jportnoy

Q: Mid-2013 Macbook Air screen goes black?

I just got my shiny new mid-2013 MBA (haswell 13" i5 256GB SSD 8GB RAM) and it's been rockstar (no WIFI problems). However, last night, when I was browing the web, the screen went black all of a sudden and wouldn't come back on. I had to press the power button (heard the fan shut off), and then press power again to make the system wake back up from sleep. Any ideas what caused this, and should I be concerned in the future?

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Jun 20, 2013 2:41 PM

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Q: Mid-2013 Macbook Air screen goes black?

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  • by yoganinja,

    yoganinja yoganinja Nov 18, 2013 1:51 PM in response to Jorasik89
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Nov 18, 2013 1:51 PM in response to Jorasik89

    In the mean time, just wait another second to wake your machine up AFTER the keyboard backlight is dark. Don't be so quick to swipe the trackpad.

  • by Jorasik89,

    Jorasik89 Jorasik89 Nov 18, 2013 1:59 PM in response to yoganinja
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iCloud
    Nov 18, 2013 1:59 PM in response to yoganinja

    Thank you for the advice. The problem with this has been that it occurs whenever I see the display dimming and swiping in attempt to prevent the screen from turning  off(as I am for example using the computer for reading but not doing any input). Obviously if I am too late I swipe in the moment when a hang is generated. I will try to see if following this advice prevents the problem from occuring and hope Apple to address this in timely manner.

  • by yoganinja,

    yoganinja yoganinja Nov 18, 2013 2:46 PM in response to Jorasik89
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Nov 18, 2013 2:46 PM in response to Jorasik89

    Exactly. That's why it keeps happening to so many people. It is our tendency to swipe it right then. Train yourself to be patient for an extra second. There is only a very short window of time that will make it freeze black...

  • by Jorasik89,

    Jorasik89 Jorasik89 Nov 19, 2013 6:20 AM in response to yoganinja
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    iCloud
    Nov 19, 2013 6:20 AM in response to yoganinja

    I just want to know if this is an issue that is being worked on. From what I can see it is a widespread problem and thus fixing it should be of very high priority for Apple.

  • by yoganinja,

    yoganinja yoganinja Nov 19, 2013 6:58 AM in response to Jorasik89
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Nov 19, 2013 6:58 AM in response to Jorasik89

    From what I can tell, they are working on it. My case has been escalated to the engineers, and they are asking me questions, so there is at least a dialog. My case manager says they usually have a fix in about three days, though it has already been longer than that since they received it. I'm hoping it won't be too much longer now. At least we have a work-around to avoid it in the mean time...

  • by mjconnor2,

    mjconnor2 mjconnor2 Nov 19, 2013 11:06 AM in response to jportnoy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 19, 2013 11:06 AM in response to jportnoy

    I am having similar issue on 2011 Mac Air - 1.6 Ghz, 4GB. Connected to External Samsung Monitor. External screen goes black. Returns with image in a few seconds. Laptop monitor unaffected. Doesn't seem to be related to any particular application.

     

    Symptoms started a few weeks ago. Increasing in frequency. Now happening 2 - 3 times an hour. Never had issue before. Only major change was installing Mavericks. Checked all cabeling. Wiggled all connections. Jostled monitor and laptop. Unable to reproduce through physical actions.

  • by mark1179,

    mark1179 mark1179 Nov 19, 2013 11:57 AM in response to jportnoy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 19, 2013 11:57 AM in response to jportnoy

    if this is related to sleep has anyone tried running caffeine application. I keep caffeine running both on battery and on power and the black out has never happened to me. my machine is about 3 weeks old. I dont wait for my machine to go to sleep i turn caffiene off and close the lid. I dont rely on it to shut off on its own. Im wondering if its because im using caffiene. try it and see if this cures your sanity. it has for me.

  • by melia29,

    melia29 melia29 Nov 22, 2013 4:42 AM in response to mark1179
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 22, 2013 4:42 AM in response to mark1179

    I took it to the apple store today. They couldn't duplicate the problem but they took it away for repairs. This details the parts that they intend to replace I think. Do you think this will fix the problem?

