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

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Q: Why is my imac shutting down by itself?

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  • by ArmedCow,

    ArmedCow ArmedCow Aug 26, 2016 7:24 AM in response to ArmedCow
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 26, 2016 7:24 AM in response to ArmedCow

    Not the Seagate drive.

     

    System lasted about three hours then shut off when I was using Mail (which is a common occurrence, as well as Safari and Photos). I'm not sure I noticed this because it happens specifically when I use these programs, or because I use these programs a lot compared to others.

     

    Back to the drawing board. Oh, back in March, I did follow the procedure for getting the code for the shut down - I don't remember the exact code, but it was the "could be anything" code - no help there.

  • by Shanda Renee,

    Shanda Renee Shanda Renee Aug 29, 2016 8:57 AM in response to Rick Deckard
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 29, 2016 8:57 AM in response to Rick Deckard

    I can not find  SystemConfiguration in the Preferences folder.

     

    Please advise.

  • by heyzarling,

    heyzarling heyzarling Aug 31, 2016 2:31 PM in response to jojoSour
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 31, 2016 2:31 PM in response to jojoSour

    Hi all. I'm really just chiming in here obviously for anybody in recent history that's been searching for a solution on this unprovoked shutdown thing. My opinion, in my case - and I feel kind of stupid about it - is that it is indeed about heat. I've had numerous iMacs over the years, and the most recent is a mega slim, late 2012 27", w/2.9 i5. This machine, not long ago started to just...black out. Gone. Sometimes it could be restarted immediately. Sometimes it required pulling the power cord (which made me think the reset was telling me the power supply was going, which I've had before). I'd tried PRAM and other magic, but no real organized plan. And it was always after I'd been working on it for a while, never just a short stop (I also use a MBP extensively, and am not often home to do heavy lifting on the big screen).

     

    Today, it went down; I unplugged briefly, started up. Then it happened again, just minutes later. It's a warm day here, but not so warm that I have AC on, so it's actually a little hotter than usual upstairs where this machine is, with the window open. So at this point, no startup, no matter what. Let it sit for a minute or two, no go. No chime, no nothing.

     

    I then pondered previous machines and the dust I'd found in them when I'd cracked them open for some reason, and I simply flipped the thing upside down and started blowing in the whole row of vents on the bottom edge. And yeah, the dust started flying out. I didn't even bother with compressed air or anything, this felt like my answer, and I'm pretty sure it was, as it started immediately, and hasn't shut down since. I suppose in the interest of full disclosure, I'd also unseated and reseated the RAM while I had the thing flipped over, but it really feels like dust and heat to me.

     

    Not saying this is 'the solution' for even a large percentage of you folks, but I'm here to remind you of the potentially obvious solution...that I had obviously forgotten!

  • by ArmedCow,

    ArmedCow ArmedCow Aug 31, 2016 4:06 PM in response to heyzarling
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 31, 2016 4:06 PM in response to heyzarling

    Thanks for your response.

     

    I haven't completely ruled out heat, although my numbers seem to fall within everyone else posted norms. I suspect that after today it may be GPU cooling, as it went through a spasm of random screen draws resulting in a colorful collage of bits and pieces of my open windows before it went down.

     

    When it first started doing this back in March, the first thing I did was clean out the dust and yeah, I reseated the RAM as well. I might have to crack this baby open and give it a thorough cleaning. Been meaning to anyway.

  • by heyzarling,

    heyzarling heyzarling Aug 31, 2016 4:15 PM in response to ArmedCow
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 31, 2016 4:15 PM in response to ArmedCow

    Yep...I had a similar spasm on my previous iMac, followed by the [unbelievably slow everything/beachball all the time] bit, which felt an awful lot like a bad power supply. That one is still sitting there dead in the box and I can't bring myself to throw any money at it. Good luck with yours. I sure love these machines, and just wish parts were even a little more affordable...it's kind of sickening to me, the idea of throwing out even just a screen that big that still works!

  • by ArmedCow,

    ArmedCow ArmedCow Sep 7, 2016 11:45 AM in response to heyzarling
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 7, 2016 11:45 AM in response to heyzarling

    So...

     

    Trying to finish a Project in Photos sent this machine into fits - however, I learned many things.

     

    It is a heat problem, and the problem is the Nvidia GT130 card. There are several threads in this forum about an "unacknowledged" problem with the Nvidia GT130 cards and the drivers. One thread stated that Apple was quietly replacing the GT130 with a revised version of the card - but you had to know about the problem and pursue it. Too late for me. Secondly, the drivers included in each newer iteration of OS X compounded the problem, basically causing the card to overheat.  Seems a shame that neither Nvidia or Apple chose to look into this and update the drivers. The forums are full of plaintive moans hoping that OS X 10.X.X would be the fix for this driver problem.

     

    I also followed a thread related to the above threads that mentioned that El Capitan would slow your Mac down if you have malware (assumingly, unbeknownst to you). When I installed El Capitan, after reading great reviews about how improved the speed of their systems, I installed it and my system bogged down - horribly.

     

    Anyway - I threw in the towel, made an El Capitan installation USB drive, blew the whole thing off and reinstalled. Twice. The first time, I migrated some crap over - big mistake. Machine turned into a pretty rock once again. Second time - clean install, migrated nothing. I have installed most of the apps I use regularly - Office 365, Photos, Steam, Battle.net, Pixelmator and smcFanControl and the mac couldn't run better. Still gets hot when using Photos - hit 73C - but not near the 92C it hit when I was saving a Project as a PDF. Phew!

     

    One thing many of the forum contributors mentioned was how this problem went away under Windows - better drivers. When I get my new iMac (if they ever announce it!) this little baby will become my wife's Windows machine.

  • by heyzarling,

    heyzarling heyzarling Sep 7, 2016 2:12 PM in response to ArmedCow
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 7, 2016 2:12 PM in response to ArmedCow

    So, when you say 'too late for you', do you mean just that your machine didn't come with that updated card, or that it can't be had? As for me, I take back everything I said. I think I had dumb luck for a day, totally coincidental, and now random shutdowns have resumed. It does feel like heat, so I'm interested in what you'd said about drivers/Nvidia, etc.

  • by ArmedCow,

    ArmedCow ArmedCow Sep 8, 2016 6:33 AM in response to heyzarling
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 8, 2016 6:33 AM in response to heyzarling

    If you search for GT130 and kernel panics, you can probably find the thread. But assuming that all these pieces are in place, then I would say I don't have the revised GT130 (those that did get it say the problems were resolved) and it is my understanding that you can't get one now except from third party vendors (and most I found were used - the one new one was $400 - price of rarity).

     

    Since I did. Y clean reinstall action, my Mac only shuts off now when I'm using Photos (I have a lot of high res pics - possibly taxes the vid card?). Everything else runs fine. I did not do a migration of my files and data because the first time I tried this, and it migrated the slowness and multiple daily crashes as well.

  • by heyzarling,

    heyzarling heyzarling Sep 8, 2016 7:16 AM in response to ArmedCow
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 8, 2016 7:16 AM in response to ArmedCow

    Thanks. I finally installed smcfancontrol, as well (on this iMac and a MBP), and yeah, there's some heat there. I haven't - knock on wood - had a shutdown since installing it yesterday, and it had become pretty chronic. Photos, yes, and I run the CC apps pretty hard, Illustrator and Photoshop, as well as Lightroom, and it feels like the first two anyway were pretty prone to taking it down. Hardware? Software? Combination, producing heat? Don't know, but pretty frustrating. I'd certainly trade having a ridiculously slim case for stability; maybe this fan control will carry me for a while.

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