Macbook Air won't shut down under any circumstances

My MacBook Air has decided it will NOT shut down regardless of how many different combinations of force quit keys I press. The fan is blowing like crazy. It sounds like it's going to explode. I've tried force quitting and nothing is working. The trackpad is frozen. I can't do anything. When I close the lid the computer remains on and the fan continues to blow. Any ideas? Thanks!

MacBook Air 13″, OS X 10.11

Posted on Sep 16, 2020 12:40 PM

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Posted on Sep 17, 2020 12:42 PM

The USB mouse awakened the whole system and I was able to shut down and restart. Now the trackpad works fine, too. I'm not sure what happened, but EVERYTHING was locked up. Thanks for offering some help with this.

8 replies

Sep 17, 2020 4:58 AM in response to John Galt

Again, thanks but I've tried all these force quit ideas. It's unresponsive to anything I do. It won't quit, it won't turn off, and the fan's been blasting for about 18 hours while remaining fully charged (but unplugged). I plugged it in briefly to see if it had used any battery and it showed green. Sooooo, that's where I'm at. A completely locked machine that won't quit. It's so loud I had to put it in the laundry room last night with the door closed.


I'm going to plug a USB mouse into it today to see what happens, if anything.

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Macbook Air won't shut down under any circumstances

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