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Freezing Display

When I am watching youtube videos on my Macbook Air Mid.2012 with Catalina, sometimes the display freezes with random colors and repeated sounds accompanying it. Only a forced stopping and rebooting solves the issue. This has started happening few months back. I have no way to know whether it is a hardware or software issue. Has anybody experienced such a problem? Any ideas or solutions please?

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 27, 2020 9:49 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 27, 2020 12:49 PM

You may contact an Apple store or apple authorized service to have an inspection and initial testing done.


The issue may be hardware, so that includes what their 'genius' category helps with. Official Apple stores

usually check these kinds of things without charge, depending on your location. Portable devices may also

be sent in if you're too far away; and have another mac to use. Before shipping, note there are procedures.


• Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

https://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/


You may seek options and additional info from official Locations; this contains links to more:


Apple - Find Locations:

https://locate.apple.com/


Depending where you live (country etc) these Location options may vary.

For more country/regions, see other Global locations here:


Apple - Find Locations - Locations Selector:

https://locate.apple.com/findlocations



3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 27, 2020 12:49 PM in response to mgoksoy

You may contact an Apple store or apple authorized service to have an inspection and initial testing done.


The issue may be hardware, so that includes what their 'genius' category helps with. Official Apple stores

usually check these kinds of things without charge, depending on your location. Portable devices may also

be sent in if you're too far away; and have another mac to use. Before shipping, note there are procedures.


• Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

https://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/


You may seek options and additional info from official Locations; this contains links to more:


Apple - Find Locations:

https://locate.apple.com/


Depending where you live (country etc) these Location options may vary.

For more country/regions, see other Global locations here:


Apple - Find Locations - Locations Selector:

https://locate.apple.com/findlocations



Feb 2, 2020 11:34 AM in response to mgoksoy

Some users with what appears to be marginal hardware support in macOS Catalina 10.15.+

were able to revert to the more stable macOS Mojave 10.14.6; perhaps try not to run the

problematic software at all. This would be seen as a test; while proofs of this nature may

be seen as factual evidence, if you have an earlier system that worked well prior to 10.15.+


There are problems with troubleshooting the newer system, which does nor provide access

to kernel and other now 'read-only' or 'write-only' files that were available in earlier macOS.


Usually the hardware tests at official Apple support can give some indications; while a Mac

may not be run long enough to actually know the cause. In former versions, System Logs

were able to provide some help in diagnostics. Different paths exist to test hardware now.


There is an Apple hardware/diagnostic test, that can be self-run; version varies with build-

year of Mac hardware in question. ~ An end-user may not fully know what results mean.

(..A former test appears to no longer work for Catalina: to 'Log a Kernel Panic'..)


Hardware designed/built before 2013 uses Apple Hardware Test after that date, uses Apple

Diagnostics. • Finding Hardware Faults: Exploring AHT & Apple Diagnostics | tutsplus


• How to use Apple Hardware Test on your Mac - Apple Support

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257


• How to use Apple Diagnostics on your Mac - Apple Support

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731


Apple Support can run more thorough hardware tests in their repair facilities. Later Mac

systems configurations have certain advantage over prior builds; I'd consider reversion

to Mojave 10.14.6 to see if that will play better overall.




Freezing Display

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