iMac Freezing when it "wakes up" from Sleep???

[jerry1]

Hi, my system is detailed in my signature. My iMac has worked flawlessly since it was new (probably about 2 years or so) until now.

When I bring it back from sleep mode, within a few seconds, I get the spinning pinwheel. At first, it would come out of it in a couple minutes. After a few days of this, it now does not come out of the lockup at all. I'm not sure if can force-quit or not because I just remembered that tool so I was just turning it off by holding down the power button.

I rarely have time to devote to computer troubleshooting (which is why I bought an iMac) but I plan on digging into this over the weekend. Any helpful advice would be much appreciated. I'm not exactly a computer guy so I could use all the help I can get!

The only new software that I have added recently is the software for my new Harmone One remote control. But even when I have "quit" that application, it still happens. It did come up okay once and the only apps running were Firefox and Finder. Next, I had those 2 open + Mail and it froze but I've only ran that test once so I'm not sure if it's a pattern connected to Mail yet...or not.

It has been in and out of sleep mode 100's of times w/o issue before this started happening and it never mattered what apps were on or off.

Hope you can help!

 

[dollar398]

lots of variables

Your machine is only 2 years old, that is still fairly young hardware but...

absent funky HD sounds, It might be the power supply.

 

[Chuck Fadanoid]

Maybe you can post the system log from the Console application? If I remember correctly it's in Applications/Utilities. That can tell you the last things it tries to do before freezing.

Different example, but my G5 started to freeze when I tried to sleep it, and a quick scan of the log file gave me hints that it was due to a 3rd party Bluetooth dongle. Saved me a lot of time and effort.

 

[AppleFan360]

Try disconnecting everything from your iMac except the mouse and keyboard. A peripheral might be causing the issue.

 

[jerry1]

Thanks everyone. And any more ideas would be a help too.

I already have all peripherals disconnected. It did still happen after disconnecting everything.

I had just a little time last night to mess around. It was better last night than the past few previous nights. It was sort of back to the stage where it spins the pinwheel for maybe up to 30 seconds or so and then all is well. That isn't terrible but it never did that before so something is different.

During my tests last night, it didn't seem to matter if Mail was open or not. It didn't seem to make things worse. I tried putting it to sleep and bringing it back maybe 6 times or so. The first few was just with Firefox and Finder running but I varied the length of sleep time to see if that had an affect. I also initiated sleep mode myself vs. letting the system time out and initiate sleep mode itself. The last couple of cycles were where I also had Mail running and varied the length of sleep time. Nothing seemed to impact performance much and it never froze to the point of no return. Maybe a 5-30 second pinwheel cycle and then it would be ready. This is strange.

BTW...the computer would wake up from sleep and look okay for the first few seconds (maybe 3-8 seconds), then I would hear the hard drive start to make noise (nothing out of the ordinary..you could just hear that it started some sort of processing). That is when the pinwheel appears.

 

[AppleFan360]

Have you run any of the disk utilities yet?

 

[dollar398]

sounding more and more like HD issues

it is looking like it is the hard drive then. If I you are able to run the disk utility then give that a shot. If I were in your situation I would make sure and back up all your data if you haven't already(you should always have multiple backups including offsite).

If you can't successfully run the disk utility, I would just pull that HD out put in a new one and do a clean install. (then load your data). Sometimes hard drives just fail.

 

[jerry1]

Thanks everyone. For some reason, this has basically stopped happening. I do get the pinwheel sometimes but just for a few seconds while it finishes "waking up". I do have a bootable backup and soon will go ahead and burn the imprortant stuff onto a disk as well. I'll see how this progresses and go from there.

I will end up running disk utilities when I get a chance. Unfortunately, free time is a luxury for me.

 

[jerry1]

Well, my iMac died last weekend. It wouldn't even turn on. It has been at the Apple Store since Monday and I'm going to call today for an update. The guy at the store said the troubleshooting lights suggest a power supply or logic board problem but he said that should not cause the lockup issues I was having when the iMac woke up from sleep mode.

It would be crazy if everything was not related considering my system ran flawlessly until a few weeks ago and it progressed over a couple weeks to the point where it was dead.

 

[MTI]

The guy at the store said the troubleshooting lights suggest a power supply or logic board problem but he said that should not cause the lockup issues I was having when the iMac woke up from sleep mode.

That "guy at the store" needs to refresh his knowledge base about common iMac issues.