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Just an oddity...

Sesshi

Sesshi

macrumors G3
Original poster
Jun 3, 2006
8,113
1
One Nation Under Gordon
.. perhaps someone can shed light on this.

I recently moved my remaining Pro at home to a slightly different location in the same room. I booted it up, did some stuff and turned it off before I left home for a few days.

I came back to find the fans on full blast on that machine. The build-up of dust on the front panel indicates that it had been on in that state perhaps for almost all of the time that I'd been gone.

While the 'Pro' Apple hardware have easily been the least reliable pro-use machines I have had so any oddities are not entirely unsurprising, I'd still be interested to know why this was caused and if it's likely to happen again.

As a precaution I'm either turning the socket off before I leave, or if I forget, I log into my house and cut power to the Pro's socket remotely.

As far as I'm aware, no firmware changes were made in recent updates at least as far as this Pro was concerned. Thanks in advance for any insights you might be able to provide.
 
That happened to me with my old G5 once, too. Do you have the computer attached to a UPS? If not, I'd say that the problem was caused by a power glitch - which was the case when it happened to me (although in my case it was a failed battery in the UPS + a brownout). Having replaced the UPS battery, it never happened again.

If you're going to leave the machine on all the time, a decent UPS is a worthwhile investment imho.
 
As I said, I turned the Mac off before leaving - which is why I'm curious and concerned about the behaviour. A while back all of my Pros at home used to switch on automatically every day, but after I played with the power settings only one (which had the EyeTV fitted) did it, and that was eventually solved. And until I got rid of the other Pros recently they were all behaving properly as far as staying off when turned off was concerned.

UPS-wise I'm running a bank of APC Symmetra's at home, going out to APC switched PDU's
 
Whoops- typed this too slow it seems. :eek:

tersono said:
<clip>
If you're going to leave the machine on all the time, a decent UPS is a worthwhile investment imho.
Click to expand...

Well after living with snow covered trees falling over power lines and generally poor quality power I would certainly agree with that- but would take it one step further and say a good UPS is a worthwhile investment even if it is not on all the time. ;) I had a similar problem a couple of times on my G5 tower, but when I grabbed a good UPS the problem did not reoccur.

That being said, I am still a fan of unplugging my major equipment when I go away for more than a few days!
 
Sesshi said:
I recently moved my remaining Pro at home to a slightly different location in the same room. I booted it up, did some stuff and turned it off before I left home for a few days.
Click to expand...

Wife, kids, neighbours, secret service, ghosts?

You're 100 % sure you've turned it off and not just put in sleep? What's about restart automatically after a power failure? -- on, off?

The only thing I could think of is sleep + power outage + automatic restart (or another kind of wake, on modem or admin access) -- but that does not explain this unusual fans' activity.

PS -- Maybe it's some kind of a sign that you should not leave home for a longer period of time. In this case -- divine intervention.
 
Yup. Obviously if it was just on, then I'd think 'bah, not again' but the screen was off and the system unit was on - oh yeah, one fact I forgot, with the power light off - with the fans going full blast.
 
Sesshi said:
oh yeah, one fact I forgot, with the power light off - with the fans going full blast.
Click to expand...

Than divine intervention. Stay away from everything which has fans - propellers - rotating blades etc., e.g. food mixers.
 
That was an important missed fact which makes it more of an oddity, wasn't it.

Unfortunately that's exactly how it happened. I held down the power button despite the LED being unlit and it actually turned off.

Refer to Applecare, or does anyone else have a sense-making explanation?
 
I think something got caught up at boot-down.

because this happened to one of my machines either a g5 or the 'Pro.
it did its whole "click" (the PSU) thing and light went off but i still heard a weering sound of a fan... and when ir ebooted it said it recovered from a crash.

which is peculiar..


and thats the only suggestion i could come up with.....

...well unless someone turned off the main power from a breaker and back on again?
 
sash said:
Wife, kids, neighbours, secret service, ghosts?

You're 100 % sure you've turned it off and not just put in sleep? What's about restart automatically after a power failure? -- on, off?

The only thing I could think of is sleep + power outage + automatic restart (or another kind of wake, on modem or admin access) -- but that does not explain this unusual fans' activity.

PS -- Maybe it's some kind of a sign that you should not leave home for a longer period of time. In this case -- divine intervention.
Click to expand...

no, it's not any of this. the same exact thing has been happening with mine occasionally since i got it.

every once in a while it won't shut clear down and the fans will rev up to top speed and stay there until i push the power button. i haven't had them stay on over a weekend or anything, but they have stayed on over night, which pisses me off.

if you call applecare about it, please report back what they tell you.

it's pretty lame that this sort of thing is happening with a quote unquote pro machine....
 
rockinrocker said:
no, it's not any of this. the same exact thing has been happening with mine occasionally since i got it.

every once in a while it won't shut clear down and the fans will rev up to top speed and stay there until i push the power button. i haven't had them stay on over a weekend or anything, but they have stayed on over night, which pisses me off.

if you call applecare about it, please report back what they tell you.

it's pretty lame that this sort of thing is happening with a quote unquote pro machine....
Click to expand...

Interesting. I should give Applecare a call after all - although it remains to be seen what they do with it. I'll let you know what happens.

I still find it completely laughable that I should be required to cart my own machine in to a Store if I want next-day service, or pay over the odds compared to a Dell Precision service contract for a clueness Apple Solutions Provider nitwit who knows even less than I do to visit and scratch his head.
 
rockinrocker said:
it's pretty lame that this sort of thing is happening with a quote unquote pro machine....
Click to expand...

Well yes, have to agree, it's a bummer. Weird though, have never heard about such behaviour... I'd phoned to Apple the day it happened. Hope your MP's still on warranty.
 
There is an option in the Energy Saver panel in System Prefs. Just uncheck the "Restart after Power failure"
 

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With multiple people having the same issue, it seems like it is the PSU's PWM controller.
 
This happened on my G5 once on startup, never happened again.

Perhaps you could write a script that monitors the fan activity, if it goes on full ball again have it reboot the machine.
 
I had this on my mac mini once, shut it off, crawled into bed, 5 seconds after I pulled the covers over I hear my fan revving and no light on the front of the machine, held down power button and it turned off, went to sleep dreaming about fans 0.o
 
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