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iMac suddenly shuts down

J

joe5

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 29, 2009
14
0
I received my new iMac on May 20. It is a 3.06 with an ATI card. I have not had much time to use it until this evening. I had been been setting up some bookmarks in Safari and then was working on a spreadsheet for about an hour when it suddenly shut down. The power strip in which it was plugged in still had it's light on. The iMac is the only item plugged into the strip. I then felt around the screen, the bottom section was cool but the top was rather warm.
The temperature in the air conditioned house is 71°F.
Programs open at the time were
Safari - which was on an idle screen as I had logged out of a site.
Two sessions of Finder
Entourage
Excel - which I was actively using.
Is this an over temp shutdown?
I recall some people posting the temperature of their Macs. Are there any monitors on the iMac to see how hot it is running? There were no warnings that it was going to shut down.
 
very weird.. has this happen again?

Was any software being updated?

That temperature is rather cool.. all imacs get pretty warm specially on the upper left side (looking at it from the front).
 
Power strips are junk.

Don't use power strips.

If you require surge protection then do yourself a favor and invest the $50-$60 that a decent UPS will cost.

A good UPS will not only provide regulated power to your Mac, but will also protect your work from power interruptions.
 
back to the temp issue yes sudden shutdown with no visable app crash or anything is a symptom for overheating

to check this download istat widget (free)

it will give you temps for cpu gpu and hd

if you overheat often the check for dust in your vents along bottom of screen and the back of the imac near the power plug
 
heat may be an issue, you have to collect evidence by using the istat widget. run all those programs again and check temps. If it goes over 80-85c on your processor you are having heat issues. However I got shutdowns mostly from bad power flow. If you have something in your house that kicks in periodically that causes split second brownouts or small power drains your iMac's power supply will not like that and will shut down out of the blue.
 
joe5 said:
I had been been setting up some bookmarks in Safari and then was working on a spreadsheet for about an hour when it suddenly shut down. The power strip in which it was plugged in still had it's light on.
Click to expand...

If you are only using a power strip and not a UPS, is it possible there was a brief power surge/outage that caused you iMac to suddenly shut down?
 
Not to pile on, but why are you using a simple power strip for a $2200+ piece of equipment? :confused:

I have UPS' for all my TV's and computer hardware.
 
I installed iStat today and the highest single temp I saw was 57 on the GPU. I don't think I really taxed the machine today. One thing I did notice last night was that there was probably not ideal air flow around the top of the iMac. I pulled it forward to give it more air flow and also turned on the ceiling fan. I have it in a temporary location as I move files off of an old PC. It will have better power protection where it will ultimately sit.
Thanks all,
Joe
 
if it happens repeatedly it might be the power supply. my imac G5 had that problem - a sudden, random shutdown that soon happened all the time. it seemed to be a pretty common issue with that imac, though i guess not enough to be repaired for free...
 
Ambrose Chapel said:
if it happens repeatedly it might be the power supply. my imac G5 had that problem - a sudden, random shutdown that soon happened all the time. it seemed to be a pretty common issue with that imac, though i guess not enough to be repaired for free...
Click to expand...

oh yeah i forgot i had the exact same problem with my old g5 imac too.....and yes like you said it was a known problem with that one....in my case though they did replace it for free....i didnt think they would but they did and it was very fast and efficient....its that experience that makes me think hmmm i really should get applecare before the 12 months runs down :eek:
 
That was nice of Apple! I wonder how widespread the issue actually was...seemed to happen very soon after the 1-year warantee was up for most people.

Anyway any news from the OP?
 
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