IMac i7 random power failure?

Hey there, my iMac 21,5 i7 has a random "sudden power failure", which has been diagnosed by an apple maintenance centre as a 'Logic board" problem. It was bought in Jan 2012 and it is plugged into a power surge/no break protection.
I've reset the SMC, changed power chord, power outlet and in the end took to one Apple maintenance centre in Rio, where I live, and the dignose was a deffective Logic Board, the solution being a replacement... which means it might be better to buy a new one... An apple computer that lasts ONLY ONE YEAR???
Does anyone have experienced similar problems? Any different feedbacks? Suggestions of apple techs in Rio de Janeiro???
Thanks in advance!

Hello, sad case, but Macs aren't what they used to be, & yes, without AppleCare, a Logic board replacement will be terribly expensive.
Can only say that everybody needs to get the 3 year extended Applecare when getting an iMac or Laptop.
https://locate.apple.com/br/pt/service/?pt=4&lat=-22.9035393&lon=-43.20958689999 998

Similar Messages

Random power failure / shutdown?

Hey all,
I recently purchased the 20" 2.4 GHz and have been experiencing random power failures. Right in the middle of typing an essay or watching a movie, my computer turns off unexpectedly. Has anyone else experienced this problem or know what might be going on? The only things I could think of are static buildup/discharge in the power supply or overheating...
Thanks!

iRocket wrote:
I have a iMac G5 (purchased 5/05) and I never had an issue with it other than having to manually connect to my home network) Recently (last week) I called Apple Support about my network issue and we did a commandoption+PR during powerup. This is the first time it was ever performed. Since then My iMac turns off (completely) randomly. It doesnt matter if I am surfing the web, watching a movie, or the machine is idle doing nothing, and BAM no power. I'm glad I bought the 3 year Apple iCare package, because it seems that Apple knows in about 3 years, the machines begin failing.
I performed the SMC procedure about 30 minutes ago. I will update this post if I no longer have the loss of power issue again.
That vintage of iMac (and eMac) had a problem with bad capacitors (the problem hit other manufactureres than Apple, too.) If you open up the case and look at the logic board, see if any capacitors (the little barrel-shaped doodahs) are swollen or leaking brown fuzz. If so, Apple had an extended repair program for that, although you're lucky you have Applecare. If you're not comfortable opening the computer (that model is easy, just 3 torx screws along the bottom edge, though it's a little tricky getting the cover back on when you're done), definitely take it to a Mac tech ASAP, as this gets worse with time.
Message was edited by: cavenewt

IMac random power failure

HI all - Help!
i Have a 2012 iMac.
Once or twice in the last few days it shut off on me randomly while I used it without warning. I thought it was a quick power outage but by the 3rd time it happened I looked at everything else plugged into the same power strip and it was staying powered. I plugged the imac directly into the outlet and same result. As well as plugging it into another outlet on another circuit. The issue is the computer - not the power its feeding from. We havent had any thunderstorms in the area for a week now so it wasnt caused by a storm. There were no tell-tail signs of strange happenings before this happened either. I DO use boot camp on it and PC game regularly but I have made sure the computer never overheats. So I couldn't have fried anything to the best of my knowledge.
Now here I am a few days later and i cant even get the computer to finish booting up before it will lose power. Any clue on how to fix this? I dont have apple care (Ive never once had an issue with an apple product) and I dont have the money to just go buy a new iMac. Has anyone had this issue before?

It could be a more serious problem, but it kind of sounds like maybe a bad, loose or partially seated RAM module.
If you have upgraded or added RAM, do and test each of the following steps.
1. Check to make sure that all the modules are firmly seated in there slots.
2. Check for a bad module, install the modules one at a time in the top slot.
3. Install the original modules in the original slot that they came in.
If you did not upgraded or added RAM, you can do step 1 before making a Service Appointment.
1. Check to make sure that all the modules are firmly seated in there slots.

