a Hardware-Specific OS 9.2
Bug?
From Jay Austin
Hi Charles,
Just wanted to provide another data point and let you know that the
"Sleep of Death" doesn't seem to be either hardware-specific or limited
to OS 9.2. It's seized my PB 1400 running
9.1, and the posts I've seen on
MacFixIt suggest that others have run across the problem
with this combination, as well as other machines running 9.1 (indeed,
all the way through 10.x, as you note). None of the workarounds posted
have worked for me.
The thing is, my 1400 ran 9.1 without a trace of this bug until a
couple of recent hardware upgrades - a WaveLAN wireless card and IBM
TravelStar 10 GB hard drive. I think it has something to do with the
hard drive, as sometimes putting the machine to sleep will yield an
audible "snik" from the drive, as if power gets cut while the drive is
still writing (virtual memory blocks?). Those are the times that it
refuses to wake up from sleep - if I don't get the noise, but only a
gentle rattle, then everything wakes up fine. I wonder if this is also
true on your WallStreet.
Anyway, it's nice that you've brought some attention to this, and it
would be even nicer if Apple would do something about it (though any
future system updates are unlikely to work on my 1400). Yes, I know I
can set my system to "never sleep," or use a third-party screen saver.
But since it's a *laptop* it would be nice to close the lid every now
and then, y'know?
Cheers,
Jay
- Hi Jay,
Thanks for the supplementary info. I've used OS versions 8.1, 8.5,
8.5.1, 8.6, 9.0, 9.0.4, 9.1, 9.2.1, and 9.2.2 on the WallStreet. The
only versions that manifested the S.O.D. problem are the two
9.2s.
I have gone as long as 15 (workhorse) days without a restart on the
WallStreet in OS 9.1, with roughly half a dozen sleep/wakeup cycles per
day.
I won't gainsay that the hard drive might be a factor in the problem,
but for me, it only happens in 9.2.x.
Charles
OS 9.2 sleep of death
From MEL
"There has been a lot of traffic on troubleshooting forums about the
so-called 'sleep of death' wake up from sleep bug that afflicts some
PowerBook users, and perhaps others as well."
Charles, I enjoy reading your columns, and let me tell you, this
Sleep of Death problem with OS 9.2 manifests itself on my Power Mac G4 733 Quicksilver. My solution,
which ain't much, has been to just disable the sleep feature on that
energy saver control panel.
I don't really want to downgrade back to 9.1, since I would have to
deal with all of those gray CDs that originally came with my Mac.
When I am running Mac OS X 10.1 (the most current one I have),
the sleep mode works to a degree. However, the Mac doesn't entirely go
to sleep, as the fan stays on even if the screen goes dark and the
drives spin down. Anyone reported anything like this?
Currently I have two hard drives on my G4: one with OS 9.2 and the
other OS X. I use both systems interchangeably whenever I need to
do certain tasks. One of my favorite features of OS X is its
ability to create PDF files of just about anything using the print
preview command. That is cool. It is too bad that whenever I run
programs from the classic OS 9 environment from OS X.
Anyway, thanks for the great articles. I've read many at Low End Mac and
Applelinks.
Aloha,
MEL
from Hawaii
- Hi MEL,
I think I have heard of the partial sleep anomalies with OS X and
the TiBook. Don't know what to do about it, though.
Incidentally, sleep works great in OS X on my Pismo - one aspect
of OS X I have utterly no performance complaints about. The almost
instant wakeup is wonderful, and I've had no sleep-related problems,
even without restarting, for over a month once or twice.
Thanks for reading.
Charles
Article "Sleep of Death" at LEM
From Christoph Ewering
Hello!
I f I remember right, this was a problem with HotSync.
Do you have Palm Desktop installed?
Switch of port-monitoring in HotSync. I had this sleep of death on
my Pismo, but not with 9.2.x think it was 9.0 or 9.1.
After switching of HotSync "Sleep of death" was gone.
Bye,
Christoph
Dipl. Ing. Christoph Ewering
C & E Informationsdienste
GbR
Autorisierter Apple Händler und Systemhaus in
Paderborn
- Hi Christoph,
Nope, no HotSync; no Palm Desktop.
So far, no S.O.D. problem on my Pismo either, under OS 9.1 or 9.2. Just
on the WallStreet in 9.2.
Charles
Sleep in G4s running OS 9?
From g4
My G4/450 Sawtooth (OS 9.0.4) has an
Adaptec 2930U SCSI card, and a friends G4/350 Sawtooth (OS 9.2.2) has
an Adaptec 2906 SCSI card. Neither are able to "sleep" normally,
usually crashing sometime during the time that the sleep program tries
to execute - 30-60 minutes after the last keyboard or mouse
activity.
Both SCSI cards are nominally OS 9 & OS X compatible, according
to the Adaptec Web site. I have tried to get their firmware updater to
update their V 4.0 firmware to the V 4.2, which is on their Web site,
without success.
It appears to be part of the reason for a lot of crashes.
Anyone else have this dilemma?
Thanks,
Dan Brown
Sleep Bug
From Adam R. S. Guha
Hello, hope you are doing well.
It's been a while since we've emailed, but if you remember, I had
asked for your advice a little over a year ago about buying a
refurbished PowerBook G3 to replace my iBook.
Anyway, I had experienced a 'sleep bug' on that G3 that I got, a 333
MHz Lombard, when it was running 9.0.
It had the same symptoms that you described, and the 'fix' turned out
to be reinitialising the hard drive. An update to 9.2.1 fixed all
problems, and the machine ran perfectly.
