Mac Mini Won't Wake Up, intermittently

[Grateful11]

I was Googling this problem and this persons question sounds nearly identical to ours:

Thu Dec 31, 2009, "My new Mac mini goes to sleep obediently but it balks on having to wake up.

Hitting a key on the keyboard one stroke may wake her up 25% of the time.
Hitting a key on the keyboard several times may wake her up another 25% of the time.
Hitting the power button may wake her up another 25% of the time.
Rebooting always works.

Does anyone have a clue as to what I should do?"

No one ever answered his question. Anyone here ever have this problem? The display will always say,
"No Signal" but the Mini is on, light is bright. Usually you can press the power button and it goes to
sleep, pulsating light, then press it again and everything is fine but again I say usually because
sometimes a restart is in order. It does this about 5 or 6 times a week. I've swapped out DVI cables
to eliminate that. We ran it for a long time on a VGA cable and I don't remember having this problem,
I might switch back just to see if it cures the problem.

[btfc]

What devices are plugged into it? (especially USB!)

[Grumpyguy]

I hate to say this, but every Mac I've ever owned, has had sleep issues once the original OS was upgraded to something else.

My PM G5, through the various OS upgrades and updates would sleep fine, then another OS update and I'd have to reboot to wake it.

Maybe deleting some preferences might fix things, like the finder.plist.

If you want to go to the trouble, create a new user account and see if the problem exists in a pristine setting....

[gabester]

I believe I've occasionally encountered this "sleep trouble" on my Mac mini. Problem is, I'm not sure which mini (I have 3, and I think it was only one of them) and I think it may have gone away after an an OS upgrade (say from 10.5.3 to 10.5.6).

If I had to herald a guess I'd say it was my core duo 1.66ghz refurb. I don't think I've encountered this problem on my new gen dual sata 5 usb 2.0ghz core 2 duo. Or if I have, it's rare enough that it doesn't really bother me. I'm almost positive I never saw that issue on my original 1.25Ghz G4 mini.
g=

[Grateful11]

btfc wrote:
What devices are plugged into it? (especially USB!)

Well let's see:

1. Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Receiver
2. OWC Ext. Superdrive
3. Apple White Keyboard
4. Rosewill Powered USB Hub, into that is: a Card Reader, USB Scales and an iPod Sync cable

It's not that big of a deal for me but my wife gets really agitated by it.

[Doc]

Wake from sleep issues are usually due to misbehaving peripherals or the drivers for those peripherals.

Disconnect all of your USB devices except the Apple keyboard and find yourself an Apple mouse. Restart with only the Apple keyboard and Apple mouse connected and see if you still have problems.

[AllGold]

I agree with Doc. Except you don't have to use an Apple mouse if you don't have one. Any wired USB mouse should be fine--as long as you don't install its driver software (and it isn't previously installed).

[Article Accelerator]

Grateful11 wrote:
[quote=btfc]
What devices are plugged into it? (especially USB!)

Well let's see:

1. Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Receiver
...
4. Rosewill Powered USB Hub
Unplug, uninstall, restart.

Your system's sleep problems will likely be gone.

[ADent]

Don't put it to sleep. A Mac mini running is only around 20 to 23W.

I gave up on mine. Would work for awhile. Then update OS and not reliable. Then would start working. I gave up and set the monitor to go to sleep after awhile.

Also monitor, speakers, etc are on a power strip I manually kill when I need to leave the computer on.