Mac quitting by itself

[Bunting Ho]

I have been experiencing a problem with my 2 year old G4 400.
For no apparent reason it's occasionally decided to shut down.
The problem seems to not be associated with anything in particular; I'll be editing for days with no problem, then it will shut down every ten minutes without warning. It's as if I've selected "shut down" from the special menu, except that I haven't........it's very embarrasing when the studio is full of clients.
I suspect a power supply problem, but before I take it to an Apple tech, I'm wondering if there is some setting I'm missing which is perhaps activating the "shut down" function on its own.
Anyone ever experience this problem? [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[John H]

hold down ALT, APPLE, P & R when you start up to zap the PRAM.

That's solved a load of issues for me.

Also, set everything in the Energy Saver control panel to never.

[where02190]

Have you rebuilt your desktop recently, zapped the PRAM (As suggested above) defragged your audio drive?
When was the last time you did a clean install of your OS?
I recommend Plus Optimizer for defragging. However, if you can back-up your audio drive to another drive, simply reinitialize the drive usign Apple drive set-up. It is a much better, more complete and faster defrag than any utilities application. (takes only a couple minutes as opposed to a few hours for a heavily fragmented drive.)
I recommend Aloft's Disk Warrior for regular disc maintainence, file directory repair, etc. Run this once a month.
These and many more excellent utilities used to be packaged in a great utilities package called the MAc Care Unit. Unfortunately it is no longer available, however you might check with your fellow mac owners and see if anyone has a copy that you can "borrow". We've been using it for well over a year and it has kept us running smooth.

Hope this is helpful.

[Bunting Ho]

Thanks John and Where for your advice. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
I'll definitely try the PRAM zap, and try and get hold of the utilities you mentioned.
John, when you said the PRAM zap solved issues for you, did you ever get the "shut down" thing that I'm getting?

[dcornutt]

In the energy saver control panel, there is a setting for having your computer shut down and a given interval or time.

You might double check to see if this has not been somehow reset?

It's under the "schedule" tab...theres a check box for shut down instead of sleep.

Under the schedule tab..you can set your computer to "sleep" and wake at given set intervals. If this is set on your computer..and the checkbox for "shutdown instead of sleep" is checked..your computer will shutdown every time that interval is reached.

So, I'd check that first.

The 2nd thing is that there may be some corruption in the energysaver preferences.

Trash energy saver prefs file (sys folder/prefs)
then do as described above..zap pram...etc.

Make sure you go back and reset your energy control panel prefs..to "never" and check the schedule tab to insure that you do not have anything checked there.

Lastly, make sure you have your energy control panel and it's components..loaded. You don't want to disable them thru extensions manager. Setting them to "never" for sleep..and leaving them loaded (so those settings can register) is the best way.

Also, your computer can still be manually put to sleep thru the "special" menu at the top of your screen even if the control panel for energy saver is set to "never".

Hope that helps

[dcornutt]

One last thing,
if your using a powerstrip. Check to see ..when the shutoff problem occurs..if your strip is still working by plugging a lamp into it...or something.

Some powerstrips have a trip breaker in them to click off it it gets a voltage surge or irregularity.

So, it could be a faulty powerstrip as well.

If so..replace powerstrip with a new one. If problem still occurs..you might want to call your power co and see if your getting some spikes in your ac.

If you are..check into a buffer unit to smooth things out.

[where02190]

Once you hae reset your energy saver control panel to neve and rebooted, you can disable it. No further changes can be made then, and your mac will read it under the last saved set-up, which is never.

[Bunting Ho]

Thanks dcornut and where.
I actually have the G4 connected via a USP, so the AC isn't the problem.
I suspected it could have been the USP, so I bypassed that and went straight to the wall socket, but the problem persisted.
I had also checked the sleep function, but I hadn't known about the scheduled shut down. Sadly, that wasn't ticked.......
I've trashed all energy saver prefs., and zapped the PRAM.
It's the weirdest thing.......no trouble since new, then it shut down twice in one day a couple of weeks ago, so the first thing I did was to check the power cords etc. then it was perfect until yesterday, ( I use it all day, Monday to Friday, and only for PTLE) when after being in a session with clients all day, it shut down four times in succession, over the space of about an hour........HIGHLY embassasing.......feel my embarrasment..... [img]images/icons/blush.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/blush.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/blush.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/blush.gif[/img]
I'll run it with its new settings continually now, and hope for the best.
Thanks again for your help. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Bunting Ho]

Bummer!
I left it running for a few hours and went out. When I came back it had turned itself off again..........!@#$%^&*(!!!!!!!!!
I can't think of anything else, except perhaps to defrag, which I do every couple of months anyway. Somehow I don't think this will help however. It must be a power supply problem, so I guess it's got to go to the Apple tech after all.......unless anyone has a brainwave????
Boo hoo [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

[DigiTechSupt]

Originally posted by Bunting Ho:
It must be a power supply problem, so I guess it's got to go to the Apple tech after all.......unless anyone has a brainwave????(

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The only other thing I could think of is a possible problem with USB. If you are using a Hub (which gets its power from the USB Bus) and you have that maxed out with devices, disconnect them and see how things go. If the computer still shuts down, then the Power Supply is probably the issue.

Brent