A couple above...
What exact model do you have ?
You say you don't have a trackpad sensor ? Are you sure ?
Download Temperature Monitor and set it running...
see what averages you get...
regards
Ric
powerbook keeps going to sleep
- Thread starter iryskel
- Start date
A couple above...
What exact model do you have ?
You say you don't have a trackpad sensor ? Are you sure ?
Download Temperature Monitor and set it running...
see what averages you get...
regards
Ric
Well, it depends on where the problem lies..if it is a malfunctioning sensor...or a dodgy logic board (Hardware Fault !) then the Mac can sleep at will !
It won't stop till you get the part fixed...
The proper reason for it happening it to protect your Mac from meltdown...the sensors check to see that the Mac is not running to hot so that it can get damaged !
I have a HP laptop that has a dodgy internal fan, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, if the fan doesn't kick in after it's been on for about 10 minutes then it just shutdowns...it's protecting the chips inside from getting too hot !
Can you prop up the back of the laptop so that a bit more air circulates underneath it ?
regards
Ric
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DavHen - I've never seen one of those fan mounts before... interesting... I took a look at the non-fan one Ric linked as well. My quick-fix solution when I absolutely need to use my computer for a while is to mount it on two ice-packs from the freezer. That keeps the processor temp around 80F (26C) for 2-3 hours until the packs warm up.
Yesterday I did that. After I'd done it for like 2 hours I thought to myself "It should be fine now..." and put them back in the freezer. Within 30 minutes it skyrocketed from 82F to about 132F and started it's sleep cycles again... I use a lapboard so its on a flat surface, but it doesn't seem to help.
Today I've got it propped up like Ric suggested and it's hovering around 120F (49C).
I downloaded Temperature Monitor (and a widget to convert F -> C
) and I'm keeping track of things now. I'll get back to you on what I learn over the evening and tomorrow.
Question: Is it possible to change the fan settings on my PowerBook so that they start going around 120F instead of the high 140's? That would probably help alot...
Has anyone used the Antec cooler system or the one Ric linked? How much do they help?
Thanks again for the feedback guys.
Yesterday I did that. After I'd done it for like 2 hours I thought to myself "It should be fine now..." and put them back in the freezer. Within 30 minutes it skyrocketed from 82F to about 132F and started it's sleep cycles again... I use a lapboard so its on a flat surface, but it doesn't seem to help.
Today I've got it propped up like Ric suggested and it's hovering around 120F (49C).
I downloaded Temperature Monitor (and a widget to convert F -> C
) and I'm keeping track of things now. I'll get back to you on what I learn over the evening and tomorrow.Question: Is it possible to change the fan settings on my PowerBook so that they start going around 120F instead of the high 140's? That would probably help alot...
Has anyone used the Antec cooler system or the one Ric linked? How much do they help?
Thanks again for the feedback guys.
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Hey Guys,
Tonight I was able to really take a hard look at my temperature and do some experimenting. The temperature spikes and sleeping fits became alot more predictable. They are still a bit strange to me, because I remember clearly going much higher without any sleeping several months ago. Anyway, I learned that I need to stay below 125F in general, and avoid spike heating.
I remember going as high as 145F before while playing WOW, and the fan really going hard to make up the difference, but I NEVER has a narcoleptic fit back then. Would my hardware just be degrading at a frightening rate? Have I accidentally changed a setting or something do you think? Like I said earlier, is there a way to get my fans to trigger around 115F rather than 145F?
Anyway, if you're intersted, here's (very?) detailed temperature parsing of 3 hours of normal-ish evening time computer usage.
The Temperature Monitor Graph of my evening:
The Text explanation of above graph. (I hope it's read-able in large size, if not - let me know and I'll host a larger version)
If there would be a way to keep my computer running normally (ie. without ice-packs or a fan add-on) I'd love to hear it. Like I said above, there was a time - a beautiful time - when I was in love with my PowerBook. I took it everywhere and told everyone I knew of it's wonders. That time is gone now. I hope to go back to it someday.
Tonight I was able to really take a hard look at my temperature and do some experimenting. The temperature spikes and sleeping fits became alot more predictable. They are still a bit strange to me, because I remember clearly going much higher without any sleeping several months ago. Anyway, I learned that I need to stay below 125F in general, and avoid spike heating.
I remember going as high as 145F before while playing WOW, and the fan really going hard to make up the difference, but I NEVER has a narcoleptic fit back then. Would my hardware just be degrading at a frightening rate? Have I accidentally changed a setting or something do you think? Like I said earlier, is there a way to get my fans to trigger around 115F rather than 145F?
Anyway, if you're intersted, here's (very?) detailed temperature parsing of 3 hours of normal-ish evening time computer usage.
