Having to force restart iMac
10/12/20 Filed in: general troubleshooting
My Mac is getting
slower and more troublesome seems like every day. On a couple
of occasions I’ve had to shut it down and disconnect the power
source.
___________
Hardware vs Software problem troubleshooting:
Having to shut down a computer does happen. Always great time to go to the force quit menu then see if there is one application in particular that is not responding (usually listed in Red). Activity Monitor is also a great resource to see if there is one process in particular that may be hanging. If it’s not the fault of software then the next thing to look at is the hard drive. SATA hard drives in iMacs are famous for not being the greatest drives. They are based on the old 2.5” laptop drives from old and usually don’t last as long as we’d like. Hopefully that’s not the case. If you have a solid state hard drive however, those are extremely reliable and most likely not the issue. Then there is the “hybrid” drive type Apple calls Fusion. It’s still based on a spinning drive and still prone to failure. I know by discussing hard drive failure we are probably jumping way ahead of ourselves but drive failures in older iMacs is so common, it’s something to keep in mind. To check which drive you have, go to the black apple, choose “about this Mac” then storage. Your drive type will be listed there.
Hopefully however, it’s a software issue to blame.
slower and more troublesome seems like every day. On a couple
of occasions I’ve had to shut it down and disconnect the power
source.
___________
Hardware vs Software problem troubleshooting:
Having to shut down a computer does happen. Always great time to go to the force quit menu then see if there is one application in particular that is not responding (usually listed in Red). Activity Monitor is also a great resource to see if there is one process in particular that may be hanging. If it’s not the fault of software then the next thing to look at is the hard drive. SATA hard drives in iMacs are famous for not being the greatest drives. They are based on the old 2.5” laptop drives from old and usually don’t last as long as we’d like. Hopefully that’s not the case. If you have a solid state hard drive however, those are extremely reliable and most likely not the issue. Then there is the “hybrid” drive type Apple calls Fusion. It’s still based on a spinning drive and still prone to failure. I know by discussing hard drive failure we are probably jumping way ahead of ourselves but drive failures in older iMacs is so common, it’s something to keep in mind. To check which drive you have, go to the black apple, choose “about this Mac” then storage. Your drive type will be listed there.
Hopefully however, it’s a software issue to blame.
Sells Consulting email