Random power failure.

sorry i am a noob, i have recently been having a problem with my mac just turning itself off. i happens out of the blue when i am only running menial tasks such as watching videos or browsing the internet. its not a problem with it restarting it just plain turns off as if someone has pulled the plug. if anyone has any suggestions or is experiencing the same thing please help.
thank you in advance.
jambon

Hi again,
We all need a little more info. How long has this been going on, did it just start, has it always done this since you purchased the iMac, does it happen around the same time each day, does it happen after a certain amount of time using the Mac, have you recently moved it, does it only happen when you watch videos and surf the net, etc etc etc...
If this has been an ongoing problem, I would try a new outlet. If this just started recently, I would make sure the power cord is firmly seated. If recent and you have not changed your normal routine, I would suspect a possible power supply problem. It's hard to tell until you tell us more details...
When you're watching videos or even surfing the net and watching youtube or something like that, your Mac uses a little more CPU power which will make it run a bit warmer, when a Mac reaches continuous and unusually high operating temps, it will shut off for self protection... *but watching videos and/or surfing the net should not normally cause this.
Rick
iMac G5 iSight 20" - 30G iPOD in Slimming Black - WD 500G FW - Mac OS X (10.4.8) - HP Pav 15" WS and Toshiba Sat 17" WS LP's - Canon 20D & A620 Kodak P880

Imac will not boot up after power failure

Does anyone know why i have to unplug the power cable from the back of my imac after every power failure at my home to get the imac to boot up. I've tried resetting the surge protecter and unplugging there. However, the only option is to unplug the cord from the back of the monitor/imac before it will boot up. Any ideas or is this a known bug.

You're effectively resetting the SMC.
If you're getting that many power outages you need to be using a UPS (Uninteruptible Power supply), not just a surge protecter.
Power interruptions at the wrong time can cause directory damage or even physical damage to the Hard Drive if the heads were reading or wriing at the time.

Problem with iMacs loading web pages slowly after a power failure

We have 3 intel Macs (2 iMacs and a MB) on our network.
Today we had a power failure, and now we are having problems with both iMacs loading some web pages slowly (in Safari and Firefox both). I have shutdown and restarted both iMacs to no avail. As you will notice, I have not experienced any problems with my MB probably because the battery never allowed it to shut down completely.
Can you give me any indication of what the problem is or how I can go about troubleshooting this further?
Thank you in advance.

It does sound like it could be a WiFi issue. You can try rebooting your router and that might help. It just might your Internet connection or the router itself. If the router is bad, you can replace it. If its the Internet connection - you can only do what you ISP allows you to do.

Does iMac shutdown nicely on power failure?

I have heard that the iMac 5K 2014 shuts down automatically on detecting mains power fluctuation. Great if this shuts down the 128GB SSD in an orderly fashion. If not I may have to get a UPS, though one I can afford could be unreliable! How paranoid should I be about this?
I do have Time Machine on. Loss of my unsaved data is an acceptable risk, and not what I am concerned about here: I am worried about maintaining iMac system integrity.
So, can someone please enlighten me about automatic shutdown of the iMac?

Tim Durbridge wrote:
That's reassuring.
But does the iMac shut down automatically on power failure?
Does that protect the system well enough for practical purposes?
Would that be why you operate a computer without a UPS?
The iMac does not have an internal battery or UPS. It will NOT shut down automatically or otherwise when power is lost. If you lose the mains the computer immediately stops working and serious corruption can and has indeed happened. Think about what you said. You lose main power to the machine. It has no power of its own, no internal reserve supply (and I know of no personal computer that does). It may or may not recover when power is restored and it depends on what was going on at the time the power failed.
If data loss or corruption is is unacceptable then a UPS is a must have. A UPS will allow the machine to shut down properly. OS X has built-in UPS power management software. You can set the computer to properly shut down when the UPS reaches say 20% reserve power.
Buy the best UPS you can possibly afford.

IMac and power failure, now new startup screen and abrupt shutoff

Had a power failure, iMac kept turning on and off, finally unplugged and after 8 hours, I try to start and I get a screen that has the apple logo and spinning load animation, but also a new bar that shows something is being worked on. It reaches the end and abruptly shuts off.

