right so, my lovely new iBook G3 500mhz is a fantastic machine, and I have had no issues with it running panther. That is until this past week. If I put the machine to sleep, and leave it like that for a few hours to a few days, it refuses to wake from sleep. When I open the lid, the sleep light stops pulsing, and I can hear the hard drive spinning, but that's it. I can't hear the hard drive being read (which is what it does when it normally wakes from sleep), but I get nothing on the screen or the CD drive spin up for a second, which is also what it normally does.
So far, I have zapped PRAM, ad NVRAM, as well as thoroughly ran Onyx on it, but nothing.
so, what do I do next?
-digital 
forgot to mention that the only way to get the machine working again is to pull the battery, or, something I do, which is much safer, press and hold the power button for five seconds. After that, it works normally until I put it to sleep again. This is now happening every time I put it to sleep, but only for long periods. If I put it to sleep for only an hour or so, it wakes alright.
-digital
Have you ever tried running Mac OS 9 then putting it to sleep for a long period of time? And did the Macintosh start recently doing this? Whenever I put my Power Macintosh G3, running OS 10.4, it never does that. A little more info would be nice.
I forgot to mention that I have yet to test it in OS 9. I only have it on there for classic, so I doubt it's bootable. I'll try it however.
what's the "more info" you need?
i'll report back in a day or so.
-digital
try resetting the power manager?
You might want to try that, since it sounds more like a power manager issue than any OS issue.
I said I reset the PRAM and NVRAM. was that not it? or is it something else? what key combo do I need to press now?
-digital
That folder should be perfectly bootable on an iBook 500. Go to your Apple Menu > System Preferences > Startup Disk and select the "Mac OS 9.2.2" folder, then click "Restart."
To boot back to OS X, go to your Apple Menu > Control Panels > Startup Disk and select the "System" folder (not the "System Folder" folder), then click Restart.
Resetting the PRAM and NVRAM does *not* reset the Power Management Unit (PMU). Start with the machine turned off. Hold down the Command, Option, Control and Shift keys as you press and hold the power button for 5-10 seconds. Let up on everything and restart.
After resetting the PMU, you may want to let the battery discharge and recharge one full cycle before testing the wake-from-sleep issue, or before running on battery power for any length of time..
thanks, i'll try that. It seems to be waking fine under OS 9, but I have only had it in sleep for a few hours.
Say, what does the little button that's flush with the casing (assume you have to hit it with a paperclip) do? It's on the left side, next to the headphone port, and has a little left facing triangle symbol.
oh yeah, had to drag over OS 9 again, because the copy on the iBook was corrupt. had some issues with icons, and rebuilding the desktop caused the Finder to crash.
-digital
I *think* that is the powermanager reset (Cuda) that should reset your power Manager. they had the reset different on the whole range of iBook G3s. the later ones used the "Cmd+Alt"Ctrl+Shift" setup (i think that's the combo...)
On the iMac G3. There is a similar button. With the sideways triangle and paper clip hole. That button resets the machine if it freezes or other stuff. I'm not sure about and iBook 500.
This:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86060
And This:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449
Should tell you all you want to know about iBook ports and buttons and PMU reset procedures.