Mac Mini G4 keeps shutting down

punky_munky

punky_munky

punky_munky

Soldato
Joined
17 Oct 2002
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3,072
My Mac Mini G4 keeps suddenly turning off and refusing to power back on for seemingly random periods of time. It seems to turn off when it works a bit too hard e.g. was looking at some 3d screensavers on Ubuntu, reinstalling Mac OS X etc.

A few months ago I had to change the fuse in the plug although this may be unrelated. I had a techy friend at work check the power adapter with a multi-meter and he said he it was ok. It's well out of warranty and probably not worth spending money on getting repaired professionally but if anyone has any ideas or suggestions then I welcome them.

Thanks.
 
if you have had it a few years it may be cloged.
you can open them up fairly easy there are a good number of tutorials out there.
so i would open it and have a look inside, give it a spring clean and hope for the best :)

good luck
 
I'll have to pick up a putty knife some time this week. It's strange, there's cool air blowing out of the vents and when it turns off it won't come back on for quite some time and I'm pretty sure I have to unplug the power adapter from the mains as well as the Mini itself. :confused:
 
Well I opened it up which wasn't a problem and blew out a load of dust. It's still acting in exactly the same way though. I guess I should try and source a replacement power adapter although I'm not convinced it will help :(
 
hmmm strange one....

was it very dusty inside? you might have overheated it and buggered something up.
 
No it wasn't that bad.

I think it might be the power supply, it could be that it's cutting out when the demand gets too high for it. The first few times it did it was whilst installing Linux, the next time whilst taxing it with 3d stuff, then installing Mac OS X back on and now it seems to be when the hard drive and DVD drive start to spin up. So I guess it's either the power supply, the hard drive or something more serious.
 
have you tried running the hardware test of the OSX boot CD?

long shot, but that might tell you wants wrong
 
sounds to me like the heatsink/fan needs reseating... remove, clean the thermal rubish compound thats likley dried up off it and the cpu, the apply some Arctic Silver, it may be blowing cold air but if the heatsink doesn't make correct contact most of the heat will not transfer correctly.
 
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