That looks like a newspaper clip heading.


After upgrading one of my eMacs to 10.4.9 (eMac SuperDrive 800MHz), it Sleeps fine, yet anytime the phone rings, it promptly wakes up - and no - the phone cord is not attached to it.

As the phone is cordless, it could be anywhere in the unit, yet whether it's near or far, eMac Northern Lights wakes disconcertingly out of Sleep as if it had had a nightmare.

I figured it's responding to sound, as the Uniden is quite loud, yet I've tried screaming at it, clapping loudly, and blowing a loud whistle in front of it, and the eMac Sleeps on. Only when the Uniden rings does it jolt out of Sleep. It's as if only a phone ringing has the right series of tones to do it.

Also, has anyone else noticed strange little key-command inconsistancies going from 10.4.8 to 10.4.9 - like.. if one hits Apple-Command + option + Eject to Sleep the machine, that key combination has to be held down considerably longer than in 10.4.8 - and the machine won't Sleep instantly - there's a delay? Same with Apple-Command + option + control + Eject to Shut-Down... big delay - and same again when hitting Eject to pop the CD Tray.

?

cw

Hi ClockWork,
I suspect your eMac is possessed. Simple as that. That's a truly bizarre issue, and not one I can replicate on my eMac (also running 10.4.9). But my phone is a Panasonic, so maybe that's why!?
Re the delay on keystrokes, yes, I've noticed all of that. In other places this issue has been discussed and a theory put forward is that it's deliberate, so an accidental hitting of the eject key doesn't result in a DVD, CD being spat out mid-use.

Yes - I suppose demonic possession is the only plausible and logical explaination currently available. Maybe I should drill a hole into the side in order to force the evil spirits out.

This method appears to have been quite popular during the medieval periods in Europe, when dealing with madness. They would drill a hole into the side of the cranium of the possessed individual in order to release the evil and afflicting demons.

What they didn't seem to realize... in their primitive and backward logic - was that if they opened a hole in the head to let the demons out, what was preventing new evil demonic spirits back in again?

Macs don't suffer from viruses. They suffer from demonic possession. Simple.

Thinks. Still - if I was in mid-burn of CD/DVD, and I hit the Eject key, would it really pop-out? Would it abort the burn?

Quite right - I was thinking more of the disc popping out mid-movie or mid-album. Like just happened with my Arrested Development (the TV series) DVD.

BTW, what is "eMac Northern Lights" ?

Intriguing, i have a 1GHZ Ati Graphics model and a Uniden cordless so i might check this out.

Perhaps it is actually an issue with the airport card, since they both use the same 2.4Ghz band? if you are using the airport try disabling it - if this doesn't fix it also try removing it.

Still - it's a fairly ummm... tiny change to stop a disc from popping through a movie, as it effects all other system wide commands. When I put it to Sleep - often I hit the combination and nothing happens - so I figure "oh yeah - that's right - the new delay is in place" - so I'll hit them again, yet it'll turn out that I hit them long enough the first time and it was just getting ready to Sleep, and then it'll Sleep but because I'd hit them a second time, it Wakes up again.

And that can go on three or four times more till I just - ahh! screw it - click Apple Menu and scroll down to Sleep.

eMac Northern Lights: G4 800MHz - also known as: eMac (ATI Graphics) - came out mid-2003. An extremely flexible eMac as one can (and one has) partitioned the hard drive to run Mac OS 9.2.2 on one side, and Mac OS 10.4.9 on the other. Has SuperDrive also.

No AirPort Card, Linux - might try changing the Uniden's Ring Tone.

An alternative to consider is that you have it plugged into your adsl modem/router and that somehow with a crappy line filter or your phone cordless base station, the incoming call is sending an odd signal down the ethernet cable that your computer is interpreting as "wake for ethernet administrator access"; found in the energy saver preferences?

Kim... you're calling my gold plated inline filter... crappy?

It's possible, yet all these tings began after upgrade to 10.4.9.

Wake on lan only occurs when a magic packet is broadcast to the whole subnet, containing the command to wake with a partial mac address included so the machine knows it's the correct one to wake.

You're not using any bluetooth periphs are you? i mean the emac doesn't have it builtin but you can get a dongle.

It could be RF interference from the cordless, it's also odd that it's just now happened - the machines are very well shielded from RF as anyone who has had the misfortune of pulling one apart can attest to.

What devices do you have hanging off it?

Ha Ha Haaaaa!

I just turned the Uniden ringing tone to another tone, and now... eMac stays asleep!

I wonder what else that particular ringing tone can do?

(and what is that weird lump on the side of my ear?)

Seemingly a certain Uniden ringtone is staggeringly versatile then.

I just aimed it at the toilet bowl... and nothing happened though. Hugely disappointed.

Err the ringtone is telling it to turn back on? which one is it :P i wanna try it out with my cheapo uniden.

I find it odd that this is the case, i didn't think you could tell it to wake from voice command...

something weird is going on.

That's exactly what S. Jobs must have thought when he blew the whistle down a phone line one day. See here on the solution to blocking out all international marketing calls, now thoroughly tested and working.

Err okay...

Still doesn't solve the problem as to WHY DOES IT WAKE? :P

Need to do some waveform analysis of the ringtone and see if there is some secret frequency triggering it.