What version of OS X was your Mac running?

IMac Power Failure

Just wondering if i could get some ideas on what could be happening with my iMac. I seems to loose power when I'm in the middle of using an application like iTunes or Safari or any application that has heavy CPU usage or HDD Read/Write like installing something from a CD/DVD or even on a mouse click or a key pressed on the keyboard. When it's idle it doesn't usually do this. When it does loose power, it will restart after about 7 seconds since i have reboot after a power failure checked in System Prefs. I can replicate this using any power outlet w/ or w/o a surge suppressor in my house but I can't seem to replicate it at work or at the Apple Store (annoying), suggesting it would be something in my house but i can't seem to pinpoint it. Could it be the iMac's power supply just being picky or something else?
Some Info: iMac 7,1 late 2007 (First Gen Aluminium). The power supply was already replaced in early 2008 oddly enough from the same problem but Apple was able to replicate the problem and replace it. The only upgrades done to it was the memory from 1gb to 4gb a while ago. I already put back in the original memory to see if this was it but the power issues continued.
Thanks for helping me out!
-jake

Jake,
I think what the previous poster was trying to say is he thinks it might be your power supply again. That was the first thought I had by the way your described the issue. If the iMac is still covered by AppleCare contact them immediately and open a case before your warranty runs out. If it's not covered follow this link to make an appointment at your local Apple Store to have it looked at.
Regards,
Roger

Imac's sudden crash, like power failure. starts again 30min later

Hi all,
my imac crashes sometimes very suddenly, like in a power failure. it doesn't force quit or shut down, it just goes like somebody pulled the plug.
it's usually possible to start it up again after 30minutes or an hour.
the plug and lead seem to be fine. i tested it on another mac.
the obvious suspicion would be overheating, but how can that be caused so suddenly (and how can i fix it)?
thanks for reading
i appreciate any advice

Get a temperature monitor.
There's a free widget, +iStat Nano,+ that a lot of folks use. There's also an inexpensive app, +Hardware Monitor,+ a much more comprehensive and customizable version, including a 7-day history with all sorts of fancy graphs, etc. There's a free version, called +Temperature Monitor,+ that may do enough, too: http://www.bresink.com/osx/HardwareMonitor.html
Having the history may help you figure out what's happening.

Imac wont start up after power failure

i moved the table my imac was on and i accidentally took off the power cable.the imac was on so when i took the cable off it shut off. then i put the cable back and tried to turn it on but nothing happened..it is like dead. any suggestions?

Also, there is a small battery or capacitor on the logic board that may need to be replaced, as this has been the cause of a similar issue over many generations of Mac computer hardware. Of course there are other causes of failure, and that is why the help of an expert to troubleshoot and diagnose issues to attempt to resolve them can take time.
And it may not be resolved after the first attempt if the actual problem is deeper than first best educated guess arrived by troubleshooting. Part of some repairs requires replacement of suspect parts, even if they may not be the cause, to eliminate their being within the realm of possibility. A good read is among the original Apple Technical Service Manuals, those aren't often available to the general public. I used one to self-troublehoot an iMac under AppleCare after the nearby 200+ miles one-way distant 'specialist' could not fix my new iMac, four times. So I am a bit cool on newer Macs; the way I see it one new headache lasting 10 months and requiring 3,000 miles travel, to not be resolved by experts (and under warranty, so I can't touch it!?!) is enough.
The best cure for main power failure, is to have a good high quality battery backup system in place with automatic voltage regulation, that also works as a power filter; and can step in to isolate the Mac from mains high-or-low power fluctuation. This can save many products from bad power sources; do not rely on these, either. Make copies of your work ahead of time. This saves your computer from issues you can prevent.
PS: my Macs seldom are shut off, for up to 11 months, some of mine only get to sleep when not in use. When the main power goes offline, during a storm or extended utility failure of their own making, I will have to shut them off as a choice. There is software in the UPS unit that can help shut down automatically, and that is a choice, too. I usually find their software problematic on occasion; and the battery backup is not very long in duration, so one with a few hours runtime and a method of rationing the power if you are present when the mains fail, is helpful in performing a normal shutdown after a power failure.
Good luck & happy computing!

