jojoSour

Q: Why is my imac shutting down by itself?

I have a late 2010 27in iMac and it has shut down randomly by itself 4 times in the last month or so, including twice in the last couple of days. I have 16G of RAM and am only using up to 8G ever. Just to be clear, it shuts down and does not restart automatically. I never have the screen brightness higher than half so I don't believe I am overheating it? I really want to know why this keeps happening.

iMac (27-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Apr 10, 2012 5:15 PM

Close

Q: Why is my imac shutting down by itself?

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

first Previous Page 7 of 17 last Next
  • by LowLuster,

    LowLuster LowLuster Dec 10, 2014 6:20 AM in response to James Hall5
    Level 6 (12,074 points)
    Dec 10, 2014 6:20 AM in response to James Hall5

    James Hall5 wrote:

     

    I have been having exactly the same issue -- well, minus the stove pellets ;-) Really bad.  I've run all hardware tests and removed 3rd party RAM. It does seem to be worse when i'm giving the cpu, or graphics card more work.  I can sometimes go a day or 2 if no pro apps are used. Apple really needs to trace this out.

    It is because of faulty hardware. What that hardware is can be different in each system. No computer shuts down by itself if all parts inside it are working properly.

  • by Jay Gamel,

    Jay Gamel Jay Gamel Dec 12, 2014 10:23 AM in response to James Hall5
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Audio
    Dec 12, 2014 10:23 AM in response to James Hall5

    For my machine, it is a power supply problem. I will replace it myself and hope for the best ($140 vs a new machine)..

  • by James Hall5,

    James Hall5 James Hall5 Dec 12, 2014 10:29 AM in response to Jay Gamel
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Dec 12, 2014 10:29 AM in response to Jay Gamel

    how do you know Jay?

  • by Ximenez,

    Ximenez Ximenez Dec 14, 2014 4:03 PM in response to BusinessProf
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 14, 2014 4:03 PM in response to BusinessProf

    I had the same issue - thanks this should fix it.  It was set to 10min by default after the recent update.

  • by Jay Gamel,

    Jay Gamel Jay Gamel Dec 14, 2014 8:00 PM in response to James Hall5
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Audio
    Dec 14, 2014 8:00 PM in response to James Hall5

    I really don't , but it's almost identical to the problem I had two years ago which went away until now with a new power supply. I'm just hoping.

  • by Radeoosh,

    Radeoosh Radeoosh Dec 19, 2014 1:12 AM in response to jojoSour
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 19, 2014 1:12 AM in response to jojoSour

    I have same issue. My imac was fixed 2 weeks ago (when it was switching itself off after few seconds) - power supply issue. I played elder scrolls online when the problem occurred again. I turn it back on, and after 15-20 mins it happened again. I went to Apple and since they had no engineer at that day (but about 12-15 salesmen), the first available appointment was for Tuesday (6 days...). so I took it to authorised Apple service (when it was "fixed" last time). very, very, very disappointed. I use it professionally and cant meet deadlines, because last time took them a week to repair and who knows how long I will have to wait this time.

  • by bpAgent86,

    bpAgent86 bpAgent86 Jan 3, 2015 3:22 PM in response to Radeoosh
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 3, 2015 3:22 PM in response to Radeoosh

    Are these problems isolated to iMacs only?

  • by Radeoosh,

    Radeoosh Radeoosh Jan 3, 2015 3:38 PM in response to bpAgent86
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 3, 2015 3:38 PM in response to bpAgent86

    Authorised Apple Service tested my imac for 25hours and did not find out what was wrong with it. I took it back home only to find out that that after 30mins problem occurred again. I took it to the Apple directly. They have replaced logic board and called me that it  its  fixed and ready to collect. I took it back home only to find out that is hasn't been fixed at all.

    very, very, very disappointed in Apple. every

  • by Kevin Hussey,

    Kevin Hussey Kevin Hussey Jan 3, 2015 3:57 PM in response to Radeoosh
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 3, 2015 3:57 PM in response to Radeoosh

    I have invested for the want of a better word a lot on money in Apple products. I hear more stories of poor service each day. It's quite a worry.

