2008 Mac Pro won't shut down or empty trash

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Level 1

22 points

2008 Mac Pro won't shut down or empty trash

Hi!

PLEASE help me, I'm going nuts over here.

My early 2008 Mac Pro won't shut down when I choose it from the apple menu. At first it looks just like it is closing down but then it restars by itself.

I have to shut down manually by pressing the power button. When it opens up again, I keep on getting a grey screen with error message saying that computer was not restarted correctluy.

Also, I'm trying to secure emty my trash bin but without luck:

"There are some locked items in the Trash. Do you want to remove all the items, including the locked ones, or just the unlocked items? I choose remove all. Still the trash looks full.

What do I do?

Mac Pro, Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier

Posted on Feb 15, 2013 6:15 AM

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Answer 1

Johnb-one

Level 6

9,156 points

Feb 17, 2013 11:27 AM in response to Lobsterass

Hmmm.. Lobsterass, eh?

well-for the shutting down problem. Worse comes to worse, wiggle out the power cord,

let the machine cool down for about 3-4 minutes, then push the power cord back in, wait about a minute then power up. then maybe try disk utility, repair permissions

I had a problem with the Trash not emptying, even with secure empty trash. A reboot solved that. Why, I dunno, but it did. see if there are some programs open and running. close them, quit them, then try to empty the Trash, or run Activity Monitor to see what's running. see also resetting the SMC/PMU for your Mac Pro, after that, I dunno,

maybe zapping the PRAM??

just a suggestion

John b

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Answer 2

Lobsterass Author

Level 1

22 points

Feb 18, 2013 4:01 AM in response to Johnb-one

Hi John!

Thanx for your answer. I just realized that I couldn't empty trash because it was old backup files from a connected external back up disk in it. I guess I can't remove those files until I perform a complete back up from scratch again(?).

Anyway, my biggest problem now is that the two USB ports in my Apple Cineam Dispaly stopped working at once. As it doesn't help to do the regular reset of USB or to start up from another HD, it kind of looks like a hardware problem. I just find it weird that this problem suddenly happened in BOTH USB ports while I had all these other software related issues.

QUESTION: Can I run the Apple Hardware test with the Cinema Dispaly connected to see it it really is a hardware issue?

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