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digit · Aug 8, 2005, 11:29 PM

I just bought a new imac g5. It works great exept I'm having 1 problem with it. Sometimes the computer will just shut off unexpectedly like someone pulled out the power cord. This has happened a couple times during the night, and once while I was playing a game. I checked to make sure the power cord was in the computer and outlet securly, and it all checked out.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
David

WOPR · Aug 9, 2005, 06:03 AM

Originally Posted by digit

I just bought a new imac g5. It works great exept I'm having 1 problem with it. Sometimes the computer will just shut off unexpectedly like someone pulled out the power cord. This has happened a couple times during the night, and once while I was playing a game. I checked to make sure the power cord was in the computer and outlet securly, and it all checked out.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
David

Send it back, the iMac G5 is notoriously unreliable. It's probably a duff power supply. You might also want to look at the capacitors on the main board and see if any are bulging and/or leaking.

I apologise for sounding so negative!

digit · Aug 9, 2005, 09:42 AM

Not the answer I was hoping for, but an answer none the less.

Thanks for your help.

digit · Aug 9, 2005, 10:14 AM

Is there any way it could be a virus or something?

WOPR · Aug 9, 2005, 10:54 AM

Originally Posted by digit

Is there any way it could be a virus or something?

There are still no known Mac OS X viruses. If you phone Apple they'll probably tell you to reinstall the OS and jump through hoops but at the end of the day it's a hardware problem. I heavily recommend AppleCare for iMac G5 owners. I learnt the hard way...

PBG4 User · Aug 9, 2005, 03:31 PM

Originally Posted by WOPR

There are still no known Mac OS X viruses. If you phone Apple they'll probably tell you to reinstall the OS and jump through hoops but at the end of the day it's a hardware problem. I heavily recommend AppleCare for iMac G5 owners. I learnt the hard way...

Yup, I'm going through an iMac G5 meltdown (Rev. A 20") and AppleCare had me do the OS reinstall shuffle as well.

WOPR,

iMac G5s haven't been out for a year yet. You should still be under the factory warranty, right? Still, I bought AppleCare because I'm sure they'll just replace the power supply, then the CPU will go out because I've been clocking 90Celsius temps. on it.

WOPR · Aug 9, 2005, 05:51 PM

I was lucky as I just rejected the machine straight away as soon as I saw the capacitors were bulging when I got it out of the box. Got a full refund and bought a last-of-the line 17" iMac G4 and it's a wonderful machine, I wish I'd bought one straight away.

pen-helm · Aug 17, 2005, 04:34 PM

My iMac also turns itself off without warning. Particularly when it's trying to boot up. Any thoughts?

Apollo_Racer · Mar 21, 2006, 09:41 AM

We have that problem too. We have an iMac G3 that keeps shutting down so we thought it was the power supply. We took it to a place that happens to be the ONLY Mac service place for about 40 miles. A diagnostic showed that the computer worked fine and that the problems had to be software-related. We got a copy of Norton Utilities for Mac but that didn't do much good. We backed up our data, reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled OS X. It still insists on shutting down, particularly in the middle of the night. Is there anything we can do to fix it?

jamez bond · Jul 5, 2006, 12:57 PM

whoops, min does this too...
Turns off after being left alone for a while...

Calling my applecentre tomorrow...its over a year, but I think these have a longer warranty/guarantee in norway...fingers crossed.

GSixZero · Jul 5, 2006, 03:11 PM

There should be some info in the logs... check in the console to see if it says what's going on... my iMac was overheating and would go off without warning. I looked at the logs and it refereed to "critical temperature exceeded for over 30 seconds... shutting down" or something like that. I'm not saying that's what's going on with yours but you might find some useful info in the logs.

I took mine to the apple store and was good to go 48 hour later.

jamez bond · Jul 5, 2006, 04:01 PM

heh, well...
I will go for the extended apple repair program I found earlier...

The capacitors are bulgin and all, sp the mac is packed down and ready to go tomorrow...
luckily I have my powerbook to keep me going until I get the iMac back!

I could start the machine up again and all, but The look of those capacitors did not encourage another startup....