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macbook air screen goes black

Hey. I bought a new MacBook Air 13" on December 20, 2011. I do like it a lot, but I have one big problem (its big to me!) and question -- about 3 times per week since purchasing the MacBook Air while working / typing on the MacBook Air, the screen just goes black fir NO apparent reason!! It is like the battery is suddenly totally OUT of any power! But, the battery has plenty of charge, and no command or other key stroke nor any other activity that should cause this black screen has been done.


NOTE: It seems to happen while I am in M.S. Word for Mac. It stays black for about 3 to 5 seconds, and then comes back on. No file is lost. My work is all still there, and it comes back on like nothing ever happened. But it is not NORMAL and I have never had this happen like this with any other computer I have had --MAc or Wndows.


Anyone have any ideas what causes thus? Thankd ahead of time for your time and help. BLT

Posted on Mar 28, 2012 2:09 PM

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87 replies

Aug 19, 2013 12:39 AM in response to Nipje

Just the opposite in fact. Statistically there are extremely FEW people with this happening, and of those, 90% or more appear to be related to the use of Chrome. As such the claim of "very big chance" is not only incorrect, but highly incorrect.


This is a board for those with problems, not for those for whom all is ok.


Nobody can draw skewed conclusions and conjecture upon something as an "issue" without statistical sampling and data


However anyone rightly so, coming to a board for those with problems and a problem of their own can falsely draw a connotative and incorrect conclusion to that end.


*Anyone in the Hospital waiting room for flu, and seeing 20 other people with the Flu, would, or could conclude "flu is rampant",...this board is exactly like a Hospital waiting room, and that must be taken into consideration, obviously.



Apple is on top of this for the limited folks who experience this, of that you can be sure. 😊



The silent majority who have an Air don't come here, have no idea about this, nor have heard of same, because everything for them is going fine. Such people, as meant nearly all Air users, have no impetus to come here, obviously so.

Aug 19, 2013 7:48 AM in response to PlotinusVeritas

PlotinusVeritas wrote:


Just the opposite in fact. Statistically there are extremely FEW people with this happening, and of those, 90% or more appear to be related to the use of Chrome. As such the claim of "very big chance" is not only incorrect, but highly incorrect.

If this is a software issue in OS X (as it is turning out to be, if you are following the othe thread), it would apply to all users alike, even if they have not reported it or ignored it or just not used their computer in a way that would have highlighted this problem. In that case the "Very big chance" would be an understatement, because the issue is guranteed to be present in your replacement unit also.

Aug 19, 2013 8:25 AM in response to calguy2123

As I have mentioned in my previous post this is a software issue. It is a problem with your user account. If you set up a clean user account or guest account the issue goes away, at least on my macbook air mid 2012.

Therefore unless you have tried duplicating the problem on your machine under the guest account, you should not be making comments here.


I am saying it is not a hardware issue on my machine. It is definitely SOFTWARE. When I did an erase and reinstall and set up my account from scratch I did not have the problem for a couple of weeks. Then suddenly it started happening again. It must be some combination of software or a particular program (someone mentioned Chrome, which I am going to remove) but it may be something as scurrelous as settings being corrupted as well. In any event this is how I duplicate my screen blackout problem:


Close the lid until the apple logo goes out (sleep mode), wait 5 seconds and reopen the lid and count 26 seconds. The screen blacks out for about 6 seconds and there is nothing you can do to wake it, keys are not functional. I can duplicate this everytime the same on my main user account. I did it for the apple genius, and he was ready to take it in and start replacing hardware. I then had the thought, oh lets try to duplicate it on the guest account. we logged out and back in under guest. The issue was gone. His conclusion. NOT hardware. End of story (and my appointment)

Aug 19, 2013 9:21 AM in response to Nipje

Nipje

I just can't make a decision. My two weeks already expired but i don't want to wait to long with contacting apple...


That decision is yours, contact Apple support and report your concerns and let them and yourself make a logical determination of a course of action.


calguy2123

it would apply to all users alike, In that case the "Very big chance" would be an understatement, because the issue is guaranteed to be present in your replacement unit also.


That is a very spurious conclusion. There is no empirical evidence to speak of “very big” regarding a handful of people out of countless 1000’s who own an Air and never experienced this much less heard of same.


It doesn’t “apply to all users alike” due to the fact that identical situations cant be quantified in replication due to a nearly limitless amount of variables, especially in any system which when interacting with 3rd party software in countless configurations causes a fault, as was the case with the volume fluctuation experienced by a small handful of people which has already been fixed with software.


Superficially one would conclude “if it is software, then since that software is identical on all computers, therefore it must apply to most if not all computers” but when it comes to computers the variables approach near infinity, especially when individuals customize their computers in countless ways and limitless variables are introduced when software X interacts with firmware Y, and on and on.


I have a 2013 Air and access to 2 others and my older 2012 Air. I have spent a good bit of time forcing a replication of blackout from sleep occurrence without success on all 4; Intently tried to force and replicate same,…no “luck”.


In fact the only websites that mention this occurrence are 3 sites that use this board, this site as its one and only source for talk upon same. If you have many onlookers peering in, and try to replicate same on an Air, and are completely unsuccessful, that should tell you a great deal.


Additionally a singular person in the other thread on this topic, who happened to have a bad reed sensor and posted a video, who could move his laptop physically and cause a black screen for a few seconds,….his specific hardware fault with one laptop was wrongfully superimposed and “run with” by others drawing spurious conclusions that comprised a fallacy:


“If A causes X, and we experience something that looks like X, then our fault must also be due to A”.

As was the case, the two are unquestionably unrelated. 😊


Peace

Oct 15, 2013 4:53 AM in response to gavin2311

I have had my new Macbook Air for a couple of months and I am experiencing the same thing.


A few secondds after wake it up from sleep and log in, the screen goes black. I can still see the cursor, but I can't make it wake up again until it decides to (usually after about a minute). It's doing it more and more frequently and I'm not sure whether to contact Apple about this...

macbook air screen goes black

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