Random powering off without a shutdown process

skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

I have an aluminum iMac and occasionally in Gentoo is just powers off as if the power was removed. It never does that in Mac OS X so I don't think it is a hardware or power supply problem. It could be overheating or something, maybe the kernel can't accurately detect the temperature. I don't think there are any logs when it happens because it just shuts off immediately with no time to write to a log. What kernel options should I have on to ensure that the kernel is functioning properly, or is it possible that the code just hasn't been written?

ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3674

Hi,
Take a look at this.

Thank you.

skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

That is for laptops, I have an iMac.

tgR10 · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:42 am Post subject:

skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

"Please notice that this guide describes Power Management for laptops." Am I misinterpreting that?

energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

computers don't just shut down. With acpi or without.

One question - is it always a shutdown or are there reboots too?
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Total MAdMaN · n00b Joined: 04 Aug 2009 Posts: 14

energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

yes, but you have to setup them first. Out of the box acpi does nothing but help managing pci devices and stuff.
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skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

Just for clarification, Wikipedia says:

skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

Is this what you guys really think is the solution, ACPI? If so, can you be more specific with what options would actually cause complete power failure? I never had to do anything like this on my two other gentoo desktops, and they have never powered off like this. Oh and by the way, I know ACPI is for all computers, but that guide specifically was for laptops.

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:27 am Post subject:

skrapasor,

If the case is closed, open it and see how clogged up the power supply/CPU fans are. If really clogged, clean them out with canned "air" and see if that helps. If the case is open, be sure that the fans are turning, and that the heat sinks to which they are attached aren't excessively hot. Warm is ok, hot isn't.

You're right, computers don't just die for no reason. Most usually, when a computer shifts from normal operation to self-shutdown or other such problems, there is a hardware fault somewhere; either overheating or a component/solder/connector failure. Cleaning out the dust can help if it's an overheating CPU, or power supply component. If it's any of the others, you may be looking at parts replacement.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

yeah, pappy is right. Shutdown is either an emergency step taken by the mobo in an overheating event or failing hardware.

Sudden reboots are usually caused by bad PSU or bad ram causing triple faults.
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Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males

I identify as a dirty penismensch.

skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

Well then why has this never happened when it's running Mac OS X? It had been running OS X for over a year before I installed Gentoo, and it is still used quite frequently. That's why I don't think it is a hardware specific problem.

energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

different software stresses the hardware differently? or maybe the hardware is failing right now

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Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males

I identify as a dirty penismensch.

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:48 pm Post subject:

MacOS and Linux are not the same animal. If you can read your Linux partition from Mac, see if there is an error that gets put into /var/log/dmesg. If you can get to said file, post it after a failure. Without more info, it is a lot of guesswork.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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