New iMac freezes when sleeping

[bmann]

Got a new base iMac 6 days ago. Just noticed that whenever we manually put it to sleep, it doesn't come back up with the click of a mouse or tap on the keyboard. This only happens when the user initiates the sleep. If it sleeps on its own due to power saving settings, then it comes back up with the usual input.

I've reset the SMC and PRAM - no dice. There is nothing plugged into it except the power cord and the factory wireless keyboard and mouse. Internet is wireless. Also it has all system updates installed.

Any ideas?

[ATL_Av8r]

My wife does the same thing. It's annoying as hell.

[bmann]

Your wife freezes when sleeping? Is that when you cop a feel before you reboot her?

[sle39lvr]

Did you try running permissions? Do it also by going in to recovery partition if it's Lion.

[Hostile]

Your wife freezes when sleeping? Is that when you cop a feel before you reboot her?

[HI SPEED]

It's an known issue with imacs, and macbooks. There is no fix to my knowledge. I have to hard reboot my 27 inch regularly, because it freezes even when unprompted. Hella annoying when you lose your work because you got up to make a sammich.

[O_G]

I have a Macbook Pro and it doesn't freeze. In fact, I hardly ever reboot it or shut it down. Usually "freeze when sleeping" is a Hackintosh problem.

Do you have any non-Apple USB peripherals? Some USB devices give certain computers issues. Try removing all non-Apple USB peripherals and see if the sleeping freeze goes away.

Repair permissions via Disk Utility.

Make sure you're up to date with OS patches and firmware updates.

Create a new user account with administrator privileges and see if the freezing goes away while using that account. If so, you have a corrupt config file of some sort that's related to Energy Saver/sleep/power.

Personally, my limited experience with Lion suggests that Snow Leopard is more stable. I'm using SL on my machines because there is nothing in Lion I need, and I'm not a fan of the new tiny window widgets. However, my friend is using Lion with his Macbook Pro and he doesn't have any freezing problem. Plus, Lion is now on at least its third patch, so stability has likely improved significantly since I used it.

If you continue to have this issue, back up your stuff and do a new install (clean) of the OS, better yet, install the OS onto an external hard drive (preferably Firewire) so you don't have to spend a lot of time reconfiguring things just for a test. If you install the OS onto another (formatted to be bootable in Disk Utility) hard disk and the freezing doesn't go away, that suggests bad memory to me. However, bad memory usually results in random freezes, not freezes only when sleeping. That usually indicates incompatibility somewhere (as with Hackintosh machines).

The only issue that I know of with iMacs is that some I've dealt with (45nm black/silver models) tend to develop instability if they're left on (without going to sleep) 24/7, probably due to heat (but also possibly due to lightning damage). Apple likes to make their machines quiet and odd usage patterns like that can cause trouble over time, from my experience. But, since you're putting your machine to sleep, that's clearly not the problem.

[jerk]

It's an known issue with imacs, and macbooks. There is no fix to my knowledge. I have to hard reboot my 27 inch regularly, because it freezes even when unprompted. Hella annoying when you lose your work because you got up to make a sammich.

Known issue? I've had several MacBooks over the past couple of years and none of them exhibited this problem (and I sleep my current MacBook Air many times per day - uptime is 12 days as of this writing.) Also, if you were on Lion, you shouldn't be losing work (depending on the app) because of the auto-save feature.

[Aonarch]

I had this issue on a ~2010 Mac Book Pro 13"

I replaced the hard drive and the memory with spares I had.

I did a clean install of OSX. It started freezing while trying to wake-up after about 1-2 days after the clean install.

I tried Snow Leopard and Lion.

I reset the pram and tried with updates, no updates, some updates, etc.

No dice.

[O_G]

When you changed the memory, did you wear an anti-static wrist strap? Was your spare RAM and hard disk stored in anti-static packaging?

I've seen even full-time tech support people do nutty things like stack RAM chips up on their desks. On zap of static and goodbye stability.

[BRealistic]

Do apples sleep?

[ATL_Av8r]

Do apples sleep?

Do dolphins dream?

[SpiffyGTI]

What do tigers dream of?