2011 Macbook Pro switched itself off. Possible virus?

[captain kaos]

HI,

My wife's 2011 (with thunderbolt) 15" macbook pro did a strange thing last night. I installed a programme called Switched (free version) to convert .amr nokia recording files to mp3. After running it and converting i put the mac to sleep. 30 minutes later when it was opened up again it looked like it was off. No blue light at the front, wouldn't react to the power button. We plugged in the power, (even though it had been charged, and had only just been taken off the charger) and it booted up. Once logged in it had lost the wallpaper (gone back to default) reset its clock and wifi settings. This morning when going to websites that have all ways been used, both firefox and safari claimed the certificates were all out of date (security issues).

Is this a virus? In all my years with macs ive never had an issue with one. Is it coincidence? Im about to find purchased music and back up to disk with newly imported photos so i can go back to a time machine back up before i installed this programme.

Anyone else had similar problems?

 

[Intell]

It isn't a virus, nor is it caused by the programme you installed. My guess is the internal battery drained (somehow) or the Macbook's SMC had some problems. I suggest resetting its SMC (Google it) and using it without any more concern.

 

[captain kaos]

It isn't a virus, nor is it caused by the programme you installed. My guess is the internal battery drained (somehow) or the Macbook's SMC had some problems. I suggest resetting its SMC (Google it) and using it without any more concern.

Thanks for the reply. As a matter of interest, what could've caused the battery to discharge rapidly. We thought about it last night and it couldn't have been off the power charger for more than an hour.

EDIT: Just had a look at an apple support page in google, I don't think we've had any of the issues they mention about the SMC (ie, we haven't had high fan speeds, unresponsive mac, unresponsive power button).

 

[Intell]

It may not have died. The SMC controls the power functions of the Macbook. It could have crashed or stopped working properly and told the Macbook its battery was dead. Another thing could be that the battery maybe defective. I don't think the battery is defective and the chance of it being so is very small. If it happens again, you may want to make an appointment at the Genius Bar to have it looked at.

 

[moonwalk]

Doubt it's a virus. Your machine could have overheated and automatically shut down, since you say you were encoding. This has happened to me 2 or 3 times while running Handbrake. Do you have iStat or something installed to measure your temperatures? Did you check your crash records in Console?

 

[Intell]

Doubt it's a virus. Your machine could have overheated and automatically shut down, since you say you were encoding. This has happened to me 2 or 3 times while running Handbrake. Do you have iStat or something installed to measure your temperatures? Did you check your crash records in Console?

A shutdown caused by overheating doesn't reset the clock or other settings.

 

[captain kaos]

hhhm, good info all round. I'll keep an eye on to see if it does it again. I was worried re the virus as the web pages with both browsers were acting strange about their certificate, but i guess if its lost cached info on those pages due to it freaking out then that might answer it.

 

[moonwalk]

A shutdown caused by overheating doesn't reset the clock or other settings.

The shutdown and the reset may or may not be connected. I'm trying to remember how my machine shut down. I was encoding in Handbrake, the encode had just finished, and I put it to sleep right away in clamshell and it shut down.

Funny thing was, iStat said it'd been running only at about 100º. Automatic shutdown isn't supposed to happen until about 130º, I've read. Could residual heat going into sleep mode, with the fans shut down, cause this? Dunno. I've also had random setting resets ; )

 

[DewGuy1999]

The shutdown and the reset may or may not be connected. I'm trying to remember how my machine shut down. I was encoding in Handbrake, the encode had just finished, and I put it to sleep right away in clamshell and it shut down.

Funny thing was, iStat said it'd been running only at about 100º. Automatic shutdown isn't supposed to happen until about 130º, I've read. Could residual heat going into sleep mode, with the fans shut down, cause this? Dunno. I've also had random setting resets ; )

Might it have come out of sleep while in clamshell mode and ran the battery down?

 

[Intell]

Might it have come out of sleep while in clamshell mode and ran the battery down?

That is a possibility.

 

[Pentad]

Two MBPs ago, I had one where in sleep mode it would just turn 'off'. One of the cells in the battery was bad and would cause the MBP to just 'turn off'.

Apple sent me a new battery and that solved the problem. Of course, this was the 1st Gen MBP where you could swap out the battery.

To for this (this is what Apple had me do back then but I think it should still work):

Unplug to power cord
Use the MBP until it forces itself into sleep/hibernate mode.

At around 20% or so the MBP would just turn off. As I said, Apple swapped the battery and it was fine after that.

Good Luck!
-P

 

[captain kaos]

Fixed

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. It looks like repairing the ALC's via the disk utility (from the installer disc) has fixed the problem.

 

[GGJstudios]

Is this a virus?

For future reference, you should know that no viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any, since it was released 10 years ago. The handful of trojans that exist can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install:

Mac Virus/Malware Info​