Mac OS X forum: First time for me- nothing responded

Do NOT power it down by pulling the plug out of the wall.

This applies to ALL computers, no matter what they are running. Shame on you Angeline.

At the rear of your iMac, there is a power button. If all else fails, and the iMac is behaving like a Windows machine, press and hold the power button for a period of LONGER than 5 seconds. The machine will then power off.
This works on almost every other computer as well.

Now power it up again. You will probably find that everything is perfectly alright again.

Let us know what the outcome was.

P

I'm being told that power outages are more or less common in the USA. That's about the same as pulling the plug out of the wall. Any device should be able to handle that more or less gracefully, without any damage at all.

Of course, the 5 seconds push is better. But apparently not everyone knows that.

Kees

..... button on the rear of my machine long enough to turn it off.

It's 2 weeks from my first anniversary.

I honestly thought it was better to disconnect from the wall than from the surge protector. Seems I recall that with my PC it said to always disconnect from the wall, and not by turning off the surge protector when doing I forget what.

Sorry.

Angeline

... that I shut it down every few days for sure. For the past couple of months it has been shut down quite often because of frequent storms in my area. It was shut down 2 days before the incident. it will be shut down this evening due to predicted storms.

Frankly, I asked the question specifically of 2 different Ale phone techs with the same answer. Shut it down every few days, so I do very 3 if there are no storms. By old habit, I close the programs I opened first, like Text cit. (But not the ones open by default.)

Angeline

.... that is rather costly (for me),,, 30 minutes. Have not forgotten.

Default.... Finder, Dashboard, Mail, Safari. "Default " was probably not the proper term to have used. Those were just the ones that were "active" when the machine was delivered, for good reason.

Angeline

-- Dave K.

um this is a direct quote from what you said "if its acting like a windows machine" umm ok right there its like your trying soo hard to make windows look bad and you know what? i used a brand new mac at my piano teacher and i used garage band, which is made by apple and desgined to work on a apple, it froze up!!1 there own software lol

Angeline:

If your computer is frozen and won't even respond to a single press-and-release on the power button, then there is no option but to kill the power somehow. Holding down the power button for 6 seconds will kill the power, exactly the same as unplugging from the wall. So, what you did was not "wrong" (although it's easier to hold down the power button).

Mrmacfixit:

Take note of what I said to Angeline, and I think it was rather harsh of you to say "Shame on you Angeline". Even if you had been right, she didn't know the best course of action and therefore she doesn't need a scolding.

Pulling the plug results in ALL power being removed, instantly, from the entire system. This is one of the reasons that a machine, any machine, sometimes fails to work after a power failure.
This is a LAST resort when ALL else fails. You will not find it recommended as anything else, anywhere.

Holding down the power button leaves the power supply functioning and supplying power to various parts of the system, keeping them warm.

If I may quote from the iMac manual:
Quote
If you are unable to force the application to quit, press and hold the power ()
button on the back of your iMac for 5 or 6 seconds to shut down the computer.
Unplug the power cord from the iMac. Then plug the power cord back in and press
the power () button on your iMac to turn it on.
Unquote

EOF

P

Up, down, around. No clicks, though.

Nope. No spinning beach balls of doom.

I have saved the link you provided for future reference.

Thank you, Grim!!!!

Angeline

Hi,

With all the software things that can go wrong, sometimes it's simply a hardware issue. I've had it happen once that the USB just didn't work right, I unplugged the keyboard/mouse and plugged it back in and everything worked fine again.

I was wondering, don't you use the sleep mode? It's the best for energy saving/ time saving. You don't have to quit any of your programs that way. Just sleep and wake.

....... " power usage" is to have 5-6 pages open at one time. But in my defense, I have been able to accomplish a couple of tasks I was unable to do with a PC.

Sounds like you were able to save your work.

Still considering Leopard.

Angeline