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Mid-2013 Macbook Air screen goes black?

I just got my shiny new mid-2013 MBA (haswell 13" i5 256GB SSD 8GB RAM) and it's been rockstar (no WIFI problems). However, last night, when I was browing the web, the screen went black all of a sudden and wouldn't come back on. I had to press the power button (heard the fan shut off), and then press power again to make the system wake back up from sleep. Any ideas what caused this, and should I be concerned in the future?

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Jun 20, 2013 2:41 PM

Reply
929 replies

Aug 25, 2013 5:35 AM in response to Bilal414

I was experiencing for several days the same issues, believing I had touched the power button.

Now RoeeGold's procedure (see above) helped me out! thanks a lot for posting this!

(Hope solution will last ...)


I was suggested to restore the energy saver defaults, and then to reset the SMC by doing these steps:

  1. Shut down the computer.
  2. Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
  3. On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
  4. Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
  5. Press the power button to turn on the computer.
    The LED on the MagSafe power adapter color changes states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC!

romano

Aug 25, 2013 5:56 AM in response to RoeeGold

Thanks a lot for posting this!

I was experiencing for several days the same issues, believing I had touched the power button.

Now RoeeGold's procedure (see above) helped me out!

(Hope solution will last ...)


I was suggested to restore the energy saver defaults, and then to reset the SMC by doing these steps:

  1. Shut down the computer.
  2. Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
  3. On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
  4. Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
  5. Press the power button to turn on the computer.
    The LED on the MagSafe power adapter color changes states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC!

romano

Aug 25, 2013 6:32 AM in response to kcbean

Sorry about the delay in response apple discussions was not working. Yes those options are working perfectly with me.

This message is for kcbean

kcbean
Run your updates and do the settings I told you . I have had no black screen outs ever.


🙂


I am telling you in order to figure this one out ( black screen ) I went through 5 Macbook Air ( the joys of owning my own retail store where i can play around with products ) is always the best way to get experience .


I did sell the MBA to clients but I made the changes and so far no returns / complains


as for my own personal MBA since i did the settings no issues.

Aug 25, 2013 8:42 PM in response to x.afi

Not sure why there are so many double/triple posts but I had this issue with my first purchase of Macbook Airs, and turned to Apple Care for support, but they told me to do the SMC/PRAM resets which didn't help so I just returned and bought another one. I have not encountered any issues with this one so far but I haven't used it much (have installed Chrome though) so am still kinda waiting nervously to see if the problem will arise again. The 10.8.5 update seems to fix it (for some, and then not for others) but it's just really frustrating to see that a handful of people experienced the same issues (some past their 2 week return period) and Apple not really addressing it...

Aug 25, 2013 9:20 PM in response to tinymonkeyt

The double posts is due to the discussion outage that took place so messages have been re-posted through cache.


- The moderator mite clean them up later on.


> The issue to avoid the black screen as if your MBA went into sleep but has not can be fixed with the following steps.


Go into > Settings > Energy Saver


Change display sleep from 2 min to 10 ~ 15 mins


This will not confuse the MBA to a) dim the laptop b) close the lcd c ) go to sleep instead


a) dim the laptop on power
b) turn the lcd off after 10 ~ 15 mins
c) go into sleep after 20 mins of non actiivity * idle only *


Hope this helps.

Aug 28, 2013 1:37 PM in response to x.afi

These settings are not helping the situation. Screen still goes black.


It happens when i woke up the laptop and don't sign in, screen goes black (it's normal in this situatian), after i woke it up again and sign in, it will go black after 15-30 sec of use (not normal).

Other situation when it will hapen is when I have external monitor plugged in and I take it off and screen goes black after about 30 sec of use.


My laptop is Macbook Air 11, i7, 8 gigs of ram and 256ssd.


Sorry for my english, it is not my first language.

Aug 30, 2013 4:58 AM in response to PlotinusVeritas

PlotinusVeritas wrote:


90% of these posts are related to the use of Chrome.


Of the countless 1000s who have the new Air nearly all have never heard of this much less experienced same.



You should not make false assumptions about anything being an "issue" on a board where people who ONLY have a problem come for resolution. 😊

You too are making a false assumption that there is no issue. People come to the board when they have a problem. How does it matter if 1000s of other people did not face it? Maybe they did and ignored. I too didn't care much about it, initially.

It's for apple to investigate if this is caused by hardware, os, chrome or whatever.

Sep 1, 2013 12:59 PM in response to jportnoy

Problem still remains.

And it is NOT related to CHROME or any other specific app.

It happens in just ANY app, always TYPING ...


Tried the start- alt-ctrl-trick (RoeeGold's procedure). Seemed to work, but not long.

Neither the power-saving-settings in system...

Seems to me, that it could be related to power supply, behaves strangely too.

I WANT THIS PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED - or Apple to take my MBA 13" back.

Never happened when MBA was connected to AC-power, ONLY when using battery!

Mid-2013 Macbook Air screen goes black?

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