Black Screen and Rainbow all day

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Level 1

0 points

Black Screen and Rainbow all day

I've been a macbook user since July...never had any problems before. Today I closed the lid of my macbook like I always do. When I came back, the desktop didn't come back but instead showed the black screen and rainbow wheel. I couldn't figure out what to do with it, so I unplugged the power hoping the computer would just die and I could reboot. No luck. I have had it unplugged for about 12 hours now and the same black screen is showing. The only change I made to my system preferences lately is that I added a password setting. Could this have something to do with it? I cannot wake up this computer for the life of me and it's really frustrating. (I'm not sure what my operating system is so I can't answer that question sorry!)

Thank you!

Macbook

Posted on Nov 23, 2008 8:06 PM

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Answer 1

kdd25

Level 2

255 points

Nov 24, 2008 6:43 AM in response to sammie12

I would push and hold the power button so it shuts down.
Restart it and see if you are getting anything unusual, it may possibly be your HD has crashed?! But don't worry we don't know this forsure.

If you're still experiencing issues, explain them in here, it may just be we need to do a safe boot or a disk utility!

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Answer 2

sammie12 Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 24, 2008 9:48 AM in response to kdd25

Thanks for the suggestion, but holding down the power button doesn't work. When the lid is up, the light that shows the power on ISN'T on. But when I close the lid, the power light flashes as if it's sleeping. I really hope my HD didn't crash. All I did was close the lid! I made an appointment with the Apple store so hopefully I can get it figured out today.

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Answer 3

Nov 24, 2008 10:33 AM in response to sammie12

You might have to wait a lot longer than 12 hours to completely run down the battery if the machine is in some kind of quasi-sleep mode.

Why don't you remove the battery?

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Answer 4

sammie12 Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 24, 2008 12:45 PM in response to Gregory Mcintire

A friend of mine suggested removing the battery, but what would that do for it? (sorry I am definitely not very tech savvy...but I appreciate all of the answers so far)

Message was edited by: sammie12

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Answer 5

Nov 24, 2008 9:19 PM in response to sammie12

Well you removed the power cord to remove power from the computer but that of course does not remove power as long as there is a charged battery in it. The charge may last a long time (days) in the quasi-sleep state as you have discovered.

It won't hurt a thing to remove the battery. Normally you never would remove both sources of power when the computer is running of course but in your case it is not really running, at least not correctly.

Remove power cord and battery. Press and hold the power button for at least 5 seconds. Replace power cord and battery and see if it will then boot up normally.

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Answer 6

sammie12 Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 25, 2008 9:23 PM in response to Gregory Mcintire

Thank you very much for your input, Gregory. I will definitely remember it in the future. It turns out that I am just an idiot...I brought it in to the Apple store and the Genius merely pushed my power button (which I did several times, actually) and some magic touch helped it turn on. I actually don't think I held it long enough, so I will remember the 5 second rule, thanks Gregory. The Genius checked my logs too and it all looked good. But I really appreciate everyone's input; if something worse should happen to my Macbook in the future, I will remember it. Thank you.

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