Mysterious unprompted shutdown

I have a 15 inch MacBook Pro and OS 10.4.9.... Works well generally, however in the last month or so the computer is shutting down randomly without being prompted. No obvious pattern; not software related from what I can see, not battery related (shuts down with/ without power cord and in various states of charge) and not PRAM related (this has been reset now). Any thoughts?
Thanks
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9)

hi c4,
Didi you boot from the DVD and ran disk utility and the hardware test ?

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Mysterious Server Shutdown

Virtually no UNIX admin experience. Any admin duties are shared by several folks with no special training. Today we had our Sun v880 server, running Solaris 5.8, shutdown for no apparent reason.
When we checked on server we found it completely powered down, yet still connected to a fully charged UPS. When we booted the system back up a few of the file systems required FSCHK be run on them. Other then that...no damage done.
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Solaris keeps its log in the :
/var/adm/messages file
You can also review the older logs ...
/var/adm/messages.0
... and messages.1 and messages.2 and so on and so on.
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After the latest software update, my Playbook now randonly turns itself off. This usually happens when i put it into standby, but also happens while using it. When it happens, it goes through the proper shutdown process as though i have pressed the off button?
Any Ideas anybody?

Touch the battery icon > Restart.
Watch over the next couple of days if this mysterious self shutdown continues and if so please post back here. You may need to debrick the device and reload the new OS fresh.
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2. Please resolve your thread by marking the post "Solution?" which solved it for you!
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Random (mysterious) start-ups from shutdown on MBP 17" (Hi-Res)

Hi,
lately, my MBP has started to turn itself on at night. I always shut it down completely after a days' work (NOT making it sleep or standby, also NOT closing the lid before the shutdown is done). Actually, I tried waiting 5-10 minutes before closing the lid after the shutdown just to make sure I wasn't interrupting anything.
Now, in the morning, my MBP sits there sleeping (the light on the front is in "breathing" mode), and after opening the lid it is completely booted up.
Syslog shows me it randomly started at some time in the night (between 1h and 5h hours after the shutdown.
Of course I made sure that I have not set a startup time in the power setting's scheduler.
What could be the reason for this?

My MBP 15in also mysteriously self-starts. I have determined that this occurs every evening at 7:00 pm sharp when the AC power is attached. This is despite the fact that I have no scheduled start-up time configured. I have yet to have it happen on battery. It has been happening regularly when nothing else is plugged in, not USB, FW, nothing. Sharing and remote management may be turned on or off as otherwise needed and have no noticed influence.

Mysterious message asking to shutdown

I updated the latest security patch yesterday. Today when the screensaver (Flurry), i got a message, square black background with lettering in five different languages telling me that i need to restert my computer. It said ' you need to restart your computer by holding the power button for few seconds or pressing the restart button...." there was a power icon on the background. All this while the screensaver is frozen. No key on the computer would work. So i restarted as told, and when i relogged in, there was a error message saying ' os x quit unexpectedly ...' with report and ok buttons on it. This message is regular mac message if you shut down the computer with power button than soft shutdown.
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Hi CosMac,
what you see is called a "kernel panic". These articles might help:
Mac OS X: What Is a Kernel Panic?
Mac OS X: How to Log a Kernel Panic
Kernel Panics? Don't panic too!
Mac OS X Kernel Panic FAQ
If this answered your question please consider granting some stars: Why reward points?

Ironport C150 Mystery Shutdown

Hi,
Our C150 running 6.4.0-273 switched off on its own today, and we have no idea why. When we switched it back on again, it worked fine and so far no problems. It's been running perfectly normal for a long time (many months) and we've never had this problem before.
Is there a logfile we can check somewhere that could indicate the cause of the shutdown?
Thanks.

Might this be caused by an incidenticaly pressing of the power button on the appliance?
Customer support said that:
After looking through your support request and looking through the system via remote access, the only thing we found was a process that locked up and caused the reboot. This should not happen often at all. Please keep an eye on the system and let us know if it reboots unexpectedly again.
I emailed them back saying that whatever did it caused a shutdown and not a reboot, and asking if that is normal.

KT6V LSR mysterious and sudden shutdowns.

