Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
budge when you move the mouse. That's a major-league lockup you have there, and your only recourse is to
force MacBook Air to restart or shut down.
Forcing MacBook Air to restart.
Press and hold the Control and keys, and then press the power button.
Forcing MacBook Air to shut down.
Press and hold the power button until MacBook Air shuts off.
Forcing MacBook Air to restart or shut down doesn't give you any graceful way to close your running applications.
This means that if you have unsaved changes in any open documents, you lose them. Therefore, it's a good idea to
make sure MacBook Air is frozen and not just in a temporary state of suspended animation while it's waiting for
some lengthy process to finish. If you're not sure, wait 5 minutes before forcing the restart or shutdown.
Restarting MacBook Air in Safe Mode
Login items — programs that run automatically when you log in to MacBook Air — can cause system prob-
lems by using up resources and creating memory conflicts. However, they're not the only behind-the-scenes
components that can make your system wonky. Other processes that MacBook Air and your applications use
can run amok and cause trouble.
To see whether such a process is at the root of your problem, you can perform a Safe Boot. That is, you can start
MacBook Air in Safe Mode, which means that it doesn't load most of those behind-the-scenes components. If
the problem still persists in Safe Mode, you know it's not caused by a hidden process. If the problem does go
away, it's a bit harder to deal with because there's no way to disable individual components. You may need to
reinstall OS X, as described earlier.
Follow these steps to perform a Safe Boot:
1. Pull down the Apple menu and choose Shut Down.
MacBook Air asks if you're sure.
2. Click Shut Down.
MacBook Air logs you out and then shuts off.
3. Press the power button to turn MacBook Air back on.
4. Press and hold the Shift key until you see the Apple logo.
MacBook Air loads with only a minimal set
of components. When you get to the login screen, you see the words Safe Boot.