However, updating to OS X reintroduced the problem. This time the
screen would simply stay black. There seemed to be no fix whatsoever
for this, although after 10.1.2 came out, it seemed to happen less
often.
My dad has a WallStreet 266, somewhat like your old machine, and he
has mentioned no sleep issues (9.2.1 I think). However, I do know that
he shuts his machine down after each use, so he doesn't often use sleep
mode.
Recently (you may have noticed my article), I upgraded to a PowerBook G4/400 (the short battery life on the
Lombard w/X was a problem for me), and I have had zero sleep issues. In
fact the G4 is wonderful with OS X. I ran it solidly, no restarts,
for 42 days straight. The only reason I had to restart was to install
some software.
Anyway, I figured I would let you know that you aren't alone with
your G3 sleep experiences.
Adam R. S. Guha
- Hi Adam,
Good to hear from you.
These sleep issues are nothing if not idiosyncratic.
Sleep works fine under OS X in my Pismo too (and in OS 9.x for that
matter). The bug, as I've experienced it only affects the WallStreet
under OS 9.2.
Charles
Sleeping bug
From Alvin Chan
Hi, good you have a solution to this. I have that, too, on my
iMac, and I use 9.2.2. The wake up for
administration is clicked by default, right. I have clicked it again to
see if it still fails wake up. Though I only have the video and HD to
sleep, not the system.
Does putting the whole system [to sleep] disconnect you from DSL
connection? We share the connection with my iMac as the server. The
other is a PC. Sometime I leave the computer on overnight for long
downloads and was wondering if I set the system to sleep (see that cute
glowing orange light again), which is now set on never, will it not
continue my download?
God bless,
Alvin
- Hi Alvin,
I don't have DSL, so anything I would say on that issue would be
speculative.
I do often leave my computers downloading files overnight, but my
dialup ISP kills the connection after 15 minutes of no activity, and
the PowerBooks are set to go to sleep after half an hour, which all
works fine for me.
Charles
1/3 2/3 rule
From Alvin Chan
Hi, Charles. I have set up a very good setup. When the recommended
setting have failed, then I used what God himself uses to create. You
can see in symmetry around us. Like our fingers it's always two-thirds
longer than the next past connect to it, which is 1/3 shorter -
symmetry.
iMac 350 settings: 128 MB, 213 virtual
memory, 8000 K disk cache, OS 9.2.2.
I start out with the recommended settings that are from reliable
sources, and if that doesn't work, I start use the 1/3, 2/3 rule. I
started off with proven, well known recommendations I have read. For
example, I used the 1/3 rules on this, 2/3 can also used: 6000 K disk
cache then dividing that by 3 I get 2000 K, so the best disk cache is
8000 K.
I used the 1/3 rule on the major applications I use like
SurfDoubler, but with the sum I got, I use them on both minimum and
preferred so there will no swapping. I used that rule on VPC 3 and
Netscape 7 PR1 (most especially). If that doesn't work I'll use the 2/3
rule, but I hope that is enough.
After midnight I made sure my DSL connection was not gonna crash,
because my brother's PC shares the connection, that's why add more
memory to SurfDoubler - just in case. I have planned the iMac not to be
turned off already so that the DSL is always on so that even Dad can
send emails. Though the system sleep is put to never so that DSL does
not disconnect, the video and hard disk are set to separate sleep to
conserve power. It is set to restart after a power failure so that they
can still get connected even when I'm not here. The SurfDoubler is in
the Start up. Automation rules =)
I guess you might try this too if if ever =)
By the way, Netscape 7, even though I have set it's min and
preferred to 38 M, it still uses 62 as shown on the My Computer. I have
reinstalled this and dumped preferences, any solution? This is isolated
on Netscape only.
God bless,
Alvin
- Fascinating theory, Alvin.
I haven't been successful in downloading Netscape 7.0 for OS 9,
although it works beautifully in OS X, so I haven't any answer about
your memory allocation question. Things are fine in that department
with my Mozilla 1.0 FC3 install for OS 9.
Charles
Sleep Of Death
From Kevin Weight
Charles,
I haven't experienced the "sleep of death" phenomenon you've written
about to any great degree. I've had an occasional problem with the
computer not waking from sleep, but only very, very rarely. I'm running
OS 9.2.2 on a 233 MHz WallStreet with 192 MB of RAM and a 20 GB Fujitsu
hard drive.
The machine is the series II version with the backside cache and the
14.1" screen. I don't know if this will be of any help in determining
the cause (or lack of cause), but hopefully it's of some assistance in
narrowing the possibilities.
Best of luck in making the move to OS 9.2.2. I find it to be an
excellent OS.
Cheers,
Kev
- Hi Kev,
Glad to hear that OS 9.2.2 is working well for you.
The S.O.D. bug affects my WallStreet on about one in three wakeups, and
my Pismo so far not at all.
Mine is also a PDQ with 512k of L2 cache, 192 MB of RAM, and a Toshiba
10 GB hard drive.
Charles
Re: Sleep of Death
From Ian R. Campbell
Greetings,
I have actually had that problem with my iBook, however, I run OS X on it. I
just did the 10.1.5 update, and so far so good. It's been kinda bizarre
and incredibly infuriating when my 1400 comes right up. The last time I
ran my iBook off of 9 was when I first bought it, so my OS 9
system is languishing.
~ ian
- Hi Ian,
Perhaps 10.1.5 has fixed it.
Charles