The Temperature Monitor Graph of my evening:
The Text explanation of above graph. (I hope it's read-able in large size, if not - let me know and I'll host a larger version)
If there would be a way to keep my computer running normally (ie. without ice-packs or a fan add-on) I'd love to hear it. Like I said above, there was a time - a beautiful time - when I was in love with my PowerBook. I took it everywhere and told everyone I knew of it's wonders. That time is gone now. I hope to go back to it someday.
Hi all.
I downloaded temperature monitor (from the link provided by Ric) but I cannot get it to display the same way - I've tried setting preferences, and I do have the "enable data acquisition for all sensors" and I've tried viewing the different windows, and I am not in the "lite" version of the program. How did you guys get it to display the graphs etc.
Also, although it does display the temperature of the different parts, where can we find out the "normal" temperatures for the parts so that we know it's time to cool the computer down?
thank you!
I downloaded temperature monitor (from the link provided by Ric) but I cannot get it to display the same way - I've tried setting preferences, and I do have the "enable data acquisition for all sensors" and I've tried viewing the different windows, and I am not in the "lite" version of the program. How did you guys get it to display the graphs etc.
Also, although it does display the temperature of the different parts, where can we find out the "normal" temperatures for the parts so that we know it's time to cool the computer down?
thank you!
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Iryskel,
"Window -> Show History Windows" opens the graph for me. But the graph doesn't display history (at least I haven't figured out how to make it), it'll only display what's happened since you've been running the program. For instance, last night I had 3 hours of graphing displayed. I can't get that to show up again, or anything else. Just what's happened temperature-wise since I turned it on.
Good question about "normal" temperature range... I know when my "Processor/Controller Bottomside" hits around 127F (52C) it might start sleeping soon. I also noticed that if it slowly creeps up to a much higher temperature (even up to 141F) it won't sleep. It's the spikes that make it sleep alot - more than anything else.
Anyone know what the normal temp range *should* be for the PowerBook?
"Window -> Show History Windows" opens the graph for me. But the graph doesn't display history (at least I haven't figured out how to make it), it'll only display what's happened since you've been running the program. For instance, last night I had 3 hours of graphing displayed. I can't get that to show up again, or anything else. Just what's happened temperature-wise since I turned it on.
Good question about "normal" temperature range... I know when my "Processor/Controller Bottomside" hits around 127F (52C) it might start sleeping soon. I also noticed that if it slowly creeps up to a much higher temperature (even up to 141F) it won't sleep. It's the spikes that make it sleep alot - more than anything else.
Anyone know what the normal temp range *should* be for the PowerBook?
Hi. Like so many others, I'm having the same sleep disorder with my powerbook G4 (1.67ghz, 2 gigs Ram) that I purchased in October of 2005. My sleep issues come and go usually with a span of a few months between episodes. I believe they started earlier this year around January or February.
Anyway, it came back this afternoon and after searching the net, i found this thread. I've gone through and done the usual things like reseting the PMU, the PRAM, the NVRAM, deleted the plist and reset the energy saver settings and it seems to be working fine now. At least until the next episode.
I also looked at the system log file and sure enough, I had a gazillion entries that stated that there the power management rec. emerency overtemp signal and was going to sleep. I downloaded the Temperature Manager and found something interesting. It's recording all the sensors but the trackpad. The trackpad sensor shows up but there are 3 dashes above it like ---. You can see this in the attached image. That leads me to believe that it could be the culprit. Maybe it finally gave out or something. Either way, the powerbook seems to be doing better at the present time.
Oh yeah, I also have a raised platform that I keep the powerbook sitting on and have a fan on my desk that constantly blows cool air underneath it. So my questions are:
1. Would the fact that the temp. mgr is not displaying the trackpad sensor, lead you to believe that the sensor is bad and is causing the sleep problem?
2. What update interval are you using for the Temperature Monitor? The default was set to 2 seconds for the general sensors and 1 minute for the hard drive sensor. Are those good interval settings or should I change them. There was a note on there about not setting the hard drive interval too small.
Thanks for any additional info you can share. I'm going to be sending the laptop in to Apple to repair another problem regarding my internal speakers not working (a problem with the logic board I think) in about a month. I can't send it in now as I'm using the powerbook to complete the animation of my first short film for school. Anyway, I'll make a note and have them look at the logic board and the top case/trackpad sensor. Oh yeah, one more question:
Is there anyway for me to run the hardware test myself?
Thanks again for the help!
JP Roberts
Anyway, it came back this afternoon and after searching the net, i found this thread. I've gone through and done the usual things like reseting the PMU, the PRAM, the NVRAM, deleted the plist and reset the energy saver settings and it seems to be working fine now. At least until the next episode.
