iMac Crashing

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Level 1

20 points

iMac Crashing

Greetings All,

The symptom my iMac has is it crashes and shuts down as if someone literally pulled its plug. Furthermore, I can not power it up again (power button in the back become non responsive) until I unplug it from the wall, wait few minutes, and then plug it back.

When does this happen? Well, it is very random and sporadic. Extremely unpredictable such that I have yet to figure out any pattern or specific common events or applications that might be causing it. It happened (not all the time mind you) when I am simply in the finder changing the desktop picture. Another time while it was sitting idle, with the screen saver running (the one with constantly shuffling album covers from my iTunes). And yet another time was after quitting Baldur's Gate and shutting down the iMac, it crashed before it properly shut down. That last one seems to happen more often, but then perhaps thats because I usually play the game a bit at the end of the day.

Could this be a software issue? Hardware? Both?

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012)

3.4 GHz Intel Core i7

32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X El Capitan (10.11.4), 3TB Fusion Drive

Posted on Apr 28, 2016 11:49 PM

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Answer 1

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SeaPapp

Level 7

26,486 points

Apr 29, 2016 7:06 PM in response to madscientist

Something in this thread may help 27 iMac (2012) crashes and requires smc reset to turn on

Is there any message when you restart your iMac? Is it a kernel panic? OS X: When your computer spontaneously restarts or displays "Your computer restarted because of a problem." - Apple Supp…

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Answer 2

madscientist Author

Level 1

20 points

Apr 29, 2016 7:09 PM in response to SeaPapp

Thanks Mike, very helpful thread. Thought I was all alone with this problem, wow!

Misery loves company I suppose.

Now if only Apple can step up and resolves the problem for all suffering iMac owners and simply replace their ailing Macs.

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Answer 3

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,486 points

Apr 29, 2016 7:12 PM in response to madscientist

I can't imagine that happening but perhaps there will be a repair program somewhere in the near future. You should probably make an appointment and have yours looked at.

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Answer 4

madscientist Author

Level 1

20 points

Apr 29, 2016 7:22 PM in response to SeaPapp

Ironically, I had taken it back in February for the recall on the fusion drive. And I had mentioned the crashing problem, but at the time it was only happening during Diablo 3. But they looked at the hardware, and reported that all components passed and it must be related to software issues with the game.

I suppose I can take it back again, but after reading the multitudes of posts in the thread about the futility of bringing it in for "repairs", I'm not so sure if it will be worth my time.

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