Blue screen on wake up.

Question

Can any of you Help me, please? I don't shut my Mac mini down when I've finished using it, I put it to sleep. Just lately, though, when I wake it up again, by clicking my mouse, My desktop picture flashes on and then disappears. A plain light blue screen appears and then... Nothing. The only way I can gain control is to pull the plug, put it back in and let the computer restart. It then works perfectly until the next time I Put it to sleep and wake it up again. Help!

Answer 1

Hi rhonnie!
Sounds like a Kernel Panic to me. This is usually caused by the RAM installed in the system. Have you had your mac minis system ram upgraded by a 2nd party (i.e. not Apple)? If you have had the ram upgraded elsewhere then that is most probably your problem, however there are a few things that you can try considering that it is a completely Apple configured system. Restart / turn on your mini whilst holding down the keys " alt p r" at the same time until your hear the start-up chime twice. This will reset the systems PMU, which could be causing some wake-up issues. Once your system has booted you can run the maintenance tasks and update the pre bindings. Simply load up "Terminal" and type the following:
sudo periodic daily weekly monthly
then hit enter. You may be prompted for your user password and then the process of maintenance will begin. You will not be able to see any evidence of the maintenance process on screen but you may be able to hear your hard drive tinkering away if you listen careful enough!
Once the Terminal window is ready for the next command (usually symbolized by the solid block after your user name) type in the following:
man update_prebinding
and then hit enter. This will ensure that applications, system files and documents all coordinate with one-another correctly. Once this process has finished, simply close and quit Terminal. The last thing that you can try is "repairing permissions". Load Disk Utility, select your Macintosh Hard Drive with the OS X instillation, select the first aid tab and then click on "repair permissions". This will simply ensure that everything is in its place and getting the privileges that it should have to work properly. Once this process is complete, simply quit Disk Utility and try putting your mini to sleep. Click your mouse button and see if the blue screen appears again.
If the screen should re-appear then I can be of no further assistance I am afraid, however someone with more experience in the matter may be able to provide the exact advice that you're looking for.
Hope that I may have been of help
-Pos