Lagoiski

Q: 27 iMac (2012) crashes and requires smc reset to turn on

My late 2012 iMac, i7 16gig RAM 27 inches keeps shutting down. It looks like as if it was unplugged. Happens randomly. Sometimes while playing Diablo 3, surfing facebook or using iphotos or other apps. Seems to not crash if just left on overnight and not been used.

 

In order to turn it on again I have to unplug it from the power line for like 30 seconds, only then it starts.

 

I have the settings set to restart on power failure, but it does not.

 

Happened a few times a few months back. I have installed a surge protector and it worked fine for like a month or two. However last 2 days it has shut down like 10 times...

 

Help would be greatly appreciated. I suspect hardware failure.

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), iOS 7.1.1

Posted on May 5, 2014 9:44 PM

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Q: 27 iMac (2012) crashes and requires smc reset to turn on

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  • by stjohns,

    stjohns stjohns Aug 13, 2016 3:05 PM in response to Glasguy
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 13, 2016 3:05 PM in response to Glasguy

    OK, so I have had my late 2012 27 inch Imac back from apple for exactly one week now after taking it back to them a second time with random shutdowns.  The first time was July 14th and they replaced the hard drive which did not solve the problem.  The second time, they kept if for a week and ran every diagnostic test they could.  Of course, the computer never shut down.  They did not replace anything BUT, they did give me a brand new power cord.  I plugged it in last Saturday after I got home and I did not not shut it down until last night.  Now, I am not saying that the power cord solved the problem; I am not saying maybe the computer kind of fixed itself with all the test Apple did on it; all I am saying is that for one entire week, my computer has not shutdown, and it has been acting and running like I just bought it.  It is so fast and snappy, and it acts like it is supposed to.  When I turned it on this morning, it powered up in seconds and I have had no issues waking it up, no shutdowns, and no sudden loss of power kernel.  I am afraid to say anymore because as we all know, this shutdown thingy can occur at any time.  However, so far, fingers crossed, the new power cord SEEMS to have solved the issue.  I will definitely be back to report if the shut downs return.  I just wanted to maybe help someone else that is having the same issue, maybe a new power cord might be the answer. 

  • by Sahastro,

    Sahastro Sahastro Aug 13, 2016 10:15 PM in response to stjohns
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 13, 2016 10:15 PM in response to stjohns

    The iMac has a standard power connector so a normal power cable should fit. Have some laying around here so it is worth a try.

  • by Beolion73,

    Beolion73 Beolion73 Aug 13, 2016 10:19 PM in response to Sahastro
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 13, 2016 10:19 PM in response to Sahastro

    Unfortunately this did not do the trick for me :-(

  • by Glasguy,

    Glasguy Glasguy Aug 14, 2016 6:37 AM in response to stjohns
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 14, 2016 6:37 AM in response to stjohns

    stjohns,

     

    Hopefully a power cable may have resolved the intermittent power fault you experienced with your iMac.

    I'm assuming your iMac is covered by Apple Warranty. To be certain that your problem is resolved, try running some prolonged tests on your iMac for upto 12 hours to slightly stress the iMac. Having run Apple Diagnostics I can confirm that my Machine would pass the Apple Service Diagnostics ( ASD EFI ) after 24hours running, but would fail the ASD OS based diagnostic testing.

     

    Try, see if your iMac shutdown when running multiple applications.

     

    If you can, multitask the following applications and let them run for up-to 12 hours:

     

    Unigine Valley ( not full screen )

    https://unigine.com/products/benchmarks/valley/

    And

    Play in Safari and Chrome ( mute volume )

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkgTxQm9DWM

    And

    Play iTunes Music

    And

    Run a VM Machine ( install Windows or Linux )

    https://www.virtualbox.org/

     

    If shutdown, then go back to Apple whilst you still have warranty.

  • by ngrant,

    ngrant ngrant Aug 15, 2016 5:46 AM in response to Lagoiski
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 15, 2016 5:46 AM in response to Lagoiski

    Hi all,

     

    Same here my late 2012 27" iMac turns off randomly, sometime 10 times in a day sometimes keeps going for days.

    I've tried the following.

    - Swapping memory

    - Clean install

    - Changed Hdd to SSD

    - Did hardware scan at boot ( no errors)

    - Changed power cable

     

    Also i need to pull plug out for 5-10 minutes before i can turn it back on, and it actually turns itself on as soon as i plug it back in. ( no need to press the power button) I don't if that may incline towards a faulty power supply.

     

    Please let me know if any of you were successful in troubleshooting this!!

     

    Thanks

  • by slevin182,

    slevin182 slevin182 Aug 21, 2016 2:33 PM in response to Lagoiski
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 21, 2016 2:33 PM in response to Lagoiski

    Hello everybody. Now I join to this group of Late iMac 2012 with those problems. I had an 27 inch iMac late 2012 i5. Its the same as most of you. Shut down randomly, and it takes a long time to start up. I have to put out of the electricity for 10 minutes or more. I brought it to the apple store and they didn't find anything and couldn't reproduce the problem. I don't know what could be, but I am waiting a solution desesperatly. What would you recommend? chang the power cable? all the power supply? If i disconnect from the electricity for a day the problem don't appear in a long time.

