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

does anybody have an email for an apple POC?

I just off the phone with apple. After 90 minutes of discussion there is still no solution. They keep telling me to replace the logic board. I said this is not an option for me. They will only replace the iMac after 3 unsuccessful repairs. So I need to pay for a hard drive, a logic board and a power supply unit. I think that's about 1500€. I said I would rather give them 1500€ and they replace my iMac immediately, than paying 1500€ for useless repairs and after that they replace my iMac. I wanted to safe time and nerves, but apparently this is not possible. So I think I have to stick with my broken Mac. Great job Apple, keep ignoring the problem

An older issue with the Ibook twin usb version was taken to the Danish Consumer Rights authorities who took action against Apple. http://web.archive.org/web/20070604163128/www.forbrug.dk/presse/nyheder/presseki t/ibookg4/statement-of-claim-40317-1637-english/

The random shut down on several 27" Imac models would appear to be as serious a problem.

Haha. Apple is just ridiculous!!!

They keep deleting posts !

I received a mail about user posting here and now I am here and these posts are gone?

I noticed that there are posts missing from "Solidairs" "fatcat585" "SeBigBoss", but I habe them in my mails...

Okay Apple! Check my account! I have spend more than 15000 Euros in Apple products so far.

I am gone!!!

I am just very disappointed that we don't get any official feec-back from Apple on this. Since we all have very similar iMac's (well, the new slim iMac, mostly with fusion drive and always with the Geforce), then it cannot just be a coincidence.

Has anyone made any posts on this issue in any public forums, or has any magazine (i.e. Computerworld, Engadget etc) written about it?

I feel it has to become public known quite soon, Apple can't just ignore this issue.

It's just ridiculous: There is someone from Apple reading this forum because they delete posts, but they absolutely refuse to work on anything about this problem. This is hugely frustrating and if you want to have a good laugh, I quote the reason for the deletion of my post:

> We removed your post Re: 27 iMac (2012) crashes and requires smc reset to turn on because it contained a poll or a petition.

You all have a copy of my post, so you may judge for yourself... I have no trust at all that Apple will not just delete the whole topic in the near future, so I just took a full hardcopy of it - I may or may not give it on to the press in the near future...

This *****. Add my iMac late 2012 3.4 ghz with the 2048 graphics card to the list. I removed some OWC ram to back it down to 16gb the other day and thought I had it all worked out. I experienced no crash for a few days!!! It's back.... What a hunk of Junk.. A heavy and expensive one at that.

I think this may be a capacitor issue although I'm not that knowledgeable about this area. I had kept my iMac unplugged for about 4 weeks and now my computer has been working for about 2 hrs now. Prior to this it would shut off after 3-5 minutes.

Add me to the list. iMac (27-inch, Late 2012) 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB 1 TB Fusion

Problem started happening about a month and a half ago. Intermittent random shutdowns, had to unplug it to boot back on. I finally took it into Apple, they said they recreated the problem. They told me my solid state was failing and charged me $500+ to replace it. I was relieved that they knew how to fix it.

Had it back for a few days and I was hoping I was in the clear but I just had 3 shutdowns today alone. Uuuuugh.

Add another to the list. Same late 2012 27" iMac with 2GB GTX card. I started having issues in 2015 while still under Apple Care. Several phone calls and various trouble shooting efforts. They finally gave me the start up in safe mode advice, which worked for for about a week before I left on an extended business trip. By the time I cot back the temperatures cooled down - I live in Thailand and often work in a non-airconditioned room. The problem went away until recently. It is hot season again so I suspected the high ambient temps affected the power supply or something. I have had multiple sudden turn offs, all needing an unplug from wall socket to make the iMac respond to a power button push. I have and Apple Support call scheduled for Monday and my case number from last year. I will press them to honor my now expired Apple Care as i think this is the same issue. We shall see...

This thread helped me pinpoint my problem, hopefully I can return the favor. My problem was ultimately Firefox and Flash which led to heat related shutdowns. Even after I replaced the GPU.

Here is what worked for me:

- opened Firefox and added the Add-On 'Flash Disable' (Tools>Add-ons>Get Add-ons)

- I also uninstalled Flash from my computer. (easy steps via google)

- in Firefox I disabled Hardware Acceleration

'Preferences > Advanced > General > Use Hardware Acceleration When Available

Un-check that.

- added SMC Fan Control, keeping fans at about 1300-1350 RPM and temps at 113F/45C

- restart. Its been good since. And loads much faster on startup.

Here's the backstory to see if your machine might be doing the same thing.

