Mac reports shutdown problem even with normal shutdown

inscrewtable said:

There's been the occasional complete computer freeze over the past few months. However the past couple of weeks even when I shut down the computer normally I still get the 'computer had problems' warning as if I did a forced shutdown.

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Good morning Inscrewtable,

I'm not too sure about what logs to look for on Console. However I was hoping you'd be happy to run a few brief diagnostics on your computer. This will at least allow us to ascertain if there is an obvious hardware or software issue causing the problems you're encountering.

Please could you try the below troubleshooting steps in the order they are listed, and stop if any of them indicate a problem?

1) Check hard-drive for corruptions. You can quickly verify this by checking the SMART Data using SMART Utility: http://cloudfront.volitans-software.com/smartutility314.zip

2) Check volume for corruptions. You can do this by opening Disk Utility and single-clicking your volume. Then click 'Verify Disk'. If there is any red writing listed, the volume will need to be repaired through the recovery partition.

3) Restart the computer with the option 'Reopen windows when logging back in' disabled. If there's a background software conflict causing a problem, this should prevent it from coming back up on startup.

4) Check the OS is fully up-to-date (typically through Apple Menu>Software Update/App Store, depending on which OS you're currently on).

5) Run Apple Hardware Test. To do this, hold the 'D' key as soon as you press the power button to turn it on. When that's loaded, please tick the 'extended' test option. The test will typically take between 20-40 minutes, depending on the speed of your machine. Are there any errors detected here?

6) Please can you take a photograph of the screen errors you're getting? If you're getting coloured blocks/pixellations and the system freezes at the same time, this is normally synonymous with a Logic Board failure.

Look forward to speaking with you soon.

inscrewtable said:

There's been the occasional complete computer freeze over the past few months. However the past couple of weeks even when I shut down the computer normally I still get the 'computer had problems' warning as if I did a forced shutdown.

Today, it simply shut down completely three times by itself, for no reason, ie, it's running low temperatures, 35º GPU, and 43º Memory Modules.

Last time I did a system report it check out OK apart from a hd issue 400000 or something, apparently this is nothing to worry about. I took it into Apple anyway a few weeks ago due to strange graphics isssues appearing on screen, they ran a full check and found no problems, but I told them to put all this on the record as the warranty is expired soon and I wanted to get these issue on the books.

What I'd like to do before I take it back to Apple again, is have a look at the console logs myself, but I don't know how to find the log for the latest crash. There's so many apps logged. Is there some place in the Console where I could look for a complete forced shutdown. ?

thanks

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In the console application, on the left panel click on All Messages. In the searchbar try entering either "forced" or "shutdown" (without the quotes) and see what is displayed.

Had a similar problem on MacBook Pro - seems to be when I pick it up - left side, bottom of case flexes a little - scrambles the screen and freezes or shutdown - the Apple genius says "yep its a problem - $280 to fix it " ??

anyone else seen this problem ?