MBP often refuses to wake from sleep when lid is opened.

Question

Hello!
Well, my MBP (2.2 Ghz, 15", Core2, 2 weeks old, 10.5.2) has been having trouble. That is, when I close the lid, the MBP properly sleeps. However, when I open the lid, it sometimes (Maybe as much as 40-50% of time!) won't wake up. The screen stays black, the keys won't do anything, and the sound wont' come on, but the sleep light turns off - as if it woke up. If I close the lid, it happily sleeps.
The only way out of this "mode" is to hold the power button for a forced-shutdown, and reboot. Its become worse after the 10.5.2 update. In addition, if I select "Sleep" from the apple menu before I close the lid, it seems to sleep and wake properly. On the other hand, if I just close the lid, it often won't wake up properly.
How can I fix this?
Thanks, Dan

Answer 1

Hi Daniel, I haven't had any significant sleep problems with my own MBP, but in general with other models sleep problems often come down to:
1) third party hardware 'add ons" (USB, FW, BlueTooth or ethernet) that "poll" the computer when it is either going to sleep or waking up. Some USB hubs and USB based ADSL modems were particularly notorious for this a little while back, but other devices, even memory sticks, have been known to produce such issues too. So if you have anything else connected see if the problems persists when it has been removed.
2) Third party "background" software, especially drivers associated with USB and bluetooth devices. Some earlier Logitech keyboard and mouse software could do this, for example.
3) Some specific other software that loads at startup - virus checkers, things like iStat, HD integrity checkers etc.
Remove all externals and then start up in "Safe Mode" (to disable log-in items etc - see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107392 for more info), and see if the problem persists.
If it still occurs you may have a problem with a third party 'haxy" of some kind which has actually modified your system files.
Cheers
Rod