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General discussion

First time for me- nothing responded

May 1, 2008 5:15AM PDT

OSX10.4.11 Safari 3.1.1

Got ready for morning activity. iMac was on from overnight. Loaded mail and usual web pages. Then nothing would close with mouse. Nothing would force quit. Nothing would move with mouse. Spotlight would not open. Waited for a while. Still no luck. Tried to Shut down. Would not respond. Finally tried pushing off button. No response. So I unplugged it from wall.

I know I did the wrong thing.

No new software added.

Only recent updates are the recommended ones to Safari, iTues, and Security.

What is the right thing?

(Yes, I did a search of this forum. I reckon I didn't ask the right question. Sorry.)

Thanks.

Angeline

Discussion is locked

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No real help ...
May 1, 2008 5:21AM PDT

but interesting to know: what happens if you turn the machine on again.

Everything working OK (that's what you expect in Windows!) or still hanging in some early stage or hanging again after 10 minutes? Try and tell.

Kees

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(NT) All was fine when I turned it back on.
May 1, 2008 7:58AM PDT
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Anyone else think that
May 1, 2008 8:49AM PDT

running Disc Utilities and checking/repairing permissions might be in order?

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(NT) Always worth a try
May 1, 2008 8:50AM PDT
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(NT) Good idea. Thanks!
May 1, 2008 11:44PM PDT
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Rule #1
May 1, 2008 5:44AM PDT

Do NOT power it down by pulling the plug out of the wall.

This applies to ALL computers, no matter what they are running. Shame on you Angeline.

At the rear of your iMac, there is a power button. If all else fails, and the iMac is behaving like a Windows machine, press and hold the power button for a period of LONGER than 5 seconds. The machine will then power off.
This works on almost every other computer as well.

Now power it up again. You will probably find that everything is perfectly alright again.

Let us know what the outcome was.

P

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I saw that!
May 1, 2008 5:46AM PDT
and the iMac is behaving like a Windows machine

Happy

Mark
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Re: plugging off the wall
May 1, 2008 6:35AM PDT

I'm being told that power outages are more or less common in the USA. That's about the same as pulling the plug out of the wall. Any device should be able to handle that more or less gracefully, without any damage at all.

Of course, the 5 seconds push is better. But apparently not everyone knows that.

Kees

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Little UPS power supplies are cheap.
May 1, 2008 7:24AM PDT

They give enough power to finish up a few minutes work and shut down gracefully.

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I reckon I didn't hold that.....
May 1, 2008 8:14AM PDT

..... button on the rear of my machine long enough to turn it off.

It's 2 weeks from my first anniversary. Sad

I honestly thought it was better to disconnect from the wall than from the surge protector. Seems I recall that with my PC it said to always disconnect from the wall, and not by turning off the surge protector when doing I forget what. Sad

Sorry.

Angeline

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Don't worry,
May 1, 2008 8:51AM PDT

Do you leave your iMac running 24/7 or do you shut it down at night?

P

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Both, except
May 1, 2008 11:43PM PDT

... that I shut it down every few days for sure. For the past couple of months it has been shut down quite often because of frequent storms in my area. It was shut down 2 days before the incident. it will be shut down this evening due to predicted storms.

Frankly, I asked the question specifically of 2 different Ale phone techs with the same answer. Shut it down every few days, so I do very 3 if there are no storms. By old habit, I close the programs I opened first, like Text cit. (But not the ones open by default.)

Angeline

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Fine,
May 2, 2008 2:22AM PDT

a reboot now and again give the machine a nice refresh.

As part of the shutdown procedure, the system will close any open applications and will also ask, if necessary, if you want to save.

Not sure I understand the reference to "ones open by default" but it does not matter.

As mentioned earlier, you may want to look into the purchase of a UPS for your iMac. It will also act as a surge suppressor and some will also act as a voltage conditioner.

If you do decide to get one, make sure that it has the capacity to run that iMac, and its peripherals (not a laser printer) for at least 15 minutes.

P

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I'm still saving up for the one....
May 2, 2008 3:02AM PDT

.... that is rather costly (for me),,, 30 minutes. Have not forgotten.

Default.... Finder, Dashboard, Mail, Safari. "Default " was probably not the proper term to have used. Those were just the ones that were "active" when the machine was delivered, for good reason. Happy

Angeline

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Ahh,
May 2, 2008 6:39AM PDT

Finder and Dashboard are the only two that always run and do not have to be launched separately.

Mail and Safari are set to auto-launch, which is a user defined option in the Accounts pane.

Keep saving those pennies

Happy

P

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Glad to hear you're ok, Angeline!
May 2, 2008 11:57PM PDT

-- Dave K.

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(NT) Tornadoes hit NW of here!
May 3, 2008 1:54AM PDT
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gay
May 9, 2008 3:02PM PDT

um this is a direct quote from what you said "if its acting like a windows machine" umm ok right there its like your trying soo hard to make windows look bad and you know what? i used a brand new mac at my piano teacher and i used garage band, which is made by apple and desgined to work on a apple, it froze up!!1 there own software lol

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(NT) Ahh, a sense of humor failure
May 10, 2008 12:34AM PDT
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Holding down power button is the same as pulling the plug!
May 9, 2008 10:15PM PDT

Angeline:

If your computer is frozen and won't even respond to a single press-and-release on the power button, then there is no option but to kill the power somehow. Holding down the power button for 6 seconds will kill the power, exactly the same as unplugging from the wall. So, what you did was not "wrong" (although it's easier to hold down the power button).

