Even Macs are free of having issues. Your Mac may never respond when you press the Power button or that macOS will crash or fail to start up properly. If your Mac doesn’t turn on, try these troubleshooting steps.
First, assume that the problem is simply that your Mac does not respond when you press its power button. Scroll down to the sections for the recovery mode if it is still responding but failing to boot up in the usual manner.
Check to see that your Mac is appropriately connected to a power outlet. You could try a new power outlet, the charger, or the power cable, or you could try using the device with a different power outlet. The charger itself may be broken. If you are using a MacBook and its battery has died, you may find that after plugging it in, you must wait a few moments before turning it on. It is only guaranteed to start up after you plug it in for the first time.
If you’re working from a Mac desktop, double ensure that all of its cables are correctly seated in their respective slots. For instance, if it’s a Mac Mini, check that the video-out connection is securely attached to it and the display. To confirm that the cables are connected correctly, you should reenable each one by unplugging it and then reconnecting it.
It’s possible that the issue was caused by your recently opened-up Mac and tinkered with its internal components. For instance, if you upgraded your RAM or switched out your hard drive, you should revert to the previous hardware configuration or, at the very least, check to see if the new components are correctly seated in your Mac.
Before attempting to start your Mac, be sure that all of its peripherals that aren’t necessary have been unplugged.
If your Mac is unresponsive to your power button presses and appears frozen, you can restart it by unplugging it.
To force restart a non-removable battery modern MacBook, press and hold the Power button for ten seconds. This will cause your Mac to continue if it is currently running.
When restarting a Mac desktop (iMac, Mac Mini, or Mac Pro), please disconnect the power cable, wait 10 seconds, and reconnect it.
Finally, please turn off your older Mac, disconnect it from power, take out the battery, wait ten seconds, and then put it back in.
You may need to reset your Mac’s system management controller (SMC) firmware in some situations. If your Mac won’t turn on when you press the power button, this is the last thing you should try.
On modern MacBooks that don’t have a battery that can be taken out, plug in the power cable. Hold down the Shift, Control, and Option keys on the left side of the keyboard, as well as the Power button. Let go of all four buttons, then press the Power button to turn on the Mac.
Desktop Macs don’t have batteries, so unplug the power cord and leave it unplugged for 15 seconds. Plug it back in, wait another five seconds, and then press the Power button to turn the Mac back on.
Older MacBooks with a battery that can be taken out need to be unplugged from their power source, and the battery needs to be taken out. Press and hold the Power button for five seconds. Put the battery back in, plug the Mac back in, and then press the Power button to turn it back on.
If your Mac actually starts up, but macOS doesn’t load properly, there’s probably a problem with the software. The disks on your Mac might be broken, but you can fix this in recovery mode.
Start up your Mac to get into recovery mode. Hold down the Command and R keys while the computer is starting up. Try to push these buttons as soon as you hear the chime; it should start in recovery mode. You may need to press the keys more quickly if it doesn’t. Try again after restarting your Mac.
Click “Disk Utility,” go to the “First Aid” tab, and try to fix your Mac’s hard drive. The Disk Utility does the File System Check (fsck), so you don’t have to run the fsck command by hand.
You could reinstall macOS on your Mac if Disk Utility didn’t work.
By choosing “Reinstall macOS” in Recovery Mode, your Mac will automatically download the latest installation files and reinstall its operating system. You can also use a Time Machine backup to restore. If your Mac’s operating system is broken, this will replace it with a new one that is not broken.
None of these worked—if your Mac won’t turn on at all no matter how many times you press the Power button, if Recovery Mode doesn’t work, or if macOS doesn’t load correctly even after you reinstall it from Recovery Mode—your Mac probably has a hardware problem.
If it’s still under warranty, you should call Apple or take it to an Apple Store near you so they can fix the problem for you. Even if you don’t have a warranty, you can take it to an Apple Store or another place where Apple computers are fixed and have them try to fix it.
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