Mac mini locking up after a long idle time

[hoppa]

I've had a mac mini for about 5 months, during most of which it was fine. However, this past month I hooked it up to my TV as an entertainment center, via HDMI—I swap the cable depending on whether I am working (monitor) or relaxing (tv). I also bought a second wireless keyboard/mouse combo that I keep near the couch that I've plugged in via USB. Both sets are plugged in at once.

These are literally the only things I have changed. If I leave the system idle for over a couple days, I will not be able to bring it back from... well, not sleep anymore, because I disabled sleep to see if that was the problem and it's still locking. So I just can't get the screen to come back on and I have to force reset. This happens whether I'm connected to either monitor or tv.

I've even taken to quitting the browser before idling it, but that didn't fix it either. I guess the only thing left at this point is the new keyboard/mouse locking the system up. Does that even make sense? I haven't tested this one option yet because, frankly, I don't want it to be true. It would be a massive pain to unplug and replug every time I wanted to use the system, and it took forever to find a decent set that was compact, had good wireless range, and not expensive. Is there some known problem with two kb+mouse on macs? Maybe there is a driver conflict with my main logitech mouse drivers?

 

[Emulex]

what do the logs say? dmesg? anything else in /var/log ?

have you tried a disk sector check? essentially reads and writes every sector?
s.m.a.r.t. check? having problems spin up?

or are you letting the disk stay spinning? (heat problems)?

 

[rugby]

What happens if you have it not go to sleep, but just turn off the screen?

 

[hoppa]

what do the logs say? dmesg? anything else in /var/log ?

have you tried a disk sector check? essentially reads and writes every sector?
s.m.a.r.t. check? having problems spin up?

or are you letting the disk stay spinning? (heat problems)?

I just ran a disk check and it was ok. I do leave the disk spinning, but heat problems seem unlikely given that it's locking up during periods of inactivity, whereas when I'm doing much more intensive tasks when working on the machine it's never had any problems. Regardless, I'll have it put the disks to sleep.

I've looked through the logs but I don't really know what I'm looking for. There is no panic log even created.

dmesg is interesting. There is one block repeated 8 or 9 times, which I wager is the amount of times the system has locked up, and it has to do with mouse drivers:

Trying to change a collection in the registry
Backtrace 0x507b78 0x507833 0x9a4bdc 0x9a6f8c 0x9a66b0 0x9a1471 0x99cb7d
Kernel Extensions in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.Logitech.Control Center.HID Driver(3.3.0)@0x98f000->0x9b9fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily(4.1.8)@0x919000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily(1.6.5)@0x94d000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver(4.1.5)@0x989000

So, maybe it *is* a driver conflict with the two kb/mouse setup? Any way to fix this besides removing the logitech drivers, which I need? The new kb has no specific drivers written for it that I could install. I'm on the latest Logitech software.

 

[hoppa]

Alright well I've installed Steermouse drivers and uninstalled LCC, we'll see what happens. Thanks for the help.

 

[KeithP]

Are you only using wireless keyboards/mice? Maybe the Mini has just stopped responding to the wireless keyboards/mice. Try using it with a wired keyboard and mouse and see if it responds. That might help narrow down the problem.

-KeithP

 

[hoppa]

The main KB is wired and it stops responding as well. I just get a grey screen.

 

[hoppa]

Alright, so despite removing LCC entirely, the system locked up again some time last night. dmesg no longer has the Logitech errors, just a bunch of normal looking output.

At this point I am at a complete loss. Anyone have any other ideas? What kind of support (or lack thereof) can I expect from Apple if I contact them? The machine is about 5 months old.

 

[TheStu]

If you have an Apple store nearby, take it in and they can check the logs and maybe help isolate the problem.

 

[dclive]

If you don't do any HDMI switching, nut just keep your monitor and Mac on, and let it sit there untouched, what does it do? Obviously keep sleep off, and don't do this on an old plasma tv.