     

    http://postimg.org/image/fzmcif4yv/full/

  • by iba43,

    iba43 iba43 Nov 22, 2013 7:47 PM in response to jportnoy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 22, 2013 7:47 PM in response to jportnoy

    I have the same problem. It also happens much more frequently (or maybe exclusively) when running on battery.

    I'm in the middle of working on something and my screen goes black completely. Nothing makes it come back on: I try clicking with the mouse, tapping any key, even the on/off key, and I even tried closing the laptop and opening it again... but the only thing that will make it "come back to life" is forcing a shutdown/restart by holding down the off button. This is super annoying, especially because it's brand new!!!

    My computer is only 2 months old and it has been doing this since I bought around mid-september 2013. It is a 13-inch macbook air with 1.7GHz Dual-core intel i7 and 8GB 1600MHz of SDram.

     

    Anyone has gotten any official response from Apple about why this happens and if it's just a batch or if t's all macbook airs of this kind? What kind of solutions are there? I'd hate to have ot go into the store to get ti replaced (especially because I have already installed plenty of software that I need for work and school!).

     

    Advice/solutions would be greatly appreciated!

  • by yoganinja,

    yoganinja yoganinja Nov 22, 2013 8:05 PM in response to iba43
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Nov 22, 2013 8:05 PM in response to iba43

    Don't bother getting it replaced; they all do it, though they will replace it for you. Do take it in to the store and demonstrate how to reproduce the problem though. In the mean time, just don't try to prevent it from going to sleep by touching the trackpad or a key until after the screen has gone black for a couple seconds. Touching it while the keyboard backlight is still fading out is how you get it to lock up. Back up your system and take to an Apple Store and show them. Look at some of the previous posts or on this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5475679

  • by iba43,

    iba43 iba43 Nov 22, 2013 9:05 PM in response to yoganinja
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 22, 2013 9:05 PM in response to yoganinja

    oh, cool; thanks yoganinja!! I had no idea how it happened, I just thought it was completely random! I will go to the store then and see if I can get the brand new model that just came out or something and hopefully that will solve the problem!

    Because I don't think it's fair to pay the 1200USD+ that these machines cost and have a glitch like this one occur constantly... the reason I bought an apple is because they usually don't have any issues like these (as opposed ot PCs) and if they do usually apple fixes it without a problem... so I hope the meet my expectetations of good customer care they've seem to have in the past!

     

    In any case, thanks so much yoganinja, you rock!

  • by yoganinja,

    yoganinja yoganinja Nov 22, 2013 10:49 PM in response to iba43
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Nov 22, 2013 10:49 PM in response to iba43

    Unfortunately, you do have the brand new model, a mid-2013 MBA. Those are the ones that have this problem, as mine does. 11" or 13". If you go to the store, give them my case number, 524999600, as a cross reference, so they can't say yours is the first they've heard of. They are working on it, but no telling when or if they can fix it. The more peeps that report it, the bigger issue it will be for them. Also, let them know if you ever lose data from an unsaved document when it happens; that triggers a flag for them to bump it up in priority.

  • by RReady-11,

    RReady-11 RReady-11 Nov 22, 2013 11:28 PM in response to jportnoy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 22, 2013 11:28 PM in response to jportnoy

    After insisting at FNAC (I got my machine back - they said repaired, but wasn't) I was given a new MBA (really new, not that stuff they sell as recent modell but is one year old), and happily there is no more black screen issue.

    lucky. but apple is heavily loosing credibility for not clearing this.

  • by iba43,

    iba43 iba43 Nov 23, 2013 10:32 AM in response to RReady-11
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 23, 2013 10:32 AM in response to RReady-11

    cool! Good to know

  • by Halfplanetside,

    Halfplanetside Halfplanetside Nov 23, 2013 10:35 AM in response to jportnoy
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 23, 2013 10:35 AM in response to jportnoy

    yeah thats good

     

    have you charged it and maybe restarted it ???

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