Macbook problem! Help! Shuts down with menu!

Hello, I have a macbook running on MAC OS X and if i leave my computer for around 2-3 minutes without touching it in some way it decides to give me the menu of shutdown, reset, sleep and close. If i leave that up for around 20 seconds it will just shut down automatically. I swear i've been through all of the settings but i cannot find anything that i have left to let it do this. I could just be being incredibly stupid and there could be something very simple but any help would be greatly appreciated. If someone could please get back to me i would love you forever. PS. I'm 17 and a mac virgin so i haven't got a clue what to do.

Thanks guys, Tom

Also if you wish to get into contact with me through a better means my email is Tomcox27@aol.com

wrldwzrd89 said:

This menu normally appears if your Mac thinks it is running on battery power AND has insufficient juice left to run for more than 3 minutes. My advice to you would be:

• Check your battery
• Check your AC adapter is plugged in properly, if using one
• Check that you're using the right kind of adapter for your Mac: A newer Mac that requires a MagSafe 2 power adapter will not get any benefit from an older MagSafe 1, for example.

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I have two batteries and it has done the same twice, have used two different power adapters also. I don't believe its a hardware thing, i think its software.. i was just wondering if there are any special settings i can get into etc? + im running directly of my ac adapter

wrldwzrd89 said:

Normally, this kind of issue isn't caused by software - that's why I doubt that it's software-related. In any case, since your AC adapter is connected, what does your Mac report as far as battery % / charging status? This information is found by clicking on the battery icon in the menu bar. If it says "Not Charging" or mentions nothing about charging, then the power adapter you are using is not the one your Mac needs.

There is one other thing you ought to check though: It's entirely possible that your Mac's power management settings are wonky. To change these, open up System Preferences and look for the light bulb icon.

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Hi, battery is charging and is 1.07 hours until full.. i have all of my energy settings on never.. any other possibilities? i have a spare hdd, may swap them over, im also downloading mountain lion just to see if that makes any difference

wrldwzrd89 said:

Yes, there is one other thing you ought to do that may clear this up along with other issues you may be having: Zap the NVRAM. This is done by holding down +Option+P+R at boot time. Let the Mac restart 2-3 times before releasing the keys.

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i dont see an icon?

wrldwzrd89 said:

I'm referring to the key often called Command on your keyboard. In the old days this had an symbol on it.

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i rebooted three times without letting go.. hasn't made a difference.. any other tips?

wrldwzrd89 said:

So, we've eliminated as possible causes:

• Wrong power adapter
• Power manager
• NVRAM

That leaves one likely possibility: A software program on your Mac is going haywire and trying to shut your Mac down every 3 minutes, as you reported. Finding the culprit is not going to be easy, but Activity Monitor and Console, both in the Utilities folder, can help you. Activity Monitor is the Mac equivalent of Windows' Task Manager (for seeing what's running), while Console is the Mac equivalent of the Event Viewer tool in Windows (for looking at the system logs).

Some tips when using Console:

• Make judicious use of the search feature!
• Searching for BOOT may help - this will find shutdown events. Turn the search filter off and look at events before the BOOT event.
• If you installed something recently when this happened, try searching for its name.

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Okay, i've looked in my console and activity monitor, what should i be doing with the information?

wrldwzrd89 said:

Identifying possible candidate programs causing this behavior. Focus on your own programs first: These are easily identified in Activity Monitor by setting the filter to "My Processes" (which is the default).

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right, my activity log doesn't pick up anything and i cant locate anything on my console that could cause harm.. any more advice?

wrldwzrd89 said:

At this point, I'm just about out of ideas. I have one more thing to check: Your startup items in System Preferences. This is found under User Accounts (it has gone by various names in the past - that's what Mountain Lion calls it). Click Login Options once there. To remove unwanted startup items, click one to select it and hit the Delete key.

EDIT: Note that you'll need to reboot once for changes made here to take effect.

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Thanks for your help man, the only thing in my start up items is itunes helper.. ill just keep hoping it'll somehow sort its self out sometime..