Help! iMac logs me out as soon as I log in!

[bluefrostii]

Today after I logged onto my imac, as soon as my wallpaper appeared, my imac logged me out and i was back at the "log in" screen. I tried several times, with the same thing happening. It would log in for 0.2 seconds and log me out.

I have tried doing the:
-command, option, p, r (no luck)
-booting from sl disk (original that came with imac) no luck, i am able to select -to boot from disk, but as soon as I do my imac freezes and beeps 3 times on repeat.
-powered of and pressed command c three times, nothing changed.
-did a hardware check and error message displayed is: 4MOT/4/40000003:HDD-1290.

My imac was working fine yesterday, intrestingly enough a smiliar thing happened at my work on my work imac (i think im jinxed).. so i proceeded to take my imac into work and now the next day i am having issues with it.

Could it be a virus? Help please (

 

[mushroomtip]

You should post your model and specs so that you can get the proper help .

 

[flynz4]

Do you have a second user account that you can try? If you can log in... that would indicate it is something specific to your user account.

Hopefully it does not come to this... but I hope you have a full backup so that you can restore.

I'd call Apple.

/Jim

 

[sf23103]

I had the same problem when I first started using my new 27" iMac (late 2012). It went from going to sleep and logging out while actively using it to doing that as soon as it booted. I was able to get to the control panel at one time, so I changed the energy saver settings to never go to sleep. I also changed the security settings to never log out. The problem persisted but not as often. I tried un-installing flash, repairing disk permissions, and resetting SMC. The problem has seemed to stop.

I have since re-installed flash and been slowly bringing back my energy saver and security preferences back to normal.. and so far so good.

My 27" iMac is maxed out incl. SSD. I have 32GB of OWC RAM. RAM tested fine with two RAM test programs.

 

[Twimfy]

Hook up a USB Hard drive.

Install a fresh copy of OS X to it and then boot from it. Use the transfer wizard to import your data over to the USB hard drive installation, check everything works and then clean install the internal drive and transfer back.

Bit of a farce but if you're lucky something is just corrupt, if it persists, off to the Apple pixies you go.

 

[GGJstudios]

Could it be a virus? Help please (

No, it's not a virus, since there never has been a Mac OS X virus in the wild, and none of the few trojans that exist exhibit the behavior you're describing.

Mac Virus/Malware FAQ​

Check the following locations for apps that automatically launch on startup and delete any you don't need/want:

• System Preferences > Accounts > yourusername > Login Items
  (Lion and ML users: System Preferences > Users & Groups > yourusername > Login Items)
  
  
• /Library/LaunchAgents/
  (Lion and ML users: In Finder, click Go > Go to Folder > then enter the path above)
  
  
• ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
  (Lion and ML users: In Finder, click Go > Go to Folder > then enter the path above)
  
  
• /Library/StartupItems/
  (Lion and ML users: In Finder, click Go > Go to Folder > then enter the path above)

 

[Texran]

Three beeps usually is ram failure. Take one stick outand try to boot, if no go put it back in and take the other one out.
Also could have a fan that's gone bad.