After power failure iMac wont start up

I had an unexpected power outage yesterday and since that happened, I cannot get my iMac G5 to start up. I can only get as far as the gray screen. I've tried the command option P R and holding down the power button for 10 seconds and several other things, and I cant get beyond that gray screen. Im currently running Tiger on it and thought maybe I could reinstall the operating system? Ive had other power failures before and have never experienced anything like this that I couldnt start the computer. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Hi Kelly,
Do you have your data backed up? If not, do this as soon as possible.
Have you disconnected your Mac from the wall plug and let it sit about 10 or 15 minutes?
Have you tried starting in safe mode?
Have you tried booting from your install disks and running DIsk Utility "Repair Disk"?
There is always the possibility of a power outage taking out a hard drive. Especially if it is writing at the time, I recently lost one the same way. Mine had bad blocks that could not be formatted out, so I had to replace it.
Hopefully your situation is not as bad. Let us know.

IMac not booting up after power failure

work around for at home/personal users which should work, the OS try's to retrieve user authentication Info from the previous logged on user so disconnecting the network cable or disabling or turning off the WiFi/ wireless should do the trick, just make sure the power is fully drained or have the power cable or battery disconnected for 25-30seconds to ensure the power is drained from the system. For all those Domain Admins/Users enable do not write on the users directory so the OS doesn't recognize a user account to try and retrieve info, if you perform this the OS will just create a temp user profile folder and delete it when theirs a power failure and not try to look for it after the power failure when booting up not causing to give you the gray boot up splash screen and go right into OS X, hope this helps and good luck!

work around for at home/personal users which should work, the OS try's to retrieve user authentication Info from the previous logged on user so disconnecting the network cable or disabling or turning off the WiFi/ wireless should do the trick, just make sure the power is fully drained or have the power cable or battery disconnected for 25-30seconds to ensure the power is drained from the system. For all those Domain Admins/Users enable do not write on the users directory so the OS doesn't recognize a user account to try and retrieve info, if you perform this the OS will just create a temp user profile folder and delete it when theirs a power failure and not try to look for it after the power failure when booting up not causing to give you the gray boot up splash screen and go right into OS X, hope this helps and good luck!

IMac Frozen randomly for no obvious reason

My iMac has been acting up weird since two accidental power-off 2 weeks ago. The power off was due to a plug fail at my old house and it happened 2 times in 10 minutes. I eventually fixed the plug and made sure that never happened again. But the 2nd power off looked damaging to my iMac since it triggered automatic safe boot, which looked daunting to me.
Now the problems is that my iMac would randomly freeze for no reason when I'm only running an iTunes (paused), IM program and 2 browsers with about 6 gb hard drive space on a iMac 20 inch model with 2.66 ghz CPU.
It doesn't make sense because I only have some web pages and itunes open(itunes not even playing anything), it shouldn't consume so much processing power that it freezes the machine over.
Random freeze means that sometimes it freeze on login, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it doesn't freeze for a day but suddenly it freezes next afternoon.
I have one new app installed for anti-virus, the McAfee, not sure if the firewall is doing anything. Also I have my mac's firewall on as well.
Here are the stuffs I tried so far:
1. Restart, boot from CD, repair disk and repair permissions.
2. Restart, reset PRAM
3. Install the snowleopard again on the same disk so it overwrites everything and i update the system once again to the latest version.
4. The mouse is working during the freeze because I can see it moving, just not other process can properly run.
Please let me know if there is any log file on the mac that I can access to further diagnose if this is a software failure or hardware failure. I certainly hope i don't have to replace harddrive and memory for this.