  • by Jay Gamel,

    Jay Gamel Jay Gamel Jan 13, 2015 11:32 AM in response to Radeoosh
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Audio
    Jan 13, 2015 11:32 AM in response to Radeoosh

    That's because it's the power supply, and Apple knows it. I'm on my third one now. This time, when it started happening again, I ordered a new supply for $130 plus tax = @ $150 and followed the YouTube instructions to replace it. Worked like a charm. fire up fast and stays on for three weeks now. Not all machines are easy to fix -- this one has a short cord between the screen and the logic board that's really hard to reattach when you are putting it back together, but patience wins out and it is doable.

     

    I don't know if the units themselves were/are deficient or something in the logic board is blowing them up, but it IS the power supply and nothing is going to work until you replace it.

     

    Good Luck!

     

    Jay Gamel

  • by Robert Golden1,

    Robert Golden1 Robert Golden1 Jan 13, 2015 3:06 PM in response to Jay Gamel
    Level 1 (35 points)
    Jan 13, 2015 3:06 PM in response to Jay Gamel

    Jay,

     

    I'm curious. Why do you attribute it to the power supply? If you keep replacing the power supply and the problem continues, that would tell me it's NOT the power supply.

     

    As I posted either in this thread or in another one, although a lot of people are saying the machine is "shutting off" or "powering down," I found that not to be the case. Although the machine appears to have lost power, it actually hasn't. If I put my hand on the back of the machine where the power button is, I can feel either the fan or the hard drive spinning.

     

    And if you read enough of the posts about this problem, you'll find that everyone has a different answer to the problem ... but none of them work. Also, the age of the machine appears to have no bearing on it. People with new machines have the problem, but it didn't start on my iMac until it was seven-and-a-half years old.

     

    It really is hard to believe that Apple doesn't know what's causing it. They sure are remaining awfully quiet about.

     

    Bob

  • by LowLuster,

    LowLuster LowLuster Jan 14, 2015 2:17 AM in response to Robert Golden1
    Level 6 (12,074 points)
    Jan 14, 2015 2:17 AM in response to Robert Golden1

    Robert Golden1 wrote:

     

    Jay,

     

    I'm curious. Why do you attribute it to the power supply? If you keep replacing the power supply and the problem continues, that would tell me it's NOT the power supply.

     

     

    Because over time the power supply starts to fail. Replacing it fixes the failing parts in it.

  • by HeyItsAdam,

    HeyItsAdam HeyItsAdam Feb 14, 2015 2:31 AM in response to jojoSour
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 14, 2015 2:31 AM in response to jojoSour

    I was having this problem as well but I think I isolated my issue and I didn't see this a possible cause/fix in the thread.

     

    I was getting a warning (like your "mouse batteries need to be replaced" warning in the upper right corner of the screen) that said my USB port was creating too much heat. I ignored it for a bit but one day my computer decided to shut down while syncing my iPhone. I did see that one of the fixes for this issue was to unplug all your USB devices and plug them back in one by one.

     

    It turns out, I isolated the problem to a single charging cable for my iPhone 5s. Turns out, it's a knock-off cable that I picked up at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I stopped using the cable and it seemed to fix the problem.

     

    Scary... thought I lost my hard drive again.

  • by RubenBCN,

    RubenBCN RubenBCN Feb 18, 2015 8:06 AM in response to jojoSour
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 18, 2015 8:06 AM in response to jojoSour

    Same problem here. iMac 27" Early 2013. Started shutting down ramdomly last December. You need to unplug it for 15 minutes to get it back working.

     

    I took it TWICE to the Genius bar and after a day or two, they said they couldn't duplicate so nothing is wrong and you can take your iMac back to your home. And here we are still with the same issue.

    Sometimes it shuts down 3 times a day, sometimes every 24h.

     

    I see several threads about this: users changed PMU, Logic Board and still happening.

     

    Very frustrated.

  • by enna m,

    enna m enna m Feb 20, 2015 9:31 AM in response to thatboyjose
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 20, 2015 9:31 AM in response to thatboyjose

    What did you do to fix the issue?  Mine has been shutting down by itself for months.

first Previous Page 7 of 17 last Next