HT202234: Mac OS X Snow Leopard and malware detection

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kristen101

Q: black screen on Imac

My Imac will have a black screen and won't wake up from sleep, and I try to turn if on/off with button in back and after holding the on/off button in for several seconds, the screen turns back to normal and useable. I'm not sure the cause, but would like some help figuring it out. Is my computer dying or have malware?

iMac

Posted on Jun 9, 2012 11:50 AM

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Q: black screen on Imac

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  • by MrHoffman,

    MrHoffman MrHoffman Jun 9, 2012 5:29 PM in response to kristen101
    Level 6 (15,627 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 9, 2012 5:29 PM in response to kristen101

    If you don't have a current full backup, make a disk backup.  No sense losing any data, particularly if your hardware is failing.

     

    If you're on 10.6, boot the installer DVD, and see if that shows similar symptoms.  If you're on 10.7, boot the recovery partition.

     

    And reset the SMC.

     

    Ensure you're patched to current; use Software Update to upgrade to the most recent software.

  • by capaho,

    capaho capaho Jun 10, 2012 7:12 AM in response to kristen101
    Level 4 (3,655 points)
    Jun 10, 2012 7:12 AM in response to kristen101

    The model year of your iMac may be a factor, as I recall a firmware update some years ago to deal with a wake from sleep problem.  You'd be better off asking about this problem in the iMac forum rather than here in the Snow Leopard Server forum.