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Apple Computing Products:
macOS - Operating System
Determine what is causing random restart
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<blockquote data-quote="Randy B. Singer" data-source="post: 1808402" data-attributes="member: 190607"><p>In the past 30+ years I've seen a surprising number of instances where Macs restart randomly. Often I am consulted after others have thrown up their hands at finding a solution. This problem has always turned out to have been due to one of two situations. </p><p></p><p>The first is a sag in the powerline. For instance, some laser printers have such a draw when they begin a new job, that if they are on the same circuit as your Mac they will cause a huge sag in power to your Mac that will instantly result in a shutdown, and then a restart. I've seen the same thing caused by having a refrigerator on the same electrical circuit. Look for things that cycle on and off and which have a large draw and are on the same electrical circuit. If this is the problem, a good UPS with automatic voltage regulation (AVR) to plug your Mac into will be the solution if you can't isolate the offending appliances onto a different circuit.</p><p></p><p>The second situation is either a failing power supply on your Mac's motherboard, or possibly just a cold solder joint where your power supply is attached to your Mac's motherboard. (Constant heat cycling leads solder joints to break after they have expanded and contracted a bunch of times. Mini's tend to run hot, which adds to the possibility of this happening.) This would logically require either than the solder joints around your power supply be re-flowed with the touch of a soldering pen, or that your power supply itself be replaced, but these days very few shops do component level repairs. More likely they will just replace your entire motherboard, which is also what Apple would do if you returned your Mac to them for repair. However I doubt that Apple will touch a Mac as old as yours. In any case, I doubt that the cost of replacing the motherboard on a 7 to 8 year old Mac mini will be economical compared to purchasing a newer model used mini.</p><p></p><p>You can run this program to test your hardware, but I doubt that it will give you any results that will be helpful in fixing the problem yourself:</p><p></p><p>Hardware Test</p><p><a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257" target="_blank">https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257</a></p><p></p><p>Good luck.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Randy B. Singer, post: 1808402, member: 190607"] In the past 30+ years I've seen a surprising number of instances where Macs restart randomly. Often I am consulted after others have thrown up their hands at finding a solution. This problem has always turned out to have been due to one of two situations. The first is a sag in the powerline. For instance, some laser printers have such a draw when they begin a new job, that if they are on the same circuit as your Mac they will cause a huge sag in power to your Mac that will instantly result in a shutdown, and then a restart. I've seen the same thing caused by having a refrigerator on the same electrical circuit. Look for things that cycle on and off and which have a large draw and are on the same electrical circuit. If this is the problem, a good UPS with automatic voltage regulation (AVR) to plug your Mac into will be the solution if you can't isolate the offending appliances onto a different circuit. The second situation is either a failing power supply on your Mac's motherboard, or possibly just a cold solder joint where your power supply is attached to your Mac's motherboard. (Constant heat cycling leads solder joints to break after they have expanded and contracted a bunch of times. Mini's tend to run hot, which adds to the possibility of this happening.) This would logically require either than the solder joints around your power supply be re-flowed with the touch of a soldering pen, or that your power supply itself be replaced, but these days very few shops do component level repairs. More likely they will just replace your entire motherboard, which is also what Apple would do if you returned your Mac to them for repair. However I doubt that Apple will touch a Mac as old as yours. In any case, I doubt that the cost of replacing the motherboard on a 7 to 8 year old Mac mini will be economical compared to purchasing a newer model used mini. You can run this program to test your hardware, but I doubt that it will give you any results that will be helpful in fixing the problem yourself: Hardware Test [url]https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257[/url] Good luck. [/QUOTE]
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Determine what is causing random restart
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