Hi,
First post here. I have a cheap Linux project and I have little problems with it. I hope that I can make a good question, with all needed specs And sorry my bad but hopefully understandable English :P
I bough a MSI MB and AMD Athlon XP processor (10€). I also bought 2 256MB DDR memory's and 2 AGP graphic cards from different seller (also tower, zalman fan, DVD-drive, Floppy drive, broken MB and some PSU 20€). And finally I bought PSU from third seller (price was meal). This far I have spend 50€ for my project excluded keyboard, mouse, display and hard drives.
I have tested with another MB that processor and both graphic cards works, but I can't be sure about the rest of the stuff.
My system boots greatly and I can log in to Linux but after a while my system suddenly shuts down. I have tried with minimun configuration (MB, processor, PSU, memory's (both and one by one in different slots), graphic card (both), DVD-drive, display and keyboard) with ultimate boot CD. After shutdown I cant restart unless I keep power button down 5 sec or switch of with PSU power switch and there is still power in USB ports and light in optical mouse.
I got shutdowns:
- randomly in Linux within 1h from start (It feels randomly, no pattern)
- memtest86 and memtest86+ allways in test #7 regarding different kind of memory combinations and time spend until #7
- instantly in stressCPU
It can run from here to eternity:
- in BIOS
- CPU Burn-in (another CPU stress test)
My idle temp is quite high 60C and stress temp is around 65 according to bios and LM-sensors. I have spire whisperrock decently installed with thermal paste. I don't think that the temp is the problem because this processor rand nicely in another MB with similar temperatures.
I don't have another PSU with P4 power, so I can't test with another PSU.
Do I have just lazy weak PSU, broken MB or can all the memory's be faulty? I have also tried one other 512MB DDR (possible bad), but it also acted like my owns. I can't test these memory's in another MB because I has SDRAM memory slots.
I was just about to buy liquid cooling and fancy tower to my budget system, but I would be nice that I would run without shutdowns before that I will buy descent PSU after a while, but should I speeds things up and leave that fancy tower to future, get along with uglies tower ever and buy a decent PSU?
I have been thinking between Thermaltake toughpower 750W cable management and BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 530W. I would rather have BeQuiet, but should I go to more powerfull or is 530W enough for pretty usual system (+ liquid cooling) like in my profile? These PSU's costs about the same.
And of course. BIOS settings are factory setting except FSB is 133Mhz
/Edit: Corrected typing errors and added bios settings.

Yes, that is still a bit too high. When in BIOS it should be 40C (+/- max. 5).
Here is something that has helped a few, and I know it works well. If you know what T-Röd is, where you live, that is good for the cleaning of the processor and heat sink.
Reseating time
You need:
a star shaped, Philips screwdriver, and an ordinary flat one
strong, preferably chemical alcohole and/or Acetonic
a tuss of cotton
clean, preferably dust free cloths
thermal grease, preferably Arctic Silver
good light and a large kitchen table
some patience
a vacuum cleaner, preferably reversible, or a can of compressed air is not bad.
Pull the power cable out, and disconnect mouse, keyboard and such cables from the rear.
Put the case with the open side up on the kitchen table or similar. Have a newspaper under to prevent scratches.
Disconnect all cabling and possible AGP- and PCI-cards from the motherboard. It isn't absolutely necessary, but you might as well take the memory out too, as it will give you more freedom later.
With a philips screwdriver /star shaped/ unfasten the motherboard. When lifting it out I normally use the heat sink. Lift slowly.
Put the motherboard beside the case on something a bit soft, a cloth or a thick newspaper. Use an ordinary, flat, screwdriver to unfasten the heat sink. You push a clip down, and when that is loose it's easy to lift the heat sink off.
Clean both the bottom of the heat sink and the processor chip from old thermal grease. This is important! Strong alcohole and oil free Acetonic and a tuss(?) of cotton are good for this. After the cleaning, dry with a clean cloth.
If it is possible, use high-pressure air to blow the heat sink fins free of dust.
Make a note of the model no. on the processor.
Put the processor back on. Add a small drop of new thermal grease on the very chip of the processor. The drop might be half the size of a corn of rice. Spread it out with a plastic card: American Express Gold.
Make a virtual seating of the heat sink, so you are sure where to finally fasten the clip.
This might sound like a major task, but when prepared you'll do it in about fifteen minutes.
Before putting the motherboard back, you might have a look to see if the case needs some dry cleaning. Also have a look at the PSU and the cards. Don't use anything than air.
Here is some additional, illustrated, guidance:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/23986.pdf

