Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

I found the wierdest thing that keeps waking my imac up from sleep...

D

diehardmacfan

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 12, 2007
204
0
I have the new aluminum 20 inch 2.4 ghz imac. i noticed that my imac would wake from sleep a lot and i had no idea why it was doing it.

in my room i have a shag carpet and across the room i have a lamp. the lamp and computer are not connected in any way. they are plugged in to two different sets of outlets that are across the room.

when i move around the carpet with my socks i build up static electricity in my body. then i can just go and touch any metal part on my lamp, and my imac wakes up from sleep.

this only works when i have static electricity in me. i can hear the small shock when i touch it. its such a small shock and it amazes me that somehow that shock travels through my home wiring and wakes my imac up.

this just amazes me
 
Seems implausible, unless the shock from the little spark causes your whole body to briefly spasm, which causes you to kick your shoe off, which flies across the room and nudges your mouse, which wakes your iMac. That's what always happens to me.

Either that, or maybe it's Bluetooth -related. Disable the "allow Bluetooth devices to wake this Mac" and see if it still happens.
 
eRondeau said:
Seems implausible, unless the shock from the little spark causes your whole body to briefly spasm, which causes you to kick your shoe off, which flies across the room and nudges your mouse, which wakes your iMac. That's what always happens to me.

Either that, or maybe it's Bluetooth -related. Disable the "allow Bluetooth devices to wake this Mac" and see if it still happens.
Click to expand...

ROTFLOL :D

I agree, that it seems strange that your iMac would wake from you touching a lamp.
 
I highly suggest plugging a surge protector in your butt so you don't blow a circuit and fry all of your electronics. One for the computer might help to, i guess.

In all seriousness, that is weird. You might want to have the wiring looked at if you rent the place. If you own, you still should have it looked at, but it will cost you. If you have faulty wiring, you can easily start a fire if you're drawing too many amps from said circuit, like well over 1000 watts, which is 10 amps.
 
i make movies said:
I highly suggest plugging a surge protector in your butt so you don't blow a circuit and fry all of your electronics. One for the computer might help to, i guess.

In all seriousness, that is weird. You might want to have the wiring looked at if you rent the place. If you own, you still should have it looked at, but it will cost you. If you have faulty wiring, you can easily start a fire if you're drawing too many amps from said circuit, like well over 1000 watts, which is 10 amps.
Click to expand...

lol yeh i do have a about 15 items plugged into two outlets. that does suck if it causes a fire cuz we do own. well i really hope that it is not that.

its amazing how a little static electricity sock can travel through the walls and wake my computer.

could this be part apples fault, because the computer shouldn't be able to wake with a very small power surge
 
Sockets are generally wired in a ring/series (well in the UK they are), so your lamp and iMac are linked via the mains wiring.

Doesn't really answer why your imac is waking though.
 
eRondeau said:
Seems implausible, unless the shock from the little spark causes your whole body to briefly spasm, which causes you to kick your shoe off, which flies across the room and nudges your mouse, which wakes your iMac. That's what always happens to me.

Either that, or maybe it's Bluetooth -related. Disable the "allow Bluetooth devices to wake this Mac" and see if it still happens.
Click to expand...

haha post of the day! i actually laughed-out-loud!
 
diehardmacfan said:
lol yeh i do have a about 15 items plugged into two outlets. that does suck if it causes a fire cuz we do own. well i really hope that it is not that.

its amazing how a little static electricity sock can travel through the walls and wake my computer.

could this be part apples fault, because the computer shouldn't be able to wake with a very small power surge
Click to expand...

Get the wiring checked if this really happened.

We had some odd things occurring and discovered a break in the grounding to several outlets. Once we resolved this by re-strapping all the ground circuits our little gremlins moved away.
 
eRondeau said:
Seems implausible, unless the shock from the little spark causes your whole body to briefly spasm, which causes you to kick your shoe off, which flies across the room and nudges your mouse, which wakes your iMac. That's what always happens to me.

Either that, or maybe it's Bluetooth -related. Disable the "allow Bluetooth devices to wake this Mac" and see if it still happens.
Click to expand...

well played sir
 
Just because the lamp is plugged in in another outlet doesn't mean they are not on the same circuit, in fact it is highly likely they are on the same circuit. Is your place old? does it have grounded outlets? If you don't have a good surge protector, get one. Also check your Energy Saver settings, uncheck wake on ethernet & uncheck restart on power failure. Also, uncheck "allow bluethooth devices to wake this computer" in the bluetooth settings>advanced.
 
Spievy said:
Just because the lamp is plugged in in another outlet doesn't mean they are not on the same circuit, in fact it is highly likely they are on the same circuit. Is your place old? does it have grounded outlets? If you don't have a good surge protector, get one. Also check your Energy Saver settings, uncheck wake on ethernet & uncheck restart on power failure. Also, uncheck "allow bluethooth devices to wake this computer" in the bluetooth settings>advanced.
Click to expand...

it is a very old place the lamp is not grounded, but everything else is including my computer. they are on the same circuit. my computer is on a surge protector so this mind boggles me
 
A surge protector will only protect against some spikes. If, for some reason, the static on the lamp causes a momentary drop in power it may cause the mac's psu to drop and if you have any usb devices connected this may be enough for them to wake the mac. Try it; if you have any USB devices plugged in try removing and reconnecting them whilst its asleep, it'll probably wake. Also, and I got this with my mac, I have two printers permanently on and connected by usb to my mac, it kept on waking for no reason and I tracked it down to one of the printers waking the mac. So it may be a printer waking because of a surge on the printer's plug, is that surge protected too? You may be protecting the wrong device!!
 
I've walked up to my iMac and went to touch my iPhone (in the dock) and a static charge woke my iMac on more than one occasion. It's odd, but I am careful now to discharge the electricity onto my old pc (heheehhe). :D
 
RickT67 said:
I've walked up to my iMac and went to touch my iPhone (in the dock) and a static charge woke my iMac on more than one occasion. It's odd, but I am careful now to discharge the electricity onto my old pc (heheehhe). :D
Click to expand...

That is hilarious! I love it.
 
I'll bet its the Bluetooth! The small static EM field that your body generates before you discharge is probably enough for the little Bluetooth reciever in the iMac.

Side bar,

I do Satellite Communictions for the Army. When I was in Guatemala, we had a storm come through. A lightning stike hit the generators (near by but close enough, like with in 5 feet) and you should have seen what that did to my signal. We all know that lightning is static electricity. Well, my signal went all over the place. It spiked out and then dropped off, shorting out my amplifiers.

So, yes, static can create a false signal to get your bluetooth going enough to wake up the mac...

Cheers!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back