Hi everyone, I had a terrifying ordeal with my macbook last night and I want to know if anyone had experienced this While I was watching a movie, the screen suddenly turned black or off, but I can still hear the audio from the movie. Thinking that it might be a bad copy, I press Apple+tab to switch to another application to get out of full screen mode. But it never responded and all I can hear is a beep sound. Caps lock light is still responding, so I was thinking that it simply hanged. I tried pressing the power off button, it rebooted but when I got to the login screen, it appeared very weird as the background was colored blue, and when I touched the trackpad to click on my user, the screen went off again. I pressed the power off button again and got into the same scenario. My immediate reaction was to remove the power adaptor and the battery for the macbook to do a reboot. This time, I managed to reach the desktop, but the monitor went down again. I removed the battery again, it didn’t rebooted but went on to the desktop. I didn’t touched it for a while, and after that it went on smoothly. Now, my immediate suspect to this was overheating. But I don’t think this is the case as it wasn’t really hot. The keyboard vents and the back of the monitor wasn’t venting hot air nor the frame felt really hot. I am afraid that this might happen. Anyone who had the same experience??
I never had this problem. It looks like it is a software glitch from initial symptoms. You can try the regular Disk Utility and Repair Permissions route first just in case a recent application install messed with your system. Have you installed anything or tweaked something prior to having this issue?
i'm looking at the ff. articles for probable cause. i haven't installed anything for the past 2 weeks and just repaired the permissions just last weekend. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1599 http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30612 i'm not really downplaying overheating issues here eventhough it didn't really felt hot (quite subjective). i removed the profolio suit as a precautionary measure.
The first link does not necessarily relate to the problem you had since it is intermittent shutdown. your macbook didn't really shutdown, it just turned off the display or showed you a blank screen. as for overheating, did your macbook go way over 80 to 90 degrees? if that happens again you may need to have it checked.
sorry for my ignorance, but is there an installed tool where i can see the notebook's temperature? i'll check again tonight. hopefully it won't again.
here's what i observed when my MB goes to sleep, and i try to wake it up, the screen will go blank, but the indicator lights just below the trackpad on the right side is still on. i'll have to press the power button a long time for it to restart here are the readings from istat pro Exhaust 1797rpm CPU A: 59 Heatsink A: 50 Heatsink B: 51 Enclosure Base: 31 Northbridge 1: 49 Airport Card: 53 Mem Bank A1: 49 HD: 36
Hmmm, doesn't seem like temperature's a factor. Right now my MB is running at a similar temp and I haven't had any sleep/wake problems.
your MB's temperature looks ok. Try this trick. Close the lid again. Wait a few seconds...then open it to wake up again. Try to press any key...you have to be patient for this and see if it wakes up. [you might need to do this 3-4 times] <- this is not the fix. just a way to diagnose the issue. If it works that way, then you probably need to get the latest updates and run disk utility for verify and repair disk, verify and repair permissions (usual maintenance). This happened to me back when my Macbook was in Tiger. Something was wrong with the power management system of my MB. I think it got sorted out in 10.4.12/3. If you're in Leopard, it may only need all the system updates.
mmm work around since i can no longer login. i removed the battery and here, i am running Repair Permissions results: It repaired parental Controls and corrected Group of private/etc/cups that's it. I'm running Verify Disk. my MB has the latest patches/updates ... and my macbook has no problems
Hi viral_variance, Just read the thread and wondering if your mac is back to normal? If not, it would be best to have it checked in an authorized service center. If you have explored everything (battery, softwares and updates, temp issues, etc.) it might be something mechanical (internal). You mentioned it started while watching DVD so something might happened internally that caused the blackout.
libra, i'm waiting for the 3rd incident before i bring it to the service center. my PC instinct for troubleshooting is still very much with me hehe ... so far after the permissions repair, everything is working fine. btw, any shop that you can recommend where i can bring my macbook? i bought mine from singapore, so i'm quite clueless on what service center gives good service.
thanks fids. let's see after 24 hours if it will occur again... yap i've heard of ynzal. they're quite far though, i'll try out power mac center at mega or digital hub at rob pioneer just in case to add also, the hardware test failed to show any problem
Ynzal is good. Though I haven't been there, I'm getting good reviews from other muggers about it. I wish you luck, viral.
Had the same experience yesterday. After working with the macbook for 8 straight hours (with Photoshop and Firefox running) the screen just went off. I thought it shut down itself. But when I closed the lid, the sleep led lighted and the usb cooling pad's fan was still on. I thought about overheating too, but the cooling pad was functioning well and the mb was not really that hot. What I did was I just pressed down the power button and restarted. It went on okay after that. But can't help getting worried for what happened.
grrr it happened again, this time the LCD was dimlighted,but i can see the login screen. i need to have it checked this time.
got this problem on my macbook pro, Black screen.. looks like on deep sleep mode.... done PRAM , PMC reset.. doesnt work.. i just recently updated to 10.5.3 5 days ago seems that lots of people getting this problem http://discussions.apple.com/thread....78474&tstart=0 I had the same situation as the other guys on this thread.. most of the time i use my external lcd on my mbp. Apple Service center think it is a logic board... just got my mbp for 4 months, sad about this problem, anybody encountered this problem?
That link showcased a lot of people having problems with their MBPs with or without the firmware update. I think it's a software/driver issue. I hope it doesn't happen to my MacBook. There were a couple of solutions offered so i saved them for future reference. Btw, viral, were you able to finally solve your problem? Sigh. I hope everyone finds a solution.