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Mac mini (Mid 2010) Symptom Charts — Startup and Power 24
2010-08-03
Intermittent Shutdown
Unlikely cause: hard drive, optical drive
Troubleshooting Shutdown Causes
Always run the latest available service utilities, to look for the possible cause of a previous
shutdown. These utilities will permit to isolate any abnormal value readings from the thermal,
voltage, or current sensor(s), and from the fan(s) speed meter(s).
Collect all available info from user on shut down occurrence details: periodicity, connected
devices, running applications, running time before shutdown.
Shutdown events could be categorized between four dierent types of causes.
User-related shut downs :
A computer shut down event may be caused by user operation. Shutting down the computer
(by selecting the Shutdown menu, by keeping pressed the Power button for at least 4 seconds,
or by programming a timed shutdown in the Energy Saver preferences) should not be
considered as a failure unless the power button is found to be defective, so the suggested steps
for troubleshooting will be:
- to reset the SMC,
- to check Energy Saver preferences settings,
- to check the Power On button functionality, and its secure connection to logic board.
Activity-related system shut downs :
- system could not succeed the standard shutdown process and had to force shutdown,
- an installed watchdog detected that an application did not respond within specied time (this
watchdog can be enabled on Mac OS X Server Energy Saver preferences)
These shut downs may be linked to system settings, devices drivers, applications or operating
system freezes, so the suggested steps for troubleshooting will be:
- to check the system logs and activity monitor utility for clues on the freezing process,
- to check for available software and rmware updates for installed device drivers, applications,
or operating system,
- to start the system from a known-good and up-to-date bootable drive for issue reproduction.
Power-related system shut downs :
-External AC power source was removed,
-External AC power source was removed and UPS battery went empty.
These shut downs are due to power management, poor connections or defective power
sources so the suggested steps for troubleshooting will be :
- to reset SMC,
-to check secure AC cable and power supply connection to logic board,
-
Hardware-related system shut downs:
- one of the temperature sensors reached a specied temperature limit,
- one of the voltage sensors reached a specied voltage limit,