11-29-2007, 04:28 AM

I have a Powerbook G4 15" and it's about 3 years old now, and the thing has been a real trooper over the years. I've taken it all over, on volunteer trips, in other countries, and it really shows in the wear on the body...but I've never actually dropped it or explicitly damaged it in any way, and a faulty battery and HDD were the only problems I've ever had with it to this point. But just about a week ago, it started twitching to sleep when the monitor wiggled. I assumed it was going into clamshell sleep mode because something was weird in there and that was making it go so I just tried to treat it gingerly. But something funny happened...eventually it stopped staying awake.

What I mean is, if I can get it to wake up at all, it only stays awake for a few brief seconds before returning to sleep entirely. Not long enough to get anything done at all because nothing begins to function as it's still processing its "wake up" stuff when it issues the command to return to sleep.

Rebooting did not help at all because when I force it off and turn it back on, it happily shows me the login screen only to disappear when I am typing in my password. I've thought "wow, it's just super, incredibly sensitive...I'll not touch it at all" and surely enough, without any kind of interaction, it still went to sleep like clockwork. I tried installing InsomniaX in its last moments of working properly, and despite that touting a clamshell-sleep-off thing, it did nothing to stop this. I need my computer to work. So basically, I have two questions:

1) Is there a way to fix it without taking it in for repairs?

2) If I have to take it in for repairs, will running it in Firewire mode to remove my precious data beforehand be interrupted by this stupid habit of the computer's? Because if it does, I'm pretty much boned.

Thanks a lot, guys.

11-29-2007, 12:52 PM

A couple of things you should try...

Does the problem happen even when you have an external mouse/keyboard and monitor connected?

Reset the PMU (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449)

Start up from the system software CD and see if the problem persists. If not, then there is a software issue.

11-29-2007, 03:24 PM

Yes it happens if I have an external mouse/keyboard, (and display for that matter), and I'll try the PMU and software deal.

08-20-2008, 03:42 PM

I'm having the exact same issue with my just over 3 year old powerbook g4. It's perfect timing because the apple care I purchased with the computer ran out a month before the computer decided to start this non-sense.
I've tried just about everything short of sending it in for re-pair, turned every sleep related thing off in my system preferences, which helped for about a week. I was told after talking to a friend that it was probably a mother board issue..... Trying to find out more

08-21-2008, 12:03 AM

I really dont have an answer to your question but when I was having a problem with the display on my G4(if the screen moved at all I would loose picture on the whole bottom half of my display) I was also trying to get some answers. I typed in google the problem I was having and the model and it came back with a few sites to reference one being the apple site, there had to be a hundred of post from different people having the same problem and I was able to get some answers there. You can give it a shot.