Introduction: DIY: Shutting Down Mac OS X When the System Is Frozen.
Hi, this is my 8th Instructable and I think this is going to be one of my most helpful instructables posted yet. In this instructable, I am going to show you a way to shutdown Mac OS X when the whole system is frozen and not responding. Just this morning, actually, my mac was frozen and all I could pull up was Terminal and I thought to myself that I could tell the Instructable community about this. I hope you love it! ********DISCLAIMER AND TO APPLE,CORP.: I AM NOT PROMOTING, TAKING CREDIT, OR SELLING YOUR PRODUCT(S) IN ANY WAY! I WILL NOT PROMOTE ANY PRODUCTS!**********
Attachments
Step 1: When You Are Frozen, Try Using: Optn (alt), Apple Key, Esc.
Try forcing your applications to quit. To do this, press and hold all of these keys at the same time: Option (alt), Apple Logo key, and the ESC key. Then, you should see a menu that looks like the one below. If you can't access the menu, move to step 2.
Step 2: The Rough and Dirty Way!
If you still can see symptoms of a unresponsive computer (the symptoms include: a hard drive noise that sounds like a buzzer of some sort, "frozen" screen, unresponsive applications, error messages,ect.), then follow the rest of the steps. If you don't have the terminal icon on your dock, open finder and look for it (follow the picture below). Double Click Terminal. Wait until it opens.
Step 3: "Terminal Typing"
Type this into terminal: "sudo shutdown -h (abcd)" with out quotes. For the part of the typing with abcd in it, whatever time your computer says, type that time, but 1 MINUTE AFTER! DON'T TYPE THE PARENTHESES For example, if it was 1:30, and I wanted to force my computer to shut down, I would type: "sudo shutdown -h 1:31" but WITHOUT the quotes. You only have 60 seconds to do this, so hurry, being sure to make no mistakes. I have posted photos of what you type, and of the terminal window. I could not take a snapshot of what terminal says after you hit enter, because I didn't have time to do it when I told it to shutdown. If you are sure you want to do this, hit your enter key. If you here 2 to 3 separated sounds, that's okay, terminal is just notifying you that the system is going down in 30 seconds.. You are shut down!!
Step 4: Still Frozen or Not Booting? Call for Help!
If your computer is still frozen or it is not booting, do not post negative comments on this instructable, please. Call Apple Support for help with your mac. Their phone number is 800-275-2273. Call if you are still experiencing a frozen or non-booting mac. Just so you know, when my mac needed a revamp, they told me that they had no Jaguar, Puma, Cheetah, or Public Beta repair/reinstall disks. If you have one of these OS's, you may need to get a new mac so that if it needs repair(s), it will be covered. Thanks for reading!