MacBook Air Locks up after 'sleeping"

I have a late 2011 model MacBook Air (Running the latest MLion OS) that is constantly locking up on me when I put it to 'sleep'.

Before putting it down for a nap, I always close all programs..browsers, mail, apps and double check on the dock that nothing is open.

When I attempt to wake it all I have is a black screen. Then, it takes hitting the power button dozens of times (and sometimes just holding it down for 30-90 seconds) and the machine restarts.

Ideas, anyone?

TIA!

Cheers!

Pat

Try run a permissions and disk check and if that doesn't fix it boot up holding the letter D and run the diagnostics and see if it reports anything back

halo2000!

Thank you very much for the quick reply! I have been searching for an answer to this problem for some time...and on about the 8th page of a Bing Search after posting here this morning, I found this forum over at OX10Daily. Here's a copy/paste of it. With over 20 replies saying that seemed to work, I just performed what he suggested. I am about to 'nap' this machine right now for awhile to see if his 'fix' works for me.

If this does NOT work, YOUR suggestion will be the next one I try out!

Again, thanks a lot!

Cheers!

Pat

PS--and I WILL report back here with the results....hopefully that may help someone else out with this problem.



From OX 10 Daily


How I Fixed my MacBook Air 11.6″ Wake From Sleep Problems
Apr 5, 2011 - 23 Comments



After a bit of use, my MacBook Air 11.6″ started to exhibit a strange behavior, it refused to wake from sleep. I’d open the MacBook Air, hit every key imaginable, and the Mac just stayed asleep, nothing would get it to turn on. If you’re interested in this you’re probably affected too so before I talk a bit about the problem let me show you the fix that worked for me:

Select a Startup Disk in System Preferences!

Yea, that’s it. If you don’t know how to do that, here it is:



Launch “System Preferences” from the Apple menu
Click on “Startup Disk”
Select the startup disk of the OS you are using (in my case, Mac OS X 10.6.7)
Say what? The MacBook Air isn’t booting though, it’s waking from sleep, why would this matter?

I don’t know, but it works. Maybe it’s just an issue with things being loaded from RAM and Mac OS X knowing where to get the data from, I don’t know. Now you might say my situation is unique because My MacBook Air dual boots between Lion and Snow Leopard, but upon looking at some friends Macs I discovered that even in a single boot setup, a startup disk is rarely selected. 99% of the time it’s probably not necessary, and I can’t explain why it is here, but it solved the wake from sleep problem immediately.

Now I’ll talk about the problem a bit and how I arrived at this. In the process of troubleshooting, I discovered a few things. First, I googled around and discovered I wasn’t alone, there’s a large thread on Apple Discussion Boards that has over 350 replies by MacBook Air 11″ owners complaining of the exact same problem. Interesting. Secondly, I discovered the MacBook Air actually is waking from sleep, the display just isn’t turning on. Thanks to the SSD, the machine runs so incredibly quiet that you would have no idea it’s awake, but it is. I discovered this because the Air was still available as a shared device on a local network, anyone could freely connect to it, move files back and forth, etc. After figuring this out I tried to adjust the brightness back and forth and that did nothing. Resetting the SMC worked for a short while, then it started up again. It wasn’t until I was trying to find out if the problem happens in both Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7 that I discovered a Startup Disk wasn’t selected, each time I’d select a drive it wouldn’t happen. Thus, my fix was found, and maybe it will help you too.

Oh, and the default disk seems to reset itself when you use option to select a startup drive during boot, so look out for that too.

That is probably one of the weirdest fixes ever! Glad it worked though

Hey halo!

I promised I'd report back....

I left my MBA in the sleep mode all night with both the browser and mail programs open and guess what? No lock up!

I am not saying that technique I found on OX 10 Daily is a 100% fix, but hey, this is the first time I can remember in a long time that my MBA didn't lock up after sleeping for more than an hour.

I'll give it a 90% cure right now though

I do appreciate the help!

Cheers!

Pat

Hey halo2000!

I told you I'd report back...so here goes;D

Main problem: MBA "locks up" after going to sleep, requiring holding down the start key or pressing it numerous times until teh machine boots again.

Fix: I tried the one I found on OX 10 Daily, and it 'worked' for a few days. Did it work? Yes, but only temporarily.

So I tried your suggestions....I did a disk repair/permissions check as you suggested and everything checked out OK.

I then performed a general hardware test and that, too, came out OK. I am glad for that, but now I am back to the original problem... that when I put my MBA to sleep, about 50% of the time, not always, it locks up tight. And now I don't think it matters whether I leave my Mail proggie or Safari opened or closed....that does not seem to matter now.

Do you or anyone else have any other suggestions? It's really no big deal to shut down the system....but since I upgraded from Lion to Mountain Lion, the shut down times have gone from 2-3 seconds to 30-45 seconds.....and the start up times have also exponentially increased, not quite as long as my old Windoze systems, but getting pretty close. So I'd rather sleep it than shut it down and restart it 3-8 times a day.

Thanks for any further assistance in advance!

Cheers!

Pat