In the early hours of yesterday morning whilst I was deep in sleep (c. 3 am) my Mac Pro switched itself on.

I never leave it in sleep mood. Every night I always close it down completely (ie switch it off)

Any one any ideas on how could this have happened?

Is it trying to tell me something?

thanks

M

Some wild guesses:

PRAM needs resetting.  PRAM battery issue.

Energy Saver settings, especially schedule.  uncheck “wake for network”.

A power surge.  Perhaps you need a high quality surge protector.

Are you in the United States ?  Perhaps something about Daylight Savings Time. 

How old is the Mac and what OS is it running ?

Now would be a good time to do a cloned backup.

Thanks for the suggestions.

In France.

its nearly 3 years old now I think.

How do I do a PRAM reset?

What cna I do to check all those things?

martinp - 02 April 2011 09:34 AM

How do I do a PRAM reset?

A PRAM reset is a reboot holding down these keys.  You have to wait until the Mac will chime TWO TIMES.

COMMAND, OPTION, P, R.  Get your fingers ready.  http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/26871.html

If you don’t do it properly, no worries.  Try again.

Basically, if the computer does it again, I’d be very concerned. 

Get a new backup disk as soon as you can.  Use “Carbon Copy Cloner” or “Super Duper” to clone your disk.    These days, most new disks are 500 gb to 2 TB.  To save money, you can get the 500 gb, but the 1 tb is almost the same price.  In the next 6-24 months, you might be upgrading the Mac and there will be Thunderbolt external drives.  But for now, I recommend a USB with Firewire interface, ideally speaking.

good luck.

(same person, different user account = me)