I also looked at the system log file and sure enough, I had a gazillion entries that stated that there the power management rec. emerency overtemp signal and was going to sleep. I downloaded the Temperature Manager and found something interesting. It's recording all the sensors but the trackpad. The trackpad sensor shows up but there are 3 dashes above it like ---. You can see this in the attached image. That leads me to believe that it could be the culprit. Maybe it finally gave out or something. Either way, the powerbook seems to be doing better at the present time.
Oh yeah, I also have a raised platform that I keep the powerbook sitting on and have a fan on my desk that constantly blows cool air underneath it. So my questions are:
1. Would the fact that the temp. mgr is not displaying the trackpad sensor, lead you to believe that the sensor is bad and is causing the sleep problem?
2. What update interval are you using for the Temperature Monitor? The default was set to 2 seconds for the general sensors and 1 minute for the hard drive sensor. Are those good interval settings or should I change them. There was a note on there about not setting the hard drive interval too small.
Thanks for any additional info you can share. I'm going to be sending the laptop in to Apple to repair another problem regarding my internal speakers not working (a problem with the logic board I think) in about a month. I can't send it in now as I'm using the powerbook to complete the animation of my first short film for school. Anyway, I'll make a note and have them look at the logic board and the top case/trackpad sensor. Oh yeah, one more question:
Is there anyway for me to run the hardware test myself?
Thanks again for the help!
JP Roberts
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Hey all,
I'm back. Today my computer had another fit. After several weeks of no issues at all, it went to sleep randomly last night once - but woke right back up. This morning around 7am it went to sleep again. And again. And again. Several restarts, kext extensions deletions, "reset-nvram", etc. etc., it seems to have calmed down. The temperature was around 112F on the processor bottomside - nothing remarkable.
I'm completely convinced that it's a strange software issue at this point. When I boot it holding command+option+o+f, it *never* tries to go to sleep. I tested this in the middle of the fit it had. While in that mode it will not sleep (for at least 35 minutes of testing) while i play with the trackpad, type in random things, shake the laptop itself, change the sound and light settings, etc. As soon as I boot from there to the login screen... narcolepsy. Within seconds of seeing OSX, it'll start going to sleep about every 5-6 seconds, taking about as long to wake up again (I tap the spacebar continuously till it wakes up again).
Does anyone know what might be the issue?
FYI, I made a makeshift cooling stand like I saw in those websites. It's just plywood with four 1.5 inch struts that fit to the corners of the bottomside. The temp has been regular and reasonable since I've used the new stand. Good idea. It brings up this new issue, though - what if temperature isn't the only issue here?
Oh, one more thing, I was playing Diablo II when the sleeping fit started...
I'm back. Today my computer had another fit. After several weeks of no issues at all, it went to sleep randomly last night once - but woke right back up. This morning around 7am it went to sleep again. And again. And again. Several restarts, kext extensions deletions, "reset-nvram", etc. etc., it seems to have calmed down. The temperature was around 112F on the processor bottomside - nothing remarkable.
I'm completely convinced that it's a strange software issue at this point. When I boot it holding command+option+o+f, it *never* tries to go to sleep. I tested this in the middle of the fit it had. While in that mode it will not sleep (for at least 35 minutes of testing) while i play with the trackpad, type in random things, shake the laptop itself, change the sound and light settings, etc. As soon as I boot from there to the login screen... narcolepsy. Within seconds of seeing OSX, it'll start going to sleep about every 5-6 seconds, taking about as long to wake up again (I tap the spacebar continuously till it wakes up again).
Does anyone know what might be the issue?
FYI, I made a makeshift cooling stand like I saw in those websites. It's just plywood with four 1.5 inch struts that fit to the corners of the bottomside. The temp has been regular and reasonable since I've used the new stand. Good idea. It brings up this new issue, though - what if temperature isn't the only issue here?
Oh, one more thing, I was playing Diablo II when the sleeping fit started...
Hi there,
when you say it wouldn't go to sleep after pressing "command+option+o+f"...
This means that you have booted into Open Firware, the software that controls the Sensors hasn't loaded at this stage...thats why it won't sleep.
Your logic is correct to a point, it is the software that is telling the Mac to sleep...but the software is getting it's data from the Mac (it's sensors).
Any game will push the Graphics chips and processor to it's limits, thats why it probably shows when playing games.
The only definitive fix is to get an Apple Store to check it out, and see what needs fixing, sorry.
regards
Ric
when you say it wouldn't go to sleep after pressing "command+option+o+f"...
This means that you have booted into Open Firware, the software that controls the Sensors hasn't loaded at this stage...thats why it won't sleep.
Your logic is correct to a point, it is the software that is telling the Mac to sleep...but the software is getting it's data from the Mac (it's sensors).
Any game will push the Graphics chips and processor to it's limits, thats why it probably shows when playing games.
The only definitive fix is to get an Apple Store to check it out, and see what needs fixing, sorry.
regards
Ric