eMac won't shut down.

[dogbone]

It switches on to the screen saver but the fan stays on. It is set to shut down after 15 minutes. I've tried resetting to the defaults.

Don't know why this is happening. I've done all the cache cleaning and maintainance stuff.

Any suggestions appreciated.

 

[crazycat]

Try switching the computer off and on once then it might work.

 

[dogbone]

it has to get switched off every night at the moment

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

"maintenance stuff"

What have you done?

 

[flyfish29]

eMac won't shut down.

I often have this problem but it is with my children at night!

 

[dogbone]

"maintenance stuff"

What have you done?

I've run all the maintainance scripts in System Optimiser X plus periodic daily weekly monthly scripts in terminal, (which are probably the same thing), cleaned *all* the caches, repaired permissions.

I've got two eMac's and it is only one of them that has started deciding to not shut down. It's running 10.4.5 at the moment.

 

[dogbone]

Any ideas?

I've got two emacs, a 1.42 and a 1.25 both running 10.4.6 I've got all the screen saver settings and energy saver setting and any other setting that I think are relevant, set the same. I've tried resetting to default.

The 1.25 emac still refuses to go to sleep. This is very annoying because the fan stays on.

So to recap I've done just about everything I can think of regarding cleaning caches and other maintainance stuff.

I have no idea where the sleep behaviour is controlled. Could it be some sort of corrupt system cache.

Will I ever get it to sleep again? Does anyone have any other suggestions?

 

[mad jew]

Try shutting it down, leaving it for a minute or so and then hold down the power button for a few seconds.

If that gets nowhere, then follow this guide to replacing the internal battery. Don't actually replace the battery, but rather reset the PMU. It's in step 6.

 

[dogbone]

Holding down the restart button didn't work. So I'm on to the reset switch part but I've run into a problem in that I cannot locate the reset switch. Where the reset switch is supposed to be there is a cover that says t1A 44, and that does not look like a reset button.

There doesn't appear to be any button in the general vicinity of where it is supposed to be according to the apple diagram. The green bit on the bottom right is the battery, oriented the same way as the diagram

btw what does holding down the power button do (apart from making the power light flash a few times) and what does the reset button do?

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the display will sleep OK (but not the computer).

 

[mad jew]

Hmm... Sorry but that picture has me a little lost. Would it be possible to have one from a bit further back maybe? It might help a little.

Resetting the PMU reverts some of the basic power firmware settings (slight misnomer but it's easier to understand) back to their defaults. Some of these firmware settings are related to the Energy Saver component of the eMac, including some basic shutting down files.

From what I've gathered, resetting the eMac by holding down the power button has a similar albeit less encompassing effect.

By the way, in most cases Apple recommends trying a PRAM reset before a PMU reset. I don't think it'll help in this case but it might be worth a try.

Also, just to be clear, it's not shutting down or sleeping, right?

 

[dogbone]

Thanks for persevering with this.

Yes it is not shutting down. If I set the display and the computer to sleep, only the display will sleep. The computer and the fan remain on...all night.

Here's a wider shot. It is aligned the same way as the apple diagram. The beige blob at the top is the clip that holds the ram module in place.

It sounds like the reset button might work. I wish I could locate it.

 

[mad jew]

Well, I found this picture on the Apple Discussions board looking for a better explanation. It appears that either this image is upside down or the PMU button was moved during one of the updates to the eMac range. Does this help?

Note: this is not my image. Thanks go to Thomas Bryant from the Apple Discussions Board for it.

 

[HughJ]

My eMac did exactly the same thing, after a while i was not able to drag files onto icons in the dock, or when i clicked on a .tiff for instance it would open up photoshop but no window (containing the pic) would open, i tried everything i could think of, ultimatly i re-installed the OS now works fine

 

[dogbone]

Hugh, I know it's too late now but that happened to me last week, here's the solution. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/190150/

mad jew thanks for that yes it appears that the reset switch diagram is for the old nvidia cards. So I reset the switch, it's a micro switch and I pressed it about three times, then I found out that pressing it too much can blow up the logic board, fortunately three presses seems safe.

That didn't solve the problem. I've tried restarting in safe boot mode. This did solve the problem.

It works OK in safe boot.

It didn't work when I restarted into normal mode.

It didn't work in my spare troubleshooting virgin account after the safe reboot.

Because it worked in Safe Boot mode does that mean that there is no point in resetting the VRAM

EDIT: here's a better shot of the reset switch for ati cards.

 

[mad jew]

Hmm... Well if Safe Mode works then maybe try running fsck to clean up your file system.

Sorry for misleading you with where the PMU reset button was. I haven't opened up either type of eMac for quite some time.

 

[dogbone]

Not your fault about the dodgy diagram there is no indication on apple's website that it was card specific. I only posted the new picture for others who might come across this thread at some future date.

Anyhoo... fsck didn't help either. But now I know it's ok in Safe Boot mode I feel like we are closing in on the problem.

I was reading that safe boot also disables some system software that makes the mac start quicker. Could their be a problem with that?

 

[virus1]

macs have a built in failsafe for this. reach your hand back behind the comp, find the power cord and pull. never fails. (to work with apples portable line, you also must remove the battery)

 

[mad jew]

Okay, what log in items do you have? You can check these in the Accounts pane of System Preferences. Could there be something like a filesharing app or a system hack that's keeping the eMac up?

Also, I wonder if the problems carry over to a new account. Make one in System Preferences and see how things go. The fact that Safe Mode works means it's almost certainly a software issue.

 

[amateurmacfreak]

Just unplug it.

Sry for the irrelevent comment. I just felt like saying it. Strongly.

 

[amateurmacfreak]

macs have a built in failsafe for this. reach your hand back behind the comp, find the power cord and pull. never fails. (to work with apples portable line, you also must remove the battery)

Crud! Someone had beat me to it. And was funnier.

 

[dogbone]

Problem Solved

Thanks for hanging in there mad jew.

After prparing side by side activity monitor comparisons which showed nothing suspicious, (not to mention six hours and 3 cups of very strong Byron Bay organic coffee) the problem was finally found to be that the computer was under the erroneous impression that there was a usb printer connected and that it was in the process of printing a job. There has been no printer connected for a few months. Even an update from 10.4.5 to 4.6 didn't convince the Mac that there was no job printing. Even after numerous restarts it still thought that it was able to be printing a ficticious job.

I hope this information in this thread is of some use to someone in the future.

EDIT: amateurmacfreak, I can assure you that it was not funny at all because the problem was sleeping not shutting down . *this* is funny

 

[mad jew]

I'm really glad it worked out but kinda surprised the PRAM reset didn't get rid of the printing job. Also, I'm insanely jealous because Byron Bay coffee is amazing.