[glowingcactus]

Powered up my PowerBook today on mains and went away for less than 5 minutes. Came back and the sleep light (the white one on the front, in the display release button) was constantly ON BRIGHT (NB not pulsing) but it was not sleeping, just waiting at the login window running off mains with battery at 99%.

Hmm.

I do a restart and that clears it. Fine. But wait... later on this this morning the white light comes on bright again (after login this time) but the machine is not sleeping; I am using it!. Then it goes off for a while. Actually moving my mouse sometimes clears it. Sometimes typing something clears it. Now its been off ages and I cant explore whats going on here.

UPDATE: maybe unconnected but Entourage email notification of a new email made the light come on. But then a follow up test of this did not. Weird stuff.

This has never happend before or at least I have not noticed it.
Its like something is trying to trigger sleep mode but it changes its mind and ends up leaving the light on

PowerBook 15 inch 1.5GHz 1GB RAM
128MB Graphics
faster Hard disk

X 10.3.6 all updates to 22/11/2004 applied.

Macally Ice Mouse (directly connected)
Apple Wireless Keyboard
Airport (off)

Dlink USB2 hub with:
Griffin Tech PowerMate (v1.6.0 driver)
Zip 250
SmartDisk Floppy
Palm cradle
Canon8000F scanner

Anyone else? Did a quick search of the forum and found nothing. Is this a 10.3.6 related issue?

[glowingcactus]

Sorry to reply to myself but there has been a development for the worst.
This is looking bad now.

By chance I touched my ethernet cable and the light flickered on and off. For a while at least if I wiggled the cable at the powerbook end the light would flicker. No other cable I touched had this effect. OK so lets try another ethernet cable. Same problem for a while but then after a few more cable swaps...

Now the sleep light is permanently ON whatever ethernet cable I use.

Or indeed with no cable and now it does not flicker at all when I wiggle it in the powerbook.

Reboot and the light comes on as soon as the boot sequence starts.

Network via ethernet still seems to work though. Out of Airport range for now so can't test that for now.

So what is this? A fault diagnostic? Have I got a short?

HELP!

[ibook_steve]

Reset your PMU (power manager) according to the instructions in your user's manual. The PMU controls the sleep LED. Best case, this fixes it. Worst case, your sleep LED is shorted on. It doesn't use much battery power, so that should not be a concern. If resetting the PMU doesn't fix it and the light is bothering you, time for a trip to an Apple store or a call to Apple.

Steve

[glowingcactus]

Originally posted by ibook_steve:
Reset your PMU (power manager) according to the instructions in your user's manual. The PMU controls the sleep LED. Best case, this fixes it. Worst case, your sleep LED is shorted on. It doesn't use much battery power, so that should not be a concern. If resetting the PMU doesn't fix it and the light is bothering you, time for a trip to an Apple store or a call to Apple.

Steve

Thanks. I shall try that but now I think it is a short as pressing lightly around the right speaker grill (around the power button) can cause the light to flicker on and off which is why the wiggle on the ethernet socket did the same (its flexing the very same region). Also lifting the right corner of the base by the optical drive inducing a very small flexing of the base also can cause a flicker (but not always).

I fear that a short could spread maybe to adjacent conductor (if this is a ribbon style cable) and produce a rather more undesirable result than an unwanted front light. Anyone familiar with the cable routing in a 15" Al?

I am now also discussing this on the Apple discussion boards under "PowerBook G4 (15-inch Aluminum) > Usage" in the thread "PB G4 15 Power LED Flashes Intermittently". It would seem others have the problem and I wonder if it is an assembly error trapping a cable somewhere on that right side?

[glowingcactus]

Bump.

So is this motherboard or software?

In my case loss of ambient and keyboard backlight functions accompany the bright sleep light.

No bright sleep light brings back ambient and keyboard backlight functions.

Wiggle your etehrnet. prees your right speaker grill.

Let me know.