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I have a Lenovo 3000 N100 laptop around two years old. Half a year ago its battery when dead, and I've been running on AC power since. However, that doesn't seem to be enough anymore.
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I'm using Ubuntu as my operating system after Windows went haywire, and haven't experienced any trouble with it so far.
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Exactly same here...............solution?
I run lenovo n100 on ac power.If battery is inserted it is detected but shows not charging on windows 7.
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Thank you so much! As it turns out, it was a weird problem with the power strip I was using. For some reason, there was a short and that's why it was just zonking out.
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Mysterious Shutdown During Overnight Render

Hello all,
My Mac Pro (Running 10.5.8) eventually shuts down when I set my energy saver like this: the display is set to sleep within 1 minute and the computer is set to "never" sleep. I do this whenever I render out a big file. (Cinema 4D12 is what I was running overnight when it happened last) Fortunately the next morning my render had already completed successfully, but I had to hit the power button on the tower once to boot up again. When I logged in, there was no evidence of a crash (i.e. error messages)
Obviously sometime after the render was complete, the system decided it was time to shut down. Has anyone else seen this before? If I do a long render overnight, is there a better way I should be setting up my system or prefs?
As always, any help is appreciated - Thank you!
A

Use SmcFanControl 2.2.x www.macupdate.com
the defaults are too low and system gets hot first, then the fans have to work to try to catch up to expell heat, which is very inefficient.
they are designed for running quiet.
Common to have defaults (499 and 599 rpm, very very low) which is what the SMC and OS run the fans at.
To keep FBDIMMs etc cool, and still quiet, 800-900 rpm
And if you know you will be cranking it out for any reason, switch to a higher profile like 1200 or even 1500 rpm.
Been doing so for 5 yrs, RAM will perform and last longer without added stress of heat, and it is heating up / cooling down cycles that stress, wear and cause fatigue and issues. Same for disk drives.
Nehalem / Westmere processors can jump 10-20*C in 1/10th of a second just from asking them to do anything, and they can run up to 80*C. More than 80 is not a good stable running temp but that is where and what people do to test their system's abilty and over-clocking skills. 65-75*C for cpu is perfectly fine, while anything under 45*C for idle or low workload.
Hardware Monitor would be my #1 thermal and system monitoring
iStatPro is popular
Temperature Monitor is free version of HM above and lacks abilty to alert and such if you set an alarm for a sensor reading threshold.
Don't over do background monitoring. Less is better and they do interfere. A perfect workstation runs as little non-essentials.
An audio bug in 2009 chipset Mac Pro was serious issue. It was patched by the OS, fixed in the next editions, but was never 'back fixed" to 10.5.8, so any user that wanted the fix had to upgrade to 10.6. not all apps were SL compliant. 2010 model is the result of all the learning and hard knocks I guess.
There are always bugs. Some known. Some waiting to be found. Some so rare they just hide.
If you know you will be rendering, it is also quite possible to have a special configured boot OS optimized just for that, rather than "general purpose" setup. Lean, mean, stable.
Start with a clone. Or start with a clean install. Test your setups.
Some people have extra drive sleds for such, they cost around $25 for those metal trays.
That is how I would go at it.

Mysterious shutdown f700

My Compaq F700 died so I installed a new motherboard (not used, brand new). I used the original 2.0GHz AMD processor, but I am having two problems. 1) When I turn the laptop on, it asks me to remove my wireless card because it is not supported. It's the stock card. 2) It only stays on for 10 minutes then shuts down. It doesn't appear to be running hot. When I installed the new motherboard I also installed copper shims on the CPU and GPU and I'm using a cooling pad under the laptop. The internal fan is also functioning properly. The second problem is my biggest concern. This laptop should be running fine but I can't even install the OS because it shuts down.

I'd suggest nuking the KN preference plist file and see if that works. If not, I would uninstall KN (and its preferences) and reinstall.

