Macbook Air intermittent freezing problem

I am having the exact same problem with a new MacBook Air. The video will run flawlessly for about the first 5 minutes, but then it will start to freeze the system intermittently.

I'm having the same problem and I have 10.5.2 and I have the SSD drive, so I should have the fastest possible, and most up to date Air system. I've noticed this happens usually when I am downloading content off of iTunes, but it does happen (though not as much), when I'm not downloading anything. Besides downloading I've also noticed if I have it in anything larger then the original size - i.e. double size, or full screen it happens to almost every video I play. I watch a TON of podcasts, and some I watch on my iPhone, but many I watch at the end of my work day in my home office. It is completely annoying.

I've also tried to use iMovie yesterday, and it crashed every time I tried to use the iSight to record. I had to use my Macbook pro instead to get the job done. It seems it has a tough time processing video.

If anyone has a fix, or if Apple if you are reading this thread - please find a fix for this ASAP.

I have the exact same problem, it seems to get alot worse if i use any device in the usb-port!

I can't verify 100% if this helped, but I tried xslimmer which reduces space needed by bloated programs, and sometimes makes them run faster. I've noticed that since I used this program iTunes has run much faster, and iMovie didn't crash. It's only $11 so it doesn't hurt to try it - let me know if anyone experiences the same results. I am still getting freezing, but not as much as before. I don't know if these two are related or not.

No offense, but this isn't likely. All xslimmer and things like it do is remove unused code resources like PPC code on an Intel Mac. This will reduce disk space but it won't run any faster. It's removing code not being used. Removing unused code won't make any program faster.

Same issue here on a brand new MBA 1.6 (HDD) running 10.5.2.

This looks very much like heat issue. Unpredictable behavior in a notebook is commonly caused when the machine is running too hot.

When iTunes begins to stutter (and the entire OS), I find cooling down the machine eliminates all problems.

This reminds me very much of issues I had with early MacBook Pro models (motherboard upgrade/replacement was necessary to address some issues).

Are there people out there that simply never experience these intermittent "stutters"?

I would have to say I'm not seeing any stutters. I can play a movie (mp4 ripped from a DVD) fine. The fan does come on full speed after a while, but it seems to play fine. Maybe someone is doing something more extreme to get stutters but I don't see anything like this just by playing a movie.

I've also played DVDs from the external Superdrive and those play fine. But that's probably not nearly as taxing on the CPU for heat.

I'm having the same problem, but i noticed that it usually happens after I'm using Firefox or Safari for a few minutes

IT's SO ANNOYING

It's like first the computer is running fine and then it's slows to a crawl

Same problem here. I called Apple Customer Service in Italy, they said they knew about the problem, asked me to run some "resetting" sequences, but the problem is still there. I really think it is a "overheating" problem, it only happens when running heavy applications, like video playback or video chatting (skype). I noticed that if you don't touch it for 1-2 minutes, and you let it cool down, it starts working normally again. I REALLY hope they find a way to fix this, because it is IMPOSSIBLE to work this way...

I did run some more tests. Indeed it is an "overheating" problem. The worst part of the story is that I checked on another MacBook Air of a colleague, and it is the same! If you run 3-4 applications, and play a youtube video and/or use skype for video conferencing, the temperature rises to about 90 °C, and it starts freezing. I called Apple Italy again, they told me to send it back, but I will wait until the real problem surfaces (I am worried it is a generalized problem).

Well - correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't this mean that this would not be solved in a software update? If it can be solved with software then I'm quite happy because I know that Apple will do fairly quickly if it is a known issue.

YES i am having this same problem ... very irritating. i have istats menu running and i notice it happens when there is a peak in cpu activity. funny thing is it can peak only in one core and the other core is free.

when i check activity monitor, i cant really pin point which is causing the problem. i suspect it is the a kernal_task.

also trying to see if it happens on video only or in other occasions. cannot find a definite trend yet.
but it is very irritating and severely limits the productivity. i actually sold my first gen macbook pro for the mba. was ok with all the lower specs, but the intermittent freezing is really bad. it does not happen on the mac mini, mbp or mb as far as i can tell.

Same behaviour here with my MacBook Air running 10.5.2.

1 - Turn it on
2 - Log in
3 - Open Safari (or Firefox, whatever)
4 - Open a YouTube video
5 - Play (and wait) for five minutes
6 - Frezze > 10s > Unfreeze > 10s > Freeze.

Things seens a bit worst to me because I'm in Brazil, São Paulo. This means 86º F in a ordinary day.

Didn't tried with QuickTime, DVD or something else.

My machine serial number say it was produced on the 2nd week of January. (To check yours, go to http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html)

Best,

I've made some measures here.

After watch around 4 minutes of any YouTube content, the behaviour starts to show up. The "magic" number seems to be around the 163º F (73º C). When MBA goes beyond this temperature, the CPU bar graph of Acitivity Monitor show a slow down on core #2 (right one on the graph) while the core #1 raises up to the top. A this moment, the system starts to glitch. After a few seconds (2 or 3), the core #2 back get to work, the core #1 slow down and the system resume its normal operations. If you let it playing the video for another half minute, the temperature keep raising to the 167º F (75º C) and them it freeze. After that, you have 10 seconds of a working system, then 10 seconds of total freeze and so on, but only with core #1 while core #2 seens to be shut off. If you then pause the video, in about 3 minutes everything get back to its normality.

During the above test, the fan started at around 2500 rpm and after the video started to play, it reached 6220 rpm. Even after I stopped the video it kept running that fast. Now I'm 131º F (55º C) and it still runing at 6200 rpm. The temperature top was 178ºF (81º C).

Weirdo! Clearly seems to be an overheating issue.

Best,

Message was edited by: Deny Dias (BR)

Hi,

maybe something is wrong with your MBA or how you have set it up on your table (or wherever). I did your test (in a similar way) by coincidence, I had Spotlight indexer running. CPU temp rose up to 80° C (84°C max) and the fan went higher and higher, but, but, it managed to cool the CPU down to around 73°C quickly while blowing at 6000 rpm. All the time I was using the MBA without any lagging. I managed to surf, I had the initial TimeMachine Backup running... so I would suggest yours might be defective?

Volker

P.S.: My MBA is still sitting on a normal, wooden table.