iMac shutting down on its own

[allisonv7]

I leave my iMac on pretty much all the time, I'll turn it off when I go away for a few days but that's about it. I reboot about once a week probably.

Anyways, I've noticed a couple times in the morning it's been turned off, I know I didn't do this, so I'm wondering if there's some way to find out what caused the shutdown. This happens about once a month, at the most.

Thanks,

allison.

 

[devilot]

This is all I can think of... have you tried going into System Preferences> Energy Saver> Sleep (tab)> and at the bottom right is a button for Schedule. Did you check that to make sure it's not scheduled so shut down? If that's not it, then I don't have any other suggestions other than the usual repair permissions blah blah.

 

[grapes911]

Allison, this is a long shot (a really, really long shot).

In the terminal type: 'cat /etc/crontab'
Don't type the quotes. Press enter and copy & paste the results here.

I know someone who accidentally downloaded and ran a script that inserted a shutdown command into their cron file. Probably not you problem, but worth checking anyway.

 

[pammyspyce]

Is it a G5 by chance? My iMac G5 will shut itself off if the internal temperature gets too high. It's a self-preservation thing. I called Apple the first time it happened and they sent someone out to replace the power suppy. Imagine how foolish I felt when the stupid thing started right up. The power suppy was fine, it had just shut down because it over-heated. D'oh.

 

[MacNut]

Is your house haunted by chance?

 

[FoxyKaye]

Another really long shot, but how's your electricity?

I have my iMac on a UPS, so basically any interruption, surge or brownout will keep it running.

However, there *might* be something going on with your electric lines - maybe turning on a high amp vacuum cleaner causes enough of a drain to brown out the iMac, turning on a microwave with the fridge running, interruptions in general service to your domicile, etc... Any loss of line amperage may cause the iMac to shut off, and of course, complete interruptions in service will produce the same effect (computers in general seem more sensitive to this, so even a momentary blip that your other clocks and appliances will ignore can cause a system power down or reboot). Of course, this isn't good for your iMac, so an investment in even a low-cost UPS will help prevent this.

Somewhere in Energy Saver is a little box you can check to make your Mac reboot after power failure - try checking it and seeing if you notice any difference. Or, leave it unchecked and when you discover your iMac turned off, try and remember if you were doing anything that would cause a lot of electrical line load over the past day.

Hope you figure out what's going on...

 

[allisonv7]

Allison, this is a long shot (a really, really long shot).

In the terminal type: 'cat /etc/crontab'
Don't type the quotes. Press enter and copy & paste the results here.

I know someone who accidentally downloaded and ran a script that inserted a shutdown command into their cron file. Probably not you problem, but worth checking anyway.

# The periodic and atrun jobs have moved to launchd jobs
# See /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
#
# minute hour mday month wday who command
000d93c7d99e:~ allisonv7$

Not sure what any of that means

The temperature could definitely be the problem. It was pretty toasty here last nite

The UPS is a good idea, regardless if the power is the problem in this case. How much does an inexpensive one run?


allison.

 

[grapes911]

# The periodic and atrun jobs have moved to launchd jobs
# See /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
#
# minute hour mday month wday who command
000d93c7d99e:~ allisonv7$

Not sure what any of that means

Cron isn't your problem. Sorry, I tried.