30" Display Failing to Wake (Mac Pro)

[ILC32]

Hello everyone. I have noticed an issue with my 30" display. Sometimes when I wake the Mac Pro (2.66, 1900XT, 2gb) from sleep by pressing a key on the keyboard, the white light on the display flickers, but the screen itself never wakes. When I re-sleep the computer by holding the power button on the Mac Pro case down and then wake it again, the display wakes normally. This does not happen often (perhaps once every twenty "wakes"), but I wonder whether it is a symptom of a hardware issue that I should look into further. The problem started before I updated the firmware, and still exists after the update, with about the same frequency.

I appreciate any thoughts anyone has on this!

 

[Transeau]

It sounds like a defective monitor, video card or dvi cable.
Is it still under warranty? If you have AppleCare for the Mac Pro, you also have on-site service with it.

 

[kylepro88]

Yikes...defective 30in display. Ide be pissed.

 

[dusanv]

I have a Dell 30'' on the Mac Pro (x1900). No such problems. The only problem with it is that the hub/card reader in the monitor prevents the Mac from sleeping but that could be the Mac itself (lots of people have reported problems with USB on Mac Pro).

 

[Demon Hunter]

Yikes...defective 30in display. Ide be pissed.

I wouldn't go that far. It's probably a software glitch.

 

[hfg]

Exact same problem here...

I too am having a "wakeup" problem with the 30" display just within the past week or so. You will probably notice the power light is flashing with 2 short and 1 long flash over and over. This is the code for "backlight failure". I too can recover by letting the system return to standby and trying again to wake it up. This happens only about 5 or 10 percent of the time on wakeup.

I talked to the Apple Care folks who reminded me of the very large power spike encountered with BOTH the Mac Pro and the ACD backlight when coming out of sleep or standby which could cause the power to briefly drop and the backlight to fail to light. Although they suggested stripping out most of my drives and memory and replacing the 1900 video card with the original 5300, I think my problem may be with my UPS.

I hadn't considered the UPS as I upgraded my computer and when I checked it out, I discovered it was only rated at 500VA, way below what should be running my current system. I had ignored the occasional overload beeps and the occasional warning message popup from the UPS indicating I was on battery power. I temporarily plugged the ACD directly into the wall socket and am in the process of replacing the UPS with a larger 1500VA (865 watt) unit. I have not encountered a display wakeup issue since changing the display power, and hope the new UPS will continue to show good results.

So ... before you panic ... check your AC power input path and make sure everything (UPS, surge suppressor, power extension cords) is up to the load you drawing. Next suspect would probably be the video card. The recent firmware upgrade would seem to be a long shot ... but if more users report this problem it may be suspect as well. Hopefully we won't have to send in our 30" displays to be fixed.

-howard

 

[ILC32]

I too am having a "wakeup" problem with the 30" display just within the past week or so. You will probably notice the power light is flashing with 2 short and 1 long flash over and over. This is the code for "backlight failure". I too can recover by letting the system return to standby and trying again to wake it up. This happens only about 5 or 10 percent of the time on wakeup.

I talked to the Apple Care folks who reminded me of the very large power spike encountered with BOTH the Mac Pro and the ACD backlight when coming out of sleep or standby which could cause the power to briefly drop and the backlight to fail to light. Although they suggested stripping out most of my drives and memory and replacing the 1900 video card with the original 5300, I think my problem may be with my UPS.

I hadn't considered the UPS as I upgraded my computer and when I checked it out, I discovered it was only rated at 500VA, way below what should be running my current system. I had ignored the occasional overload beeps and the occasional warning message popup from the UPS indicating I was on battery power. I temporarily plugged the ACD directly into the wall socket and am in the process of replacing the UPS with a larger 1500VA (865 watt) unit. I have not encountered a display wakeup issue since changing the display power, and hope the new UPS will continue to show good results.

So ... before you panic ... check your AC power input path and make sure everything (UPS, surge suppressor, power extension cords) is up to the load you drawing. Next suspect would probably be the video card. The recent firmware upgrade would seem to be a long shot ... but if more users report this problem it may be suspect as well. Hopefully we won't have to send in our 30" displays to be fixed.

-howard

Howard, your post is very interesting. My issue is exactly as you describe, including the flashing light on the display. My machine including X1900 video card was installed and configured by Apple. I am not using a UPS. My machine and screen are plugged into a surge protector/power strip that is in turn plugged into the wall. I have noticed that my desklamp (plugged into the surge protector as well) dims slightly when I wake the machine. The surge protector has a very high rating and uses heavy gauge wiring, etc. I wonder if the issue is that the machine and screen need to be plugged into their own socket or strip with nothing else at all.

I may just deal with the problem until something actually fails. It happens rarely enough and is easy enough to correct that I prefer dealing with it to having the machine serviced until absolutely necessary.

 

[ironic23]

same problem for me here on a 15" 2.00GHz MacBook Pro 256MB VRAM and a 23" ACD. i try to wake my computer up but it fails then when i shut down the computer by force (holding the power key) and restart it, it says that the computer suffered from a kernel panic. Only happened since i updated to 10.4.8.

 

[trainguy77]

trying running an extension cord for the monitor to an outlet that is not on the same breaker and see if you still have the problem. If so its worth fixing(the outlet) because its not healthy for the machine or the monitor to not have the powered needed to drive it.

 

[hfg]

It could be your surge power strip

If you are using a low cost surge power strip to power both your Mac Pro and 30" monitor, internal components may be causing a voltage droop on wakeup. I have seen a lot of power strips which appear very heavy duty on the outside with massive power cords and high Joule ratings, but inside they aren't so tough. If your system shows no problems plugged directly into your wall outlets, you might try a high quality multi-stage suppressor switch box which has heavy duty wiring and toroids inside. It might help to put the CPU on the heavily filtered outlets and the monitor on a lesser filtered outlet (on a multi stage filtered outlet switchbox).
-howard

 

[mactree]

hey guys, I had the same problem a couple of months ago with my mac pro with 30" display and x1900 card . I made some changes in my prefs and haven't had it happen again since, it may be worth a shot to try at least because it fixed my problem:

Display settings under System Prefs : go to the Options Tab and change the Display Power Button from 'Puts the system to sleep" to "Turns the display on and off".

If or when your display doesn't wake up again, you should be able to press the power button on the side of your monitor off and on again to get it working. This may be some bizzare coincidence on my end, but I for sure was having that problem with mine, and now I'm not.. so that's all I really know.


-Nick

 

[bob5820]

Same problem here, no UPS. I'll try using different wall sockets.

 

[ILC32]

hey guys, I had the same problem a couple of months ago with my mac pro with 30" display and x1900 card . I made some changes in my prefs and haven't had it happen again since, it may be worth a shot to try at least because it fixed my problem:

Display settings under System Prefs : go to the Options Tab and change the Display Power Button from 'Puts the system to sleep" to "Turns the display on and off".

If or when your display doesn't wake up again, you should be able to press the power button on the side of your monitor off and on again to get it working. This may be some bizzare coincidence on my end, but I for sure was having that problem with mine, and now I'm not.. so that's all I really know.


-Nick

Thanks Nick. I tried that, but still had the problem. It seems to be happening more often. I may have to break down and call Apple.