My 2011 iMac is a 27" i7 with the 6970 AMD Radeon graphics card. Apple gave free replacements of this card since it was a known problem. So when the iMac started shutting down randomly, I discovered that recall. No more Apple Care and I was WAY out of the window to get this done for free, but the Genius Bar honored the recall. (They agreed I wouldn't have looked for known problems if I wasn't having any. So how would I have known the card might go bad?)

Before discovering it was the GPU I tried all the resets, diagnostics and safe mode, including trying to reload the OS. In the middle of the reload it shut down. Blinking folder icon from then on.

So Apple loaded El Capitan after they replaced the GPU (with the same problematic brand/model as before but that's another thread)

Apple confirmed all was well with their tests. I took it home and reloaded from my TM backup. 5 hours later it completes, I log in and within 30 minutes a prompt comes on the screen 'Are you sure you want to shut down?' and even though I press 'Cancel' it shuts down. It does this a couple more times while I'm trying to get to the bottom of it and then stops asking altogether, just shutting down intermittently. The only thing that can get me back into the iMac is the SMC reset. And even then for small periods of time. I ran the Hardware Diagnostic and it shut down just as it was testing the logic board. Fantastic.

So all of that to say, it looked like it was the same problems as this thread. Below is where I started in my fix. Some steps may be unnecessary, but it's what I did. It has been running for several days now with no problems.

This assumes you have a backup.

I started from scratch:

- unplugged from the wall and let the computer cool down overnight.

- in the morning, pressed the power key BEFORE plugging it in. (read this might discharge the capacitors?)

- CAREFUL HERE MIGHT DO DAMAGE - To check the logic board I removed all the RAM, plugged into wall, pressed power. If your computer starts beeping supposedly this means the logic board is still ok. (mine beeped)

- held power to perform hard shutdown. UNPLUG from wall. Re-seat RAM

- plug into wall, press power, reset PRAM, at second boot tone, quickly switched to Internet Recovery (command option R)

- went into Disk Utility and performed First Aid, verified and repaired permissions. They were fine. Then I erased my drive. Went back to Internet Recovery and reloaded Lion. (I could not do this while having El Capitan on the machine. You can go forward with OS versions not backward. At least easily.)

- then I reloaded my machine from my Time Machine backup. This will take several hours. And ultimately, I still had the problem of random shutdowns, just not as frequently.

- Then I proceeded to the steps listed at the very beginning.

I don't know if I could have stayed with El Capitan and just changed my Firefox and Flash settings, but for now I'm just happy to not have to re-visit the Apple Store. Hope this helps.

Another late 2012 27" iMac with 2Gb Nvidia, 1Tb fusion drive. I installed 16Gb of Crucial RAM in 2013 after purchase. I've also stayed on Mountain Lion until this problem where I upgraded to El Capitan. Reading this thread... seems this is a depressing problem to have as very few cases of a proper fix.

Not sure what to do as before coming to this thread I assumed it was a power supply problem, but with so many having had that replaced and no change then I don't know what to think.

Joining the party from Turkey. 27'' i7 3.4 GHz, 680MX, 32GB original Apple RAM, 3TB Fusion. Symptoms started a little after the 2 years of warranty window ended. I thought it was because of the hard disk back then (which Apple replaced for free). Took the iMac home but since then I was using the laptop a lot more so I did not notice or the problem did not replicate itself for some months after the hard disk replacement. Now it is shutdown fest.

One interesting bit, I've been told by the Apple rep on the phone that I should try to set up a new user and leave it on and try to see if it shuts itself down. So far it is working. Tho mostly idle.

Just for the new ones: The most "working" solution that came up in my research is disconnecting the iMac from power completely when shut down. I did not experience the problem since I religiously do that (which is annoying because you cannot simply shut down and go, but hey, better than nothing). Please try that and pray it's working for you, too. 🙂

Exactly. Unplugging helps, but it doesn't change the fact that due to this issue, we're forced to live with "random shut down anxiety" every time we're performing critical tasks and/or using the computer over prolonged sessions.

Overall, in this thread, the only hopeful solutions we've seen so far are:

1) Getting Apple to give you an entirely new computer (only works for people who are still under Apple Care and undergo three unsuccessful repair attempts).

2) Someone earlier talked about not using Apple power supplies (since even the replacements seem to be defective), and instead using a totally (more powerful?) 3rd party power supply. Have any tinkerers had luck with this yet?

3) Not a permanent solution, but there was a guy much earlier in the thread who had something hooked up between the power cord and wall outlet that behaved like unplugging the computer, but only required shutting down to have the same effect. Is this an effective workaround to physically unplugging?