Macbook Air intermittent freezing problem

I have actually found out what is the problem(To a point). It has to do with the heat sink failing. I was given a case number and then told to take it to an apple store, which i was told everything was fine. I turned it on yesterday and fans whizzed at high intervals non stop. I called Tech Support and the fans still whizzed. I was told "This is normal. That is what your fan is supposed to do. Your Mac Air is fine!.... After hanging up the phone with Apple , 5 minutes later the machine shuts totally off (And i had the mac air plugged in the wall the whole time) as if i powered it down itself. I called apple again as i was rebooting. Then i surpassed the Tech Support and was handed over to "Product Specialist". I did the hardware test and still nothing (As requested by Product Specialist).I actually had to call apple back because i had gotten disconnected from the first product specialist.

I called back and described the problem and i was immediately told it was a heat sink failure and to send it back and they would send out a replacement.
If this one does not work then ill just cancel the mac book air and purchase a mac book pro. Seems to be too much hassle for the price that has been paid.
I do have a little bit of knowledge on how to find out the year and week your machine was produced though.
(The beginning of your serial)If your serial starts with w8-that would be the model number.
the second number in your serial will be the year that it was manufactured.
the third number in your serial would be the week it was produced.
So W8808
W8-Type of machine
8-The year
08-Week it was produced.

Message was edited by: iMacoo7

I don't believe that this is a hardware issue at all.
I've experienced the same thing when monitoring the cores.
My Air freezes mostly when I watch video in iTunes (especially if it is full screen), or if I watch videos while download more videos, or also when I have my Air connected to my 20" cinema display with my mighty mouse and keyboard. The mouse (and only the mouse) is very slow for less then 10 seconds, and then goes back to normal. These are all because of the same issue - I don't really see any proof that this is a hardware issue. APPLE - PLEASE FIX THIS!

As i just stated. My mac air was a heat sink problem. Which is being sent back to apple. As far as other problems people are having, i really cannot comment on them. I do know that if your mac book air suddenly shuts off, it is because the unit is trying to protect itself from burning inside out. That is what i was told by the highest level tech.

Hy, dudup.

Bom saber que tem um brazuca aqui, ainda que compartilhando problemas! 🙂

Well, the problem happens with any intensive CPU application. Video (encoding/decoding), external monitor, Google Earth, iTunes/QT hi-res video included.

I didn't know the Shift ControlOption trick. I'll try it right now and report here later.

Best,

I downloaded the update...no luck for me, non change, still same problem. I noticed that it really happens randomly, sometimes even when I am not at the computer, I come back and it is freezing. I noticed that if a program is not responding (mostly Safari, for no apparent reason), it starts to warm like crazy, until one of the two cores shuts down and starts to freeze. If I force the application to quit, it returns to normal (and cools down) in less than 10 seconds.

So...here is the question...should we all send it back or...shell we just wait?

By the way, I read that the 160GB HD version is on its way...mmm...well done Apple, we got an unusable MacBook, and by the time you fix our problems, there is already a newer version coming out...what are you going to do...giving us some coupons as for the iPhone? Well...Summer is getting close, maybe we can all get a portable complementart freezer to cool down our MacBookOven 🙂

cheers

Luigi

Hi,

as others reported you might have a hardware problem. I recommend you get in contact with Apple Support, explain them the situation and see if they exchange your MBA. I wouldn't want to send mine back.

Volker

Couldn't agree more. I really don't think it's worth the trouble.

Deny,

Finally the temperature dropped here in Sao Paulo. Tonight I did watched a full 7 minute flash video on www.gamespot.com (which is way higher resolution than youtube videos) and it did behave nicely: cpu usage grown a lot (buggy flash player fault), temps got high up to 80º, and the fans reached 5400 rpm (but not the top 6200).

2 minutes after the playback of the video, all went down to 2400 rpm and 51 degrees.

All that using a 20" 1680x1050 display.

I'm completely led to believe that a SMC reset is the trick to make it behave accordingly. At least this is the case here.

(Boa sorte, cara, e não desiste não. Sempre tem a Macfix pra resolver os nossos problemas aqui! :D)

Hi dudup!

Yeah... I did the SMC reset thing (shutdown > shift control+optionpower on > wait 5 seconds (no chord of heaven) > power on) and I think it did the trick. I can't assure 100% right now because, as you said, São Paulo is way colder than yesterday. I'll wait a few more days, try some heavy dutty tasks and watch the fan and temperature behaviour so I can say it has gone. I really hope it is! 🙂

Thanks a lot, dude!

Best,

Message was edited by: Deny Dias (BR)

Dude i would definitely send it back. Im sending mine back. They sent labels for me to print out and send back to them. I had a heat sink problem with mine. I hope you get everything working

This problems seems to be systemic to the MBA, I think something is going wrong in the production process. I returned my first one because the freezing was unbearable, and the replacement (received just a couple days ago) is exhibiting the same behavior. I think I am just going to give up on the MBA.

Well if the replacement comes that i receive is like the first one i will request a full refund. It does not make sense to keep jumping through loopholes. I think that 85% of the people on this forum that have had problems have accumulated at least 1 or 2 returns with the same or different major problems (meaning after the 3rd major problem then it is considered a lemon and Apple has to respect the bad lemon law).I really think that maybe they should have set a further release date or possibly bulked up a little bit of stock before re-leasing to the public. $1,800.00 - $3,000.00 is not a small chunk of change for a piece of equipment that cannot be enjoyed right out of the box.

hi, i'm having the same problem and my smc firmware is up to date...

after reading through all the post, i'm not sure what to do. should i rather...

...return my mba and hope that the new one works better? well, as some of you already mentioned, the problem seems to be still existing then, so i don't really tend to do that...

...or live with it and wait for a solution from apple and/or from adobe (maybe the upcoming flash player will work better)? this seems to be the only option that's left, but it's not really satisfying...

so has anyone found a better solution by now?

Hi,

I'm having the same problem too. I have managed to re-produce it pretty easily, depending on my time tomorrow, I'll call Apple and/or take it to an Apple store and see what my options are.

I wrote a small C app that runs the CPU in a busy loop, run it twice (once per core), then watch a movie. I keep the Activity Monitor running the whole time, showing CPU History (Command-3). When it starts both graphs are full to the top (as should be expected). After about 3 minutes, the bottom CPU graph goes to 0 -- No activity on the 2nd CPU -- and at the same time the movie starts to get choppy.

I've been using the Get Smart HD Trailer as my test: http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/getsmart/hd/ along with the sample code below.

It's a shame really, I like the Laptop, but at the same time -- It's far, far, far too slow on one Core.

Mark

busy wait app:
int main() {
int i;
while (1) { i++;}
}

Just thought I would add my voice to the chorus

I have a week 7 machine (if that is of any relevance) and under medium intensive processor operations the second core on the MBA will shutdown and the entire device becomes unusable.

This is totally unacceptable by any standard.