BEWARE sleep (or maybe just bad luck....)

[srs5694]

Here's my tale of woe:

 

I finally got around to upgrading my working OS X 10.5.2 installation (via Kalyway) on my Toshiba A205-S5859 laptop to 10.6.2 via Empire EFI and a subsequent update through Apple's Software Update. I managed to get all my core hardware (video, sound, network, etc.) working fine, so I made a backup and proceeded to some of the laptop-specific items. I began by trying out the sleep function. Big mistake! After going to sleep, the computer refused to wake up. Period. It hung at the Toshiba logo splash screen, before even the boot loader appeared. The usual prompts to press F2 or F10 for the BIOS utility or boot device selection never appeared, and pressing these keys did nothing. Unplugging the laptop, removing the battery, and trying again afresh did no good. Toshiba's tech support was no help. They just had me remove the battery and hold down the power key for ten seconds, which did no good. I figure at this point the CMOS was probably badly corrupted, so I did a Web search for solutions, and found a procedure for resetting the CMOS in a similar laptop. This procedure involved shorting two contacts in the RAM compartment. Unfortunately, I saw a spark when I tried this, and now the computer doesn't even display the Toshiba logo splash screen. I figure the motherboard is now fried. Time for a new laptop -- and I will not be risking it by installing OS X on it! (I can't justify spending a grand or more on a real Mac laptop at this point.)

 

In any event, this could be a coincidence -- the system could have just gone wonky at that moment by chance. It seems more likely that the sleep function corrupted the CMOS, though, or perhaps even the BIOS firmware -- I know that normal shutdowns reset the CMOS on three of the computers on which I've installed 10.6, and patches are available to correct this problem. (I'd installed one as part of the Empire EFI installation.) It's not much of a leap to suspect that the sleep function could do far worse. This issue might be recoverable, and in fact most desktop motherboards have jumpers you can set to do this job, but this task seems harder with laptops. If you do it wrong or follow bad advice, you can fry your computer.

 

I just want others to be aware of this potential risk. Personally, I'll be restricting my future Hackintoshing to desktop computers I don't mind losing should something go amiss. At least a desktop's motherboard can be replaced for one or two hundred dollars (including the CPU and RAM that will inevitably require replacement along with it).