Mrmacfixit:

Take note of what I said to Angeline, and I think it was rather harsh of you to say "Shame on you Angeline". Even if you had been right, she didn't know the best course of action and therefore she doesn't need a scolding.

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(NT) And you don't know Angeline!
May 10, 2008 12:31AM PDT
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Not quite.
May 10, 2008 1:10AM PDT

Pulling the plug results in ALL power being removed, instantly, from the entire system. This is one of the reasons that a machine, any machine, sometimes fails to work after a power failure.
This is a LAST resort when ALL else fails. You will not find it recommended as anything else, anywhere.

Holding down the power button leaves the power supply functioning and supplying power to various parts of the system, keeping them warm.

If I may quote from the iMac manual:
Quote
If you are unable to force the application to quit, press and hold the power (

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Sorry to hear of your woes...
May 1, 2008 7:45AM PDT

Out of curiosity, did the mouse cursor still move around or was the whole screen just frozen? Did the cursor turn into the spinning beach ball of doom?

The screen on a mac can sometimes be less than informative of exactly what is going on through in its' little CPU brain. A program that I have found to be handy in having a little indicator of what the CPU and memory is doing at any given time is iStat Menus...

http://islayer.com/index.php?op=item&id=28

It allows you to place little gauges on your menu bar that indicate what processes are going on at any given time. You pick and chose which ones to place up there. I have the little gauges for CPU and RAM usage, along with the processor temp. I also use the very handy drop down calendar/world clock function. It's all free ware.

This does nothing to help your current situation, but it's something you might find handy to have in the future.

grim Happy

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The cursor moved just fine.
May 1, 2008 8:26AM PDT

Up, down, around. Happy No clicks, though.

Nope. No spinning beach balls of doom.

I have saved the link you provided for future reference.

Thank you, Grim!!!!

Angeline

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Happened to me just the other day
May 1, 2008 9:14AM PDT

But that was probably because I was running at least 5 or 6 applications at the same time. I was using app windows to make a background that gives you the impression that you are using different applications, but in reality, the windows are just images... I just saved them as screenshots. Looks great...

Anyway, while I was doing this and organizing windows, I found that I couldn't click or drag anything with my wireless Mighty Mouse nor my trackpad. Thing just froze up on me. The whole system was unresponsive, and this is Leopard that I'm using, not Tiger. An old-fashioned, manual shut down did the trick.

Anyway, I'd think that the iMac that we are all talking about is probably fine. Let us know how that gets on.

-BMF

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USB
May 9, 2008 4:34PM PDT

Hi,

With all the software things that can go wrong, sometimes it's simply a hardware issue. I've had it happen once that the USB just didn't work right, I unplugged the keyboard/mouse and plugged it back in and everything worked fine again.

I was wondering, don't you use the sleep mode? It's the best for energy saving/ time saving. You don't have to quit any of your programs that way. Just sleep and wake.

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I'm not using USB peripherals
May 9, 2008 4:43PM PDT

I do use sleep mode and my MBP is optimized for better battery life. Unless you were referring to the original poster's Mac. Anyway, I do not have multiple USB devices plugged in at any given time unless I need to use my printer or one of my external drives. I have a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse, so I don't have to worry about it. My Mac froze up due to either a small flaw in the programming or because I had recently closed 6 applications at about the same time. Not a huge problem. My Mac is working fine.

-BMF

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The extent of my....
May 9, 2008 10:06PM PDT

....... " power usage" is to have 5-6 pages open at one time. Happy But in my defense, I have been able to accomplish a couple of tasks I was unable to do with a PC.

Sounds like you were able to save your work.

Still considering Leopard.

Angeline

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Technically
May 10, 2008 3:24AM PDT
Happy I was making desktop backgrounds since I had a spare moment of free time, but I did get those screenshots completed. No data was really created or lost, but I was just making the point that those things happen.

Tiger is great, but I think that Leopard helps unleash some of the Intel Macs' power. Last I heard, Leopard was more Intel friendly since the original version of Tiger was scripted for just PPC, and it had to be modified for Universal Binary mode with the Intel transition. Something like that. Still, Time Machine has proven to be a valuable tool for me. It's come in handy quite a few times when I needed to go back and find missing files. That Time Machine commercial was right after all.
-BMF
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Why no mention of NVRAM And PRam
May 10, 2008 7:01AM PDT

Since the original article was for an IMac I am surprised no one mentioned Reset the NVRam and/or PRam. One or both of these can contribute to failed boot up or some other "weird" problems. The is also the PMU or SMU reset procedure that you should know about in case of fail to even start.

More information on all of these various things is listed in the Support pages on the Apple web site. One or more of these actions can often bring a "dead" system back to life. There are several variations, for the different models, of the way these steps are accomplished. Thus the reason to read the Apple web pages.