Ibook won't wake up or crashes after waking from sleep mode

Question

I have now had this problem for the last year with my new ibook g4 and I can confirm that the problem is present at OS X version 10.3.0 - 10.3.9 and 10.4.0-10.4.5 . I'd manage to solve it but once in a while it shows up again and i have to solve it all over again. Apple doesn't seem to care although it makes your iBook totally unusable if you can't put it to sleep mode, because of the fact that you can't leave your iBook ON while the lid is closed. Ok as I said I have this problem once in a while but I allways manages to solve it, here are my observations:
Leting the computer go into sleep mode by itself (not by closing the lid) will not result in a crash.
Before a crash the following allways occour:
1) The system gets highly unstable. Programs (mostly safari, mail and itunes) will crash without warning. The mouse reacts very slowly and lags behind. The mouse lag is a shure indication that the system will crash during the next seconds or minuts.
2) While set to automaticly connect to favorite network, the airport won't connect imidiatly, but it will take a few seconds more than usual before it connects.
3) The system sometimes crashes before it can activate the backlight resulting in the situation where people think that the system can't wake up from sleep mode and won't react.
Only forcing the computer to sleep mode can cause this failure (by pressing "sleep mode" or by closing the lid).
What i did to rule out some sources resulting in this error:
1) Something like this problem can happen when having a bad memory socket or bad memory, so I'd ran Apples Hardware test and memtest OSX, but no failure was indicated.
2) Ran the usual repair of disk permissions (like 10^6 times ), without any changes.
3) Tried to reset the PMU (Power managing unit), without any changes.
4) Also tried to make a clean installation with panther 10.3 and tiger 10.4, without changes. Before installing anything (no prgrams or updates) the system still crashes. Even after updating to. 10.3.9 and 10.4.5 the problem is still present
The solution:
Well I found out that the problem has to do with to power options. That would normally mean that reseting the PMU would help, but as I already said this didn't change anything. Apparently the system is not able to wake up the Harddisk from sleep mode, and that's basicly the problem. I don't understand why it doesn't crash when going to sleep mode all by itself, but aparently there's something diffrent by forcing the system to sleep mode. Fourthermore it's not so "happy" to change those settings for the harddisk (I will explain later).
Solution:
1) Basicly just UNCHECK the option "Set harddisk to sleep mode whenever it's possible" inside powermanagment. And set "let the computer go to sleep after" to "Never" , do this for Battery and AC Power settings.
2) And put CPU usage to "Automatic", do this for Battery and AC Power settings
3) Restart the ibook. When it plays it's startup sound reset PVRAM by holding the following keys down before the backlight turns ON: OptionCommand+PR , when you hear the startup sound again release the buttons and start OSX normally.
Now as I said this problems comes once in a while and that has to do with the fact that repairing my disk permissions can change/reset the above changes. Even if it isn't beeing displayed graphicly repairing the disk permission have reseted those changes, resulting in the fact that the system is crashing again.
So to solve this do the following for Battery and AC power settings:
1) CHECK/MARK the "Set harddisk to sleep mode whenever it's possible" inside powermanagment and put CPU usage option the low or high. And set "let the computer go to sleep after" to "Never"
2) Restart the ibook.
3) UNCHECK the option "Set harddisk to sleep mode whenever it's possible" inside powermanagment". Put CPU usage option back to "Automatic". And set "let the computer go to sleep after" to "Never"
4) Restart the ibook again. When it plays it's startup sound reset PVRAM by holding the following keys down before the backlight turns ON: OptionCommand+PR , when you hear the startup sound again release the buttons and start OSX normally.
So now it doesn't crash again.
I've read all the threads of people having this problem and apparently it has been present since OSX 10.0.0 and when calling apple support they tell you to reset PMU and repair the usual disk permissions, which of cause doesn' work. And there are aparently a lot of really angree costumers, because this problem makes the computer COMPLETLY unusable, but apple has done nothing to help those people because of the the fact there there has been released ZERO patches or changes in OSX to resolve this issue. I can't say that there is something wrong with the iBooks as the several hardware test's indicate no malfunctioning but there is some bug in Mac OSX wich specificly makes the system incable to tell some ibook's how to wake the harddisk from sleep mode.
To the fine folks working on this forum: No I will not send this to apple, they already know about this, and have done nothing (just think of the millions of crash reports they recieve from those hundreds of crashes everybody is geting from this problem). That is why I put this on the forum so that people can actually solve this problem by themselves. If you think it's worth sending to apple, so that this problem can finally be fixed after 4-5 years you are more than welcome to send it directly to somebody who will actually do something about this. And i really hope that giving people the opportunity to make ther computer work, doesn't violated the usual rule "that we are not allowed to write anything that is agains apples interests", wich often results in a removal of threads and ANY chance in SOLVING critical errors.
ibook g4 12", 512, 32 VRAM, 1.2 GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

Answer 1

sdad sdsdds:
Your observations and solution are right on the money!!
I just was working on an iBook that my father is giving to my sister. I must have started the problem by changing the sleep setting for battery to let HD sleep. After that the fun began! Instability, restart after restart, running Disk Warrior, fixing permissions over and over, etc. I finally zeroed out the HD and installed 10.4. Nothing worked until I read your post.
Thanks a lot. I understand how you feel about posting here, but please be aware that you are helping many people who would be completely without a clue otherwise. Thanks again for your efforts.
Now I can ship my sister her iBook!