I mixed one drink, he's in memoriam

[sovay]

I aten't dead. The same cannot be said of my laptop; it went suddenly paralytic on Monday and by Tuesday could be neither revived nor shut down hard, which left me not at all pleased that this crash had occurred while I was in the middle of a new story and two extensive livejournal replies. (I have since recovered almost all relevant data, but it is currently consigned to the limbo of an external hard drive; I have at present nowhere to transfer any of it to. I find this immensely frustrating. Compared to a complete loss of mail, music, stories, etc., however, I'll take what I can get.) This is the machine I bought in January to replace the casualty of the unfortunate backpack incident—used, I knew, but I was still expecting more than eight months in its company. I am beginning to think I emit a kind of radiation fatal to the average Macintosh. Perhaps I should just go back to the typewriter under my desk. My mother wrote her dissertation on it; that should be worth something on the karma market.

I have also come to the conclusion that it is never a good sign to realize that you have just said something reminiscent of Sydney Carton in a context unrelated to self-sacrifice, Dickens, or eighteenth-century English law.

At least I have a pineapple.

Comments

[wakanomori.livejournal.com]

This may be way off, but from the symptoms (and assuming the machine is a recentish Mac) you might try resetting the Systems Management Controller (SMC). If you've not tried it, it's easy to do and the effects (if it's what is needed) seem miraculous.

See details here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411

You can find lots of other how-to pages about doing it, too, with a google search.
asakiyume's new (refurbished) iMac needed this just a couple of days ago.

[sovay]

This may be way off, but from the symptoms (and assuming the machine is a recentish Mac) you might try resetting the Systems Management Controller (SMC).

We actually tried this; it seems to be a physical hardware issue, not a confused chip problem. But thank you for the information!