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Mac Pro restarts instead of shutting down

S

seadragon

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 10, 2009
1,872
3,151
Hi everyone,

For the last few months, my MP has had a strange quirk. When I select Shutdown, the computer restarts instead. Then, at the login screen, I select shutdown and it will then turn off.

I've tried disconnecting all USB and Firewire connections (except keyboard and mouse) with the same results.

It does seem to be time related. For example, if I startup the computer, get to the desktop and then shutdown, it turns off no problem. However, after its been running for a bit it will do the restart thing instead.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this?

Thanks!
 
hi.

I have a similar problem.

When i want to shutdown or restart my MP, it usualy stop's and crash.
It only shuts down, if i shutdown all the programs manualy or in the force shutdown menu.

Wich is very anoying, cause if i had used several programs, i always have to shut then down manualy one by one.

Does anybody know something about this?

Thks for your help.
 
I had the problem once, but with sleeping rather than shutting it down.
After putting it to sleep, it woke up immediately.

SMC reset did the job.
 
So i gues that no one have a guess about this problem :(

It's trully anoying, but i guess i'll have to live with it. :(
 
I've done the SMC reset a few times. It doesn't make a difference unfortunately.
 
Just curious..

System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Options -> Restart Automatically *

Are either of those boxes checked?
 
Alternate troubleshooting step:

Log in as another user (create one if need be), and see if Shutdown works normally there.

Yes: Then the issue is relegated to your primary user account. Less serious, but a little more difficult to find.

No: There there's some strangeness across the system, which is a little more serious.
 
Just a quick update on this...

I just did a complete reformat and fresh install of Snow Leopard. Even after this, the machine is still doing the same thing.
 
I've had that problem in the past, and mine went away for repair.

In my case, there was something dodgy about the HD (can't exactly remember what, as it was some time ago) but suffice it to say it was serious enough to warrant a replacement. Try booting off a different drive (or external) And see if the problem remains.
 
Mine does this rarely, but as it spends most of it's time asleep (In-fact I think over the last year uptime is 99%!)

Three different Mac Pro 2009s have done it so it's obviously a hardware quirk and one that isn't ever going to be fixed based on the Audio bug debacle!
 
Forgive me if this is dense but would zapping your pRam help? Or is that strictly an OS X thing and not a hardware thing like resetting the SMC?

Have you tried a different outlet? For some reason this seems to be not a hard drive issue, nor an internal component issue. It seems electrical. Like your outlet is messed up and surging or your power supply sux.
 
Thanks for your replies guys.

I did all the usual troubleshooting steps, including zapping the PRAM and resetting the power management software. I tried a different UPS also.

Interesting to hear about the hard drive possibility. I may try installing a system on my other drive as a test.

The machine will restart if I select either sleep or shutdown, but only after its been running for a while it seems. If I turn it on for just a couple of hours, it sleeps/shuts down fine. So, its appears to be time related where "something" kicks in after a certain amount of time. Its a very strange problem.
 
This has been happening to me for awhile now too, and I can't figure out a solution. This threads been quiet a few months now, has anyone figured this out yet?

I usually need to do 2 shut downs in order for my Mac Pro to shut down for good. Very frustrating.
 
Mine still does it and I can't figure it out. I've done 2 fresh installs of the OS and it made no difference. Disconnected all USB devices too and still no difference. I think it's a software issue because sometimes it sleeps and shuts down fine. Other times (most times), it will restart first, then on a second request, it will go to sleep or shutdown.
 
If you haven't already, make sure nothing is plugged in to any USB ports except keyboard or mouse. I had this problem and it turned out to be a USB external hdd.

Worth a try
 
donw35 said:
If you haven't already, make sure nothing is plugged in to any USB ports except keyboard or mouse. I had this problem and it turned out to be a USB external hdd.

Worth a try
Click to expand...

I've tried a fresh installation of Snow Leopard and only keyboard and mouse connected and it still does it.
 
Same problem with my Mac Pro 2010. It seems to do this sometimes, but mostly it does shut down properly. Can't find anything about what's happening in the console.
Only Apple hardware inside and only Apple extensions are loaded.
 
Try booting off another HD, I sent my third party boot HD (WD velociraptor) back to the vendor and they sent me a new one. I've never had that problem since :)
 
Thanks for the help guys! I have all Apple RAM from the factory on my machine.

Last night it happened again. I selected sleep from the Apple menu and sure enough, instead of sleeping, it woke up right away. I then selected Sleep again and it went to sleep. A similar thing same thing happens if I were to select Shutdown. It will spin the drives down and then restart instead of shutting down. It will then shutdown properly on a second request.

Here is the console log from last night that shows my attempt to sleep it, then it wakes instantly and then I am able to sleep it finally on a second request. Notice that the wake reason is blank. A "normal" wake event looks like this...

10/5/10 6:59:25 PM kernel Wake reason = EHC1

Log from last night:
10/4/10 9:06:18 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateWillChangeTo: flags=4 stateNumber=2
10/4/10 9:06:18 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:266 powerStateWillChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMSleepCapability (4)
10/4/10 9:06:19 PM kernel en1 Link down
10/4/10 9:06:19 PM kernel enet_event_func - vendor 1, class 1, subclass 2, event code 12
10/4/10 9:06:19 PM kernel en0 Link down
10/4/10 9:06:19 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateDidChangeTo: flags=4 stateNumber=2
10/4/10 9:06:19 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:266 powerStateDidChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMSleepCapability (4)
10/4/10 9:06:19 PM kernel System Sleep
10/4/10 9:06:21 PM kernel Wake reason =
10/4/10 9:06:21 PM kernel System Wake
10/4/10 9:06:21 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateWillChangeTo: flags=82 stateNumber=4
10/4/10 9:06:21 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:262 powerStateWillChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMPowerOn (2)
10/4/10 9:06:21 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:267 powerStateWillChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMRestartCapability (80)
10/4/10 9:06:21 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateDidChangeTo: flags=82 stateNumber=4
10/4/10 9:06:21 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:262 powerStateDidChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMPowerOn (2)
10/4/10 9:06:21 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:267 powerStateDidChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMRestartCapability (80)
10/4/10 9:06:21 PM kernel Previous Sleep Cause: 5
10/4/10 9:06:24 PM kernel Ethernet [Intel82574L]: Link up on en0, 1-Gigabit, Full-duplex, Symmetric flow-control, Debug [796d,af08,0de1,0200,c5e1,3800]
10/4/10 9:06:24 PM kernel enet_event_func - vendor 1, class 1, subclass 2, event code 13
10/4/10 9:06:25 PM configd[13] network configuration changed.
10/4/10 9:06:26 PM kernel en1 Link down
10/4/10 9:06:26 PM configd[13] network configuration changed.
10/4/10 9:07:41 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateWillChangeTo: flags=4 stateNumber=2
10/4/10 9:07:41 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:266 powerStateWillChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMSleepCapability (4)
10/4/10 9:07:41 PM kernel enet_event_func - vendor 1, class 1, subclass 2, event code 12
10/4/10 9:07:41 PM kernel en1 Link down
10/4/10 9:07:41 PM kernel en0 Link down
10/4/10 9:07:42 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateDidChangeTo: flags=4 stateNumber=2
10/4/10 9:07:42 PM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:266 powerStateDidChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMSleepCapability (4)
10/4/10 9:07:42 PM kernel System Sleep
 
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