HT201665: MacBook Air: How to find the serial number

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Mannakin

Q: My mid-2011 Macbook Air will not turn off and will not force quit Firefox.  What do I do?

My wife has a mid-2011 MacBook Air. She tried to update from OSX 10.9.5 to 10.10.1 a couple days ago and, suddenly, her Mac will not shut down. It says Firefox is running and I've tried to force quit and also tried doing a hard reboot. Nothing works. I even let the power die but, of course, as soon as it was plugged in, it came up to the login screen again and was the same as before.

 

At this point, she can't open any programs, the fan is running wild, she can't shut down. The Mac refuses to cooperate.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

MacBook Air, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), null

Posted on Aug 17, 2015 1:43 PM

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Q: My mid-2011 Macbook Air will not turn off and will not force quit Firefox.  What do I do?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Kappy,Helpful

    Kappy Kappy Aug 17, 2015 1:48 PM in response to Mannakin
    Level 10 (271,123 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 17, 2015 1:48 PM in response to Mannakin

    Mavericks and later

     

    Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder.  Select All Processes from the View menu.  Click on the CPU tab in the toolbar. Click twice on the %CPU column header to display in descending order.  Locate the FireFox process that is using a large amount of %CPU, then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar.  Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process.  See if that helps.

     

    You should be able to shut down the computer by holding down the Power button until the computer turns off.

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Aug 17, 2015 3:33 PM in response to Mannakin
    Level 10 (207,973 points)
    Applications
    Aug 17, 2015 3:33 PM in response to Mannakin
    tried doing a hard reboot

    How did you do that and what exactly happened?

  • by Mannakin,

    Mannakin Mannakin Aug 18, 2015 10:57 AM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2015 10:57 AM in response to Linc Davis

    I tried a shutdown from the power button.  No luck.  I tried a shutdown from the Apple menu.  No luck.  Both times it told me that the computer was already shutting down and I left it alone for HOURS without it shutting down.

     

    UPDATE:  I managed to get the MacBook to shut down after holding the power button for a RIDICULOUS amount of time.  I then reset the SMC and PRM and all seems to be working well now.  My wife's MacBook Air is now running Yosemite and working well.

     

    Thanks for your help Kappy and Linc!

     

    - Matt