{"id":38116,"date":"2016-10-05T14:21:18","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T19:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=38116"},"modified":"2017-07-06T16:15:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T21:15:00","slug":"tech-tip-how-to-run-and-interpret-your-macs-built-in-diagnostic-routines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/38116-tech-tip-how-to-run-and-interpret-your-macs-built-in-diagnostic-routines\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Tip: How to Run and Interpret Your Mac’s Built-In Diagnostic Routines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Macs are usually quite hardy, providing service for years without a problem. However, when they start running slowly, crashing, or refusing to boot up, it’s time to figure out what’s going on. You can easily troubleshoot your Mac to see whether the problem is hardware related, and to do that, there’s no better way than using the tools built right into your Mac. When you go to an Apple Store for troubleshooting, chances are good that the staff will run one of these tools — Apple Diagnostics or Apple Hardware Test — to figure out what’s wrong, so you can save yourself a bit of time by diagnosing the problem ahead of your appointment and then letting the staff know\u00a0what’s wrong.<\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong>\u00a0Using macOS Sierra Disk Utility to Verify or Repair Disks<\/a><\/p>\n

Back in the early days of Macs, a diagnostics code would be displayed on the Mac startup screen under a “Sad Mac” icon (see image at top of this post), and later that was replaced by what we commonly referred to as the “Chimes of Death”, audible indications that all was not well with your Mac. The video below demonstrates most startup tones, as well as the increasingly crazy Chimes of Death:<\/p>\n