IMac from 2010: sometimes the screen stays black, only restoring from backup helps.

Question

hello there dear community,
i have been a great fan of my imac and macbook eversince i first got them. but recently - probably since maverick - i am experiencing a series of problems with my 2010 27" imac. let me be more precise: eversince i got maverick, my imac keeps asking me to update every other day. usually i'm doing this or waiting for a couple of days. it's been exactly three times now that when my imac asked me to update and i postponed it that troubles occured. every single time i am not able to switch from sleep mode into the regular one. the screen stays black and the cursor is visible (and moveable). also i can clearly hear that the computer is on and working. the screen is black, but not in a mat kind of black but as if there was light behind it (i.e. the screen is switched on).
when this happened first, i called the apple support and we tried a lot of things and spoke for more than an hour. the only solution that worked out was pulling the plug, waiting, putting it back, restart the computer with cmd+r pressed and then restore the system from a backup that i had saved on an external drive. this of course takes time, usually up to four hours, but yes - it works. and i am very glad that there is a solution at all to this mess - but it's very idle.
now my question: there must be another way? or even better: how do i avoid that my imac falls to a sleep from which it can't really awake?
thank you for your patience and thank you for your help!
cheers

Answer 1

Blank (lighted, but black) screen with cursor at bootup
[SOLVED] - Macbook Air Sleep/Wake problem
Dark screen on start-up can only see curser