iMac wakes from sleep when lighting conditions change (eg. I turn my lamp off)

[156457]

Hi there,

Since as long as I can remember, my August 2007 aluminium iMac always wakes up as soon as I turn my lamp on or off. Maybe, one in seven nights it won't wake, but most of the time it does.

It's a real nuisance having it do this, and to add to the annoyance, the iMac randomly wakes up sometimes, day or night. I can be in bed and it will just come on, all systems go, or get in from work one day and find it's been on since 10AM that morning (wasting energy).

I've reset PRAM and SMC (whatever they're called) about a thousand times, I clean installed Leopard 3-4 times and just did a clean install with Snow Leopard (I didn't upgrade, I wiped my HD and installed fresh) yet it still happens.

It's totally beyond me why it just decided to wake itself up every now and again and also why 90% of the time it decides to wake up when the lighting conditions change - wtf?!

Can anyone offer any advice or a solution to this annoying problem?

Thanks

 

[SteveAbootman]

Sounds like a hardware problem. If you have Apple Care call them for an exchange. Otherwise, you may be outta luck since it sounds like the software configuration isn't the issue. Sorry I didn't have the golden answer you were looking for, but perhaps someone else does.

 

[UltraNEO*]

Hi there,

Since as long as I can remember, my August 2007 aluminium iMac always wakes up as soon as I turn my lamp on or off. Maybe, one in seven nights it won't wake, but most of the time it does.

It's a real nuisance having it do this, and to add to the annoyance, the iMac randomly wakes up sometimes, day or night. I can be in bed and it will just come on, all systems go, or get in from work one day and find it's been on since 10AM that morning (wasting energy).

I've reset PRAM and SMC (whatever they're called) about a thousand times, I clean installed Leopard 3-4 times and just did a clean install with Snow Leopard (I didn't upgrade, I wiped my HD and installed fresh) yet it still happens.

It's totally beyond me why it just decided to wake itself up every now and again and also why 90% of the time it decides to wake up when the lighting conditions change - wtf?!

Can anyone offer any advice or a solution to this annoying problem?

Thanks
Nick

(P.S: at least with my old £500 PC I could get a good nights sleep without it switching itself on, what a shame my £1300 Mac can't do the same!)

Sounds like it's picking up on surges in the powerline, do you have an anti-surge plug on the mains outlet where your Mac is connected?

 

[156457]

Sounds like it's picking up on surges in the powerline, do you have an anti-surge plug on the mains outlet where your Mac is connected?

I used to however it didn't have enough sockets. I might put my printer away and put the surge protector back in, thanks for the tip!