  • by NickFromLE,

    NickFromLE NickFromLE Aug 21, 2016 2:51 PM in response to slevin182
    Level 1 (22 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 21, 2016 2:51 PM in response to slevin182

    Since I shut down my iMac late 2012 i5 whenever I left it, I don't have this shutdowns anymore.

    I had these shutdowns when I just send it to sleep or it runs the whole day in idle mode.

    I would recommend to shut down the Mac during night if you don't do this already. IMHO the power cable shouldnt be the root cause. I exchanged my 1Tb HDD with a 1TB SSD and since then I had no shutdowns but since this hard drive change I shut down my iMac during night and when I left home during day as well.

    This problem is so various that I don't think we can solve this for everybody. Maybe it really is all down to the Power Unit. I will install a m2.sata SSD within the next weeks so I will check which PSU is installed in my mac but this really could the cause for us all. Also the theory of the CPU frequencies could be responsible. Maybe a CPU chance to low power or any other type of what you now have installed could solve it.

    I just think its down to electricity - if the Mac runs a long time without restart it may reappear but I don't wanna find that out...

  • by Beolion73,

    Beolion73 Beolion73 Aug 21, 2016 4:54 PM in response to NickFromLE
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 21, 2016 4:54 PM in response to NickFromLE

    I fully agree with NickFromLE, if changing the power cable does not work (thats the cheap option), the most obvious elements are the PSU and CPU.

    I wonder of the people who earlier had their PSU replaced and still had the issues actually just got the same model/variant installed. That would not surprise me.

    Again, I would not mind spending money on changing the PSU if I knew it would solve the issue(s).

  • by lune-cheung,

    lune-cheung lune-cheung Aug 21, 2016 4:58 PM in response to Beolion73
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 21, 2016 4:58 PM in response to Beolion73

    Hi Beolion,

     

    I have a late 2012 imac, I can replaced the PSU from apple store due to the random shutdown issue. The computer was working ok, but the random shutdown happens again 6 months later. I am pretty sure Apple just replaced the Original PSU unit rather than getting an upgrade to resolve the problem.

  • by Hank K,

    Hank K Hank K Aug 21, 2016 5:53 PM in response to Leutrim S
    Level 2 (254 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 21, 2016 5:53 PM in response to Leutrim S

    When I reboot in 'safe mode" the problem seems to go away.  Any things on this and how to pin point the cause?

     

    thanks,

     

    hank

  • by NickFromLE,

    NickFromLE NickFromLE Aug 21, 2016 10:17 PM in response to Hank K
    Level 1 (22 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 21, 2016 10:17 PM in response to Hank K

    Hi hank,

     

    well thats the other side.

    When it first started (the random shutdowns) it turned out to be Safari. Whenever I used Safari, I had this shutdowns.

    Then I switched to Firefox and the shutdowns went away, not a single one for weeks but then it startet also when I changed the volume of the speakers or open the AppStore.

    Since then I also think of a Software Issue - so maybe its the PSU, maybe the CPU but also maybe the Software...

  • by Hank K,

    Hank K Hank K Aug 22, 2016 3:05 PM in response to Lagoiski
    Level 2 (254 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 22, 2016 3:05 PM in response to Lagoiski

    Experiencing exactly same issue here... iMac 27 (late 2012) with 3.4Ghz i7, 32gb ram.  The quirky thing I have found that there are no issue when I boot in the 'safe mode'. 

     

    This leads me to think that it is a software issue.  I'm still working on it, do have replacement RAM coming from Crucial and call with Apple in the am.

     

    Has anyone else had the same experience with safe mode?

     

    Hank

  • by oomoot,

    oomoot oomoot Aug 22, 2016 3:27 PM in response to Hank K
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 22, 2016 3:27 PM in response to Hank K

    I have a similar machine. Late 2012 i7 3.4GHz 32GB 680MX. I got my power supply replaced by Apple Store itself in Istanbul around 10 days ago. I never tried to replicate the shutdown problem in safe mode but I even got the shutdowns on the windows 10 partition and another partition that I created for testing purposes.

    Apple Store itself of course couldn't replicate the problem like almost everyone else in here experienced. It's probably down to power supply not being powered on for far too long). But they still replaced the power supply for around 115 US Dollar (340 Turkish Liras)

     

    By the way as far as I'm told it's a 300Watt part. While I was at it I asked them to fit the machine with some other type of power supply made for other,  possibly newer iMacs that utilize a higher wattage part. They refused to do so. Apple policies obviously. I haven't asked about the brands of the outgoing and incoming power supplies. I'd do so if I had read the related posts in here.

     

    Long story short, for the past ten days the machine has always been on, I had played Civ V for like 10 hours at once, max. settings and so far no shutdowns. So, tho Apple Geniuses failed to replicate the problem and tho it seems like a problem Apple itself should acknowledge and pay for, apparently the replacement of the PSU resolved the issue.

  • by Hank K,

    Hank K Hank K Aug 22, 2016 6:12 PM in response to oomoot
    Level 2 (254 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 22, 2016 6:12 PM in response to oomoot

    I just removed the 32 G of Ram for return to Crucial, and inserted the original 8 and now its working fine (so far)!  Maybe the power supply has trouble with 32 g?

  • by ngrant,

    ngrant ngrant Aug 22, 2016 7:05 PM in response to Hank K
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 22, 2016 7:05 PM in response to Hank K

    Imac needs Ram to be 1.35v, maybe your 32 gb were 1.5v. Might be what was making the PSU turn off

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