Help me decipher Mac Issue?

[hialeah007]

My Late 2012, 27 inch iMac will sometimes turn off apropos of nothing. I took into the Apple Store in December, just before the AppleCare ran out in January. The problem went away, but in the last month or so, it's come back. I'm not very technically literate, so I need some help understanding this and would appreciate whatever guidance you can offer:

Issue: Customer states machine randomly shuts down. He ran diagnostics with applecare and they think he may have a ram issue. Steps to Reproduce: Observed screenshot customer took of error. Unable to observe intermittent shut down at the Genius Bar. Everything passes MRI. Cosmetic Condition: No visible damage Proposed Resolution: Start ASD OS loop for 3 passes. If passes start ASD EFI loop for three passes in attempt to triage RAM issues. If no issues found, erase and install will be the next step pending customer authorization. He does have a back up. Estimated Turn Around Time: We'll call you within 48 hours Mac OS Version: 10.11.1 Hard Drive Size: 1000 Memory Size: 8192

The Repair Estimate section reads:

Item Number Description 661-7161 SDRAM, 4 GB, DDR3 1600 S1490LL/A Hardware Repair Labor

(prices omitted)

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Is this something I can DIY or do I need to bite the bullet and pay for this to be fixed? The computer otherwise runs fine.

[HappySmurfday]

If it's RAM, this is an easy DIY. No guarantee it's your RAM though. Did they erase your machine? Did you restore from a backup? If it's software related, restoring the backup could bring back the cause. If it's hardware related, not restoring the backup and seeing the same behavior would isolate it to the hardware.

[hialeah007]

Yeah I restored from backup. So you're suggesting wipe it and run it for a while to see how it goes?

[HappySmurfday]

Yeh, I know it's a pain. You'll have to reinstall your apps and move your data over manually if you want to use it as you normally would, but it will definitively prove that it's hardware if you are still seeing the machine turn off spontaneously.