Mac mini won't shut down . . .

Goes to a blue screen with revolving symbol without shutting off.
Jay wrote on :
Mac mini PowerPC G4 (1.1), CPU Speed 1.25 GHz OS Version 10.3.9. Goes to a blue screen with revolving symbol without shutting off. Advice please. Thanks, Jay
Jolly Roger replied on :

On 2007-03-15 18:37:08 -0500, "Jay" judwms@redacted.invalid said:

Mac mini PowerPC G4 (1.1), CPU Speed 1.25 GHz OS Version 10.3.9. Goes to a blue screen with revolving symbol without shutting off. Advice please. Thanks, Jay

Check the console and system logs to see what errors are reported there. To view them, run /Applications/Utilities/Console, then choose File > Open Console Log and File > Open System log.

Jay replied on :

On Mar 20, 4:39 pm, Jolly Roger jollyro...@redacted.invalid wrote:

On 2007-03-20 11:55:29 -0500, "Jay" jud...@redacted.invalid said:

On Mar 20, 12:04 pm, Fred McKenzie f...@redacted.invalid wrote:

In article 1174001828.525326.165...@redacted.invalid,

"Jay" jud...@redacted.invalid wrote:

Mac mini PowerPC G4 (1.1), CPU Speed 1.25 GHz OS Version 10.3.9. Goes to a blue screen with revolving symbol without shutting off. Advice please.

Jay-

What have you tried so far? Does it respond to holding the power button for more than 5 seconds?

Random things to try include resetting the PRAM, repairing permissions with Disk Utility and running the hardware test disk that should have come with the computer.

I never had that problem with my G4 Mini. It came packed with an OS 10.4 upgrade disk, so it never used the 10.3.9 that came installed. I did have the problem with an Intel iMac. I never found out why, but it may have started with one of the 10.4 updates. The problem went away after a later update was installed.

Fred

Thanks for the tip about holding down the power button. It goes off under those circumstances. Jay

sigh

Abruptly shutting the power off to your computer can cause hard drive directory an file corruption. You really should only do that as a LAST RESORT.

Is there a reason you don't want to take a look at your console and system logs as I suggested?

-- JR

Hi, I looked at the system logs but at my age of 76 yrs old didn't make sense to me. I appreciate your suggestions but seem to be technologically over my head. Thanks, Jay

Jolly Roger replied on :

On 2007-03-21 10:56:38 -0500, "Jay" judwms@redacted.invalid said:

sigh

Abruptly shutting the power off to your computer can cause hard drive directory an file corruption. You really should only do that as a LAST RESORT.

Is there a reason you don't want to take a look at your console and system logs as I suggested?

I looked at the system logs but at my age of 76 yrs old didn't make sense to me. I appreciate your suggestions but seem to be technologically over my head.

Okay, but what I asked you to do was to examine these logs after the blue screen problem happens and look for errors. I don't expect you to know what everything in the logs mean, but you should be able to recognize words like "error", "fail", "incorrect", and so on.

If you want, next time you have the blue screen problem, send both of those logs to jollyroger at pobox dot com, and I'll have a look for you.