MacBook Air 2020 Crashes Unexpectedly

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Level 1

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MacBook Air 2020 Crashes Unexpectedly

Hi there!

I purchased a MacBook Air 2020 13 inch (dual core i3, 16GB memory) back in early May. Since then it has crashed about 8 times. I would be using it and it would just restart out of no where. I am thinking it may be because I am overloading it since it happens when I have a lot of apps opened at once. I usually have chrome, WhatsApp, Spotify, mail, messages, Microsoft word open on a regular basis. Would you say its too much?

It always occurs when I am using chrome as well, so I think chrome may be the culprit. I have a bad habit of leaving apps open and keeping a lot of tabs open on chrome as well. Yes, I can try to change my habits but I feel like a brand new MacBook should be able to handle the tasks I give it. I know chrome takes a lot of work to run but still... Its not like I am doing anything crazy like video editing.

Ive contacted apple a few times. The first time I contacted apple, it was by phone and they had me hard restart it. It didn't really help as it crashed again a few days later. I then contacted them again and brought it into the store. They kept it overnight to take a look at the hardware. They said that everything was working fine and that I should erase the disk and redownload macOS. Basically a fresh start. So I did that and it helped a while. (about 2 weeks without a crash). However, it crashed again today while I was watching a lecture on chrome.

Currently I stopped using chrome and am using safari to see if it would still crash. Its frustrating since I prefer chrome a lot more as I am very used to it.

Any advice will be appreciated! I plan to contact apple again but it is a bit hard to bring it into the store at the moment. Long story short, I purchased the Mac back home in Canada and now I am back in the states for school. I also don't have the box I purchased it in... What do?

Thank you in advance!!

MacBook Air

Posted on Jul 11, 2020 9:11 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Axel Foley

Level 10

148,260 points

Jul 12, 2020 10:18 AM in response to Yugo_

I find myself on the other shore of this stream. I believe this is a software related issue and especially if staying on Safari resolves it. The frequency of the crashes are too far apart. I believe that your assumption of an hardware issue may also be correct. I think we are rolling with a 50%-50% dice (Software vs Hardware). Unpredictable with what we already know.

Have you looked at the app ACTIVITY MONITOR to determine / examine all the background processes that are running? Also in System Preferences ➔ Users & Groups ➔ Login Items - Here you can see what is loaded at start up and then perform the difficult task of disabling one item at a time and rebooting to determine which app's elimination from loading at startup prevents the crashes. I know, this is difficult to nail because we cannot create the "crash" on demand.

Axel F.

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Answer 2

Axel Foley

Level 10

148,260 points

Jul 11, 2020 11:48 PM in response to Yugo_

Thanks for providing all the details in your post. I will try and respond in the same order as you have used to describe the issue.

I am basing my response with experience using my 2020 MacBook Air 8GB RAM i3 Processor (You have 8GB more RAM than I do).

I have the following apps open (Always) and they are Google Chrome with 8 tabs open
Contacts, Reminders and Calendar and Notes apps
MS Outlook, MS Excel with one document and MS Word with one document
WhatsApp and Messages
Photos app
At times I may have a MS Teams app or Zoom open along with the above but I shut this one down after use

My 2020 MacBook Air may occasionally bog down here and there however performs very well overall.

Chrome has never crashed my MacBook AIr. Actually my MacBook has not crashed yet however I do turn it OFF every 4 to 5 days. You may want to reinstall Chrome to check. You can also turn OFF Hardware Acceleration in Chrome and check to see if that helps. You are using Safari and that will be the true test to rule out Chrome.

Axel F.

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Answer 3

Yugo_ Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 12, 2020 9:26 AM in response to Axel Foley

Thank you for your response Axel F.

So it looks like you put on about the same amount of load on your MBA as I do but without the crashes. I do believe it may be a hardware issue even though apple had said it was working fine.

So far safari seems to be working fine but I would have to test it for at least a week to confirm that. Thank you for your suggestion though, I will try turning off the Hardware Acceleration in Chrome as well and see if that makes a difference. Regardless of whether or not this fixes it, it still bugs me that my unit may be faulty and I need to make accommodations to keep it running.

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MacBook Air 2020 Crashes Unexpectedly

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