Mac Pro Wants to Shut Down All The Time

[askipper]

For some reason, my Mac Pro wants to shut down all the time. Every 10 mins or so the message, "Do you want to shut down etc. etc." comes up with the usual options of Restart/Sleep//ShutDown or Cancel. I click on cancel and it goes away for 10 mins, sometimes less, sometimes more.

No idea what's causing this at all. I normally keep it turned on all the time but I went away for the weekend so I shut everything down in the office - I know it got pretty cold in there (maybe even freezing) so I'm worried I've done some damage due to the cold?

Nothing has been installed but I have no idea where to check or what to do now. It's my main computer - I use it for work all the time and would be at a loss if I needed to send it away so I'm hoping someone will have heard of this and have a solution

I;ve searched around a lot and all I can see is people having trouble to get their macbook's to shut down - this is the other way around!

Oh, Mac Pro, 4 quad intel, 4gb ram I think and 750gb hard drive. The power is connected to a UPS but that doesn't seem at fault.

Update:
It seems to be only doing it when I'm away for a while - maybe when it's trying to sleep or shut down the hard drive? I did have it set to Never for going to sleep and I have changed that last night so it's not the Sleep side of things. I will try unticking the Put the hard disk to sleep now and see if that makes a difference. I also see the option "Allow power button to sleep the computer" so if the previous attempt doesn't work I'll try that - I suppose that will identify whether it's the power button or not

Please help

Thanks

 

[askipper]

Just in case anyone finds this with same problem later on the problem was the Cinema Display Power Button as when I configured the power button to NOT do anything the problem stopped. When it was configured to put the system to sleep it kept coming on when the system tried to sleep itself or whenever it felt like it.

So, another visit back to the Apple shop along with my imac that has developed a 1 pixel high horizontal line at the bottom of the display for no reason! Now I have to take a 30" ACD too :-(

 

[ds88]

Mac Pro Wants to Shut Down All The Time

I was having a similar problem with my MacPro3,1 2x2.8GHz Quad core Intel Xeon with 30" Cinema HD Display.

It would randomly pop up the "shutdown message" to the front of the screen. Other times, it would randomly dim the screen to the minimum brightness. If I tried to override it by holding the "increase brightness" key, then it would dim back down as soon as I let go of the brightness increase button.

We tried what Apple Support suggested (including resetting PRAM and unplugging all cords and waiting 1 minute). That did not work.

The last thing I tried was unplugging the keyboard wire from the back of the MacPro and instead plugging it into one of the USB slots in back of the Cinema Display. As soon as I did that, the problems stopped.

 

[FastMan]

Just wanted to post a thanks to the posters here.

I had the same problem. "Are you sure you want to shut down" window would repetitively pop up, similar to the guys above, and would dominate the screen until I hit cancel. Could hit cancel, and the message would just keep repeatedly popping up as fast as I could hit cancel. It was something buggy in my 30 " cinema display power button. I went into system preferences > displays > options > and changed the power button function to "do nothing". Problem fixed.

Hope others with the same issue find this thread.

 

[billd]

Just wanted to post a thanks to the posters here.

I had the same problem. "Are you sure you want to shut down" window would repetitively pop up, similar to the guys above, and would dominate the screen until I hit cancel. Could hit cancel, and the message would just keep repeatedly popping up as fast as I could hit cancel. It was something buggy in my 30 " cinema display power button. I went into system preferences > displays > options > and changed the power button function to "do nothing". Problem fixed.

Hope others with the same issue find this thread.

[doublepost=1464129328][/doublepost]Same problem, shut down dialog that kept coming back each time I clicked cancel.

Previously running 'repair disk permissions' with Disk Utility repeatedly seemed to cure it temporarily. Then problem would return after a sleep.

Changing the system prefs dialog to 'do nothing' for the 30" cinema display cured the problem.

 

[ahmeier]

Just wanted to post a thanks to the posters here.

I had the same problem. "Are you sure you want to shut down" window would repetitively pop up, similar to the guys above, and would dominate the screen until I hit cancel. Could hit cancel, and the message would just keep repeatedly popping up as fast as I could hit cancel. It was something buggy in my 30 " cinema display power button. I went into system preferences > displays > options > and changed the power button function to "do nothing". Problem fixed.

Hope others with the same issue find this thread.

this worked for me, too.

Mac Pro 1 1 30'' Cinema display El Capitan 10.11.6 pikified

 

[jhathcock]

this worked for me, too.

Mac Pro 1 1 30'' Cinema display El Capitan 10.11.6 pikified

I'm on a late 2013 MacBook Pro and have been having this same issue on and off for a long time. As well, I am typically plugged into a 30" Cinema Display, at least when at the studio, AND that's where the problem always occurs. Sometimes shutting down via the laptop keyboard power button would clear it up, but it would often take several attempts. Other times, I would just move the error "shut down" window off to the side (laptop screen) and ignore it for a half hour or more and then click "cancel" and it would finally go away. This morning however, neither of those were working and the error was also keeping me from using my keyboard at times. I tried to do the above mentioned fix, but it seems that in High Sierra OS, there is no longer an option to do what the above posters talk about. I did fiddle with the power button on the Cinema Display (as in, hitting it a whole buncha times with my finger) to see if it was stuck. It wasn't doing anything, BUT then I pressed the "cancel" option on the error message while pressing the Cinema Display power button and THAT made the error go away. And it's stayed away now for the last 15-20 minutes or so while I signed on as a user and typed this response up. Hopefully that will do it for the day, though I suspect it will do it again tomorrow, but I don't mind as long as I have a reasonable method for getting rid of it each time. I'll eventually get a new system (and presumably be rid of the problem for good) but I do love this old 30" display.

 

[galletti1]

HI. I know this is an old thread and appreciate your putting up with me bringing it back from the dead but I have a similar issue with which I need help. I have the same symptoms of the shut down window coming up but in my case this is a MacPro 3,1. The thing is I don't really have time to hit cancel on mine and even the few time I do, it still shuts down. I've tried moving RAM around, different USB Keyboard connections, two different PSU and GPU's all with the same results. I happen to have a spare motherboard lying around but don't want to go to the trouble of replacing it just yet. I wast hoping someone would jump on here with any ideas. I saw another thread with similar issues and changing the front panel didn't solve it. Thanks!

 

[galletti1]

Never mind... turned out it was a bad motherboard after all.?