G5 dual 2ghz. Been unplugged for a while. Powers up but no video or power to usb keyboard. Boots up fine in safe mode, restart into normal mode ok. After shutdown, back to same issue. What's happening?

G5 dual 2ghz. Been unplugged for a while. Powers up but no video or power to usb keyboard. Boots up fine in safe mode, restart into normal mode ok. After shutdown, back to same issue. What's happening?

I keep seeing people ask and the advice to replace if it has been unplugged, but really have nothing to confirm that from my experiences.
My experience is that a weak or dead battery can cause much more than date and time issues.
I have seen it time and time again.
Deal with used machines and you will quickly learn....
I'll give no "recipe" or set list of symptoms, but the range of irregularities that can occur make it a quick and easy first line of troubleshooting, especially when the machine has been off the mains for a few months.
Why fight mysterious maladies and troubleshoot with the knowledge that the PRAM battery is beyond it's useful life.
Maybe they recharge?
Not likely. They are chemically nasty, disposable, one way discharge batteries.
They aren't Lithium-ion batteries

Why does a mystery application try to open when I login?

I wonder if anyone can help me with an issue I'm having with a mystery application trying to open.
Every time I wake my iBook G4 from sleep, or I start it from shutdown (I am the only user), I see an application is trying to open at the right side of the dock. It shows as the generic application "A" starting to open, but then it suddenly vanishes. On the advice of a Mac-user friend, I went to System Preferences/Accounts/Login Items and removed everything there, then rebooted my machine, but I still have the same problem.
From my unfortunate experiences with PCs, I remember this type of login behavior usually indicates the machine is infected with a virus. Is that what is causing my iBook problem? I have the Firewall turned on, and I'm running Norton Antivirus for Mac (which has found nothing in repeated scans). What should I try next? Any help with this would be really appreciated.
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

It's difficult to say what the application may be if you can't see its name, but in the Dock, the name won't show unless you are pointing at the icon. If you can get your mouse there fast enough (maybe put it in the right place, sleep, then wake your Mac?) you might see the app name before it closes. Then you'll have a better idea what it is.
You might also try the Activity Monitor application, which is in the /Applications/Utilities folder. It shows all the running processes, so you might be able to catch the app name before it closes.
When you know what the application is called, you may decide it's not a problem at all. If it's still unclear, come back and post it, and maybe someone will be able to tell you what it is. Lots of applications use little "helper apps," and it's possible it could be something like that. It's best to know what it is, but it's probably harmless.
G4 400 AGP Mac OS X (10.4.2)

My Mac does not shutdown properly and is all around glitchy. Any solution?

When Lion became available I downloaded it immediately. I also extracted the install DMG and burnt it to a DVD and a bootable USB stick (thank God).
I have a new iMac 2.5GHz i5 base model (500GB HD 4GB RAM) and I was using Snow Leopard and my Mac shutdown quickly, booted up quickly, and I never had any glitches in the GUI. After upgrading to Lion my system took forever to bootup and shutdown. Even if I don't tick the box to "Reopen windows when logging back in". Sometimes it takes 2-3 minutes to boot, and 1-2 minutes to shutdown. I timed SL 10.6.8 before upgrading and bootup was about 40 seconds and shutdown was about 5 seconds to instant.
Also, after Lion was installed, all the page swipes in Safari and from full screen apps was extremely glitchy and sluggish. Sometimes the screen would get stuck between the apps or an app and desktop. Sometimes the iMac would just plain freeze with the beachball of death. So I thought I had something leftover from SL that was fudging my system. So I booted from the USB install image I made, re-partitioned the HD and reformatted it (I re-partitioned to get rid of the hidden recovery partition and the bootcamp partition). Then I re-installed Lion as a fresh copy. I re-installed all my apps but didn't use bootcamp or any VMs yet.
Now after a clean install, my GUI is no longer glitchy or sluggish. Transitions between fullscreen apps and the desktop is smooth. However, my shutdown and startup issues still remain (and are a little worse). If I tell the computer to shutdown, no matter I click "reopen windows" or uncheck "reopen" windows, it can take 1-2 minutes to shutdown. Also, after being off all night, when I boot my computer, sometimes it will come to the login screen and ask for my password (but I have set it up for automatic login and not to prompt for password on screensaver or wakeup also). I also did not encrypt my drive. So I cannot figure out why it asks me to login. After I give it my password and sign in, the menu bar is not translucent and the airport does not function. Then I must restart Lion and everything is okay again (except it takes 2-3 minutes to reboot again).
I already tried repairing permissions, I downloaded the beta for the latest Onyx last night and cleared out all the caches and told it to verify and rebuild all the scripts. Only about 10 things were repaired in the permissions list. The disk passed verification, and I am not getting any mysterious messages in console. So what is going on with booting and sometimes requiring me to login with a password and booting into a system with messed up menus and non functional airport? I don't want to start my iMac, login, and then restart every time I want to use it.
I have been working with Macs since OS 8 and I have currently have 2 PPC Macs running 10.5.8, and 2 Intel Macs (one is still on 10.6.8 until I solve this Lion problem). I have even played with hackintoshes on my netbooks and in VMware before. I am pretty versed in OS X, but I am at a loss to figure out what is going on with Lion. I don't see any unusual messages in the console or any error messages. When on the phone with Apple care they insist the shutdown issue is not a problem. But the startup concerns me most, since it asks me to login, the I must restart anyways to get it back. It acts like a Windows sytem waking up from hibernation and not loading all the proper drivers.
Sorry for the long post, just wanted to be concise about the issue. Anyone have any suggestions? Any help is much appreciated! Thanks.