Your computer is a mess probably from a combination of things. I would start first by following McAfee's instructions for uninstalling their software for several reasons. First it's of no value because there are no, none, zero, zip virus's for OS X currently. Next is most antivirus applications create more problems than they solve and third they slow down a computer by taking valuable system resources.
Next I would invest in a UPS, this will help in the event you have power problems again. A UPS allows you to do an orderly shut down in the event of a power failure or major power spike.
After you have done both do a SMC reset, Repair Disk Permissions (again) and restart in Safe Mode to clear some caches. If it still is unstable you will need to bring it into your local Apple Store or AASP to be checked out.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Roger

G5 Power failure during start up and wake

I have an early G5 20" non-iSight iMac that has a power problem that is steadily getting worse.
As Apple support has expired and can't be extended, I'm at a loss how to resolve this.
Description.
The problem first started as intermittent during wake up from sleep (power light pulsing). I'd move the mouse or tap the keyboard to wake the iMac and I'd hear the disk just start to spin up followed by a sharp 'pop/click' like the power cord had been pulled, and it would be powered off needing the power button to be pressed to restart from scratch.
Now the problem has worsened in that occasionally I will find the iMac has completely powered down during sleep. When I restart it can take up to 6 or more attempts to get to the point where I can use it. There's a sequence of restarts needed, each starting from pushing the power button, and then ending during the starting sequence with a 'pop/click' as the power suddenly shuts off. Each time the start up will progress a little further than the previous attempt until eventually it finishes building the desk top after login and I can operate normally until the next time I find it powered off after a few hours of non-use. The power failure starts initially from just after the welcome chime, and progresses to maybe 5 or 6 times later to during the desk top build after log-in. However, once logged in and operating the iMac behaves as normal, switching users, log-out and login, screen save and wake from screen save etc are all as I'd expect. I've not (yet at least) had any sudden power failures during normal operation.
The serial number of the iMac falls within the Sept 05 Repair Extension Program serial number range (not EMC 2056 though), but when I spoke to Apple Support they said that the lack of random behaviour meant that the problem I'm having is not related and so would not be covered by this program.
So I'm kinda stuck with a problem that is annoying when it occurs, which is daily at the moment, although it's been this bad a few weeks back and then was fine (iMac left switched on for 2 to 3 weeks without a problem) until we had a power cut earlier this week, and it's started again.
I've searched through the forums and while I could find plenty of references to 'Sudden Power Loss' none seemed to be as predictable and similar to this one.
Suggestions and ideas welcome. Thanks.

i am having a similiar issue. I have the same exact computer (iMac G5, non-isight) and it stays on for 30 mins, hour, 3 hours and shuts off. Upon starting up, sometimes it doesn't make it to the login screen before shutting down again. I have downloaded heat temp monitor programs and it seems to get to about 70 degrees celcius sometimes. Upon restarting, I get the "report problem to apple" screen with this information. I have tried to restart the power supply too.
Thu Apr 17 09:02:18 2008
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x008E0BE4): "Missing CPU diode calibration information.\n"@/SourceCache/IOPlatformPluginFamily/IOPlatformPluginFamily-312. 0.1/SMUNeo2_PlatformPlugin/SMU_Neo2CPUTempSensor.cpp:124
Latest stack backtrace for cpu 0:
Backtrace:
0x0009B478 0x0009BE1C 0x00029DD4 0x008E0BE4 0x008D0308 0x008CFD78 0x008E309C 0x008D48E8
0x008E2C6C 0x00342B8C 0x00343CE0 0x00345B90 0x00344CB0 0x000B05D4
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.SMUNeo2PlatformPlugin(3.1.2d1)@0x8dc000->0x8eafff
dependency: com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily(3.1.2d1)@0x8c9000
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily(3.1.2d1)@0x8c9000->0x8dbfff
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x39e04c80)
PC=0x00000000; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0x00000000; DSISR=0x00000000; LR=0x00000000; R1=0x00000000; XCP=0x00000000 (Unknown)
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task
Mac OS version:
9C7010
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 9.2.2: Tue Mar 4 21:23:43 PST 2008; root:xnu-1228.4.31~1/RELEASE_PPC
System model name: PowerMac8,1
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IMac i7 random power failure?

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