The funniest part of the whole situation, Apple Care explained it to me as some kind of feature. The told me how to adjust the time when my computer sleeps and recommend I don't shut it down, let it sleep and "instant wake". I would bet if you called them about your Macbook, they would suggest you just close the lid and let it sleep rather than shutting it down.
Basically shutdown and restart have a problem and the solution is to not shutdown is how they explained it to me. They kept saying buzz words like "instant on" and "fast wakeup". My computer already could sleep and wakeup fast, but now shutdown and restart don't work right. I called them 3 times about it, but since they use these buzzwords, sounds like Lion is meant for a Macbook Air or a Mac with an SSD. If you have a normal hard disk, some of the saving/versions/resume features take too long to be written to the disk on shutdown. And when you start again, it takes a long time to reload the system to it's previous point.
Even if I uncheck the box to reopen windows on next start, it reopens them anyways.
If they can't give me a better explaination or some kind of fix, I will have to go back to Snow Leopard. I use my Mac in a production environment and depend on stability. They assured me before I upgraded that it would be stable and all the new saving and versions features could help my productivity. So far it's not helping me and downright annoying. You need to close all your windows before you close the program... if you have 5 windows open in terminal or textedit... every time you launch, they will launch all those windows. I just really want versions, not resume it seems.
But I can deal with it opening a million windows, just can't take it getting stuck on booting or not shutting down properly. This is a "feature" that should be fixed. LOL

Several Apps seem to just mysteriously shut down after using for a while. Same with Safari, I will be using Safari and it shuts down. Face book too. I've reset and shut down my iPad 3 and restart it, but it stills shuts down. What to do?

Several Apps seem to mysteriously shut down after using them for a while. Face Book shuts down , netflix, Safari, and other Apps. They work fine for a short while, or a long while, and then shut down and it brings me to my regular desktop screen. I've tried restarting by completely shutting down the IPad until I see the apple pic and turned it back on, but the shutdowns of apps continue. Anyone else have this issue? It generally started shortly after downloading and installing IOS 7......

Hi jennyoutwest,
Welcome to the Support Communities!
The following articles will provide some troubleshooting steps for your iPhone.
iPhone, iPad, iPod touch: Turning off and on (restarting) and resetting
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1430
If that does not resolve the issue, refer to page 146 in the iPhone User Guide to Reset All Settings:
iPhone User Guide for iOS 7
manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1565/en_US/iphone_user_guide.pdf
The final troubleshooting step would be to restore your device:
iTunes: Restoring iOS software
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1414
Restoring your device will delete all data and content, including songs, videos, contacts, photos, and calendar information, and will restore all settings to their factory condition. Before restoring:
Verify that you are using the latest version of iTunes.
Back up your device.
Transfer and sync content to your computer.
Cheers,
- Judy

Mysterious unprompted shutdown

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