Mid-2013 Macbook Air screen goes black?

It doesn't seem to happen much if at all when I'm plugged in with the AC adapter. It definitely happens more on battery. Has anyone else seen this?

I have set my screen saver to 10 mins and have a text to be dispayed; when I leave the MBA for 10 mins all that happens is the screen goes black and then I press the trackpad for the login screen. I would have thought the text would have been displayed. When I set it for 1 min after a min it displays the text on the screensaver no problem; has anybody faced this issue as well? if so how do I overcome this?

thanks

Sounds like you have the screen saver set for 10 minutes, and the "energy saver" display sleep option set for 10 minutes.

Try setting the screen saver for 5 minutes. Then you would see the screen saver for 5 min before the screen goes to sleep (turns black).

Yeah - I think mine happens most (if not all) on battery.

My wife and I are both experiencing this same issue on both our new 2013 Airs as well. We both did the same custom configuration of i7/8gb/512. While I've only had my screen black out and wake on the login screen, my wife has had both the black out to login screen and blackout that requires a full restart.

It looks that from previous posts in this thread the problem is affecting off the shelf models as well. Hopefully this means a firmware fix will take care of the issue.

I'm having the same problem with my new MB Air with the same custome config: 1.7 GHz i7, 8GB. Screen goes black every once in awhile and comes back a few seconds later.

I bought the same computer about 2 weeks ago and returned it after having these issues. The one they sent me in exchange is having the same problem!

Me too. I have the basic air - 1.3i5, 4GB RAM. Happened as a random one off last week, and then suddenly three times today. Each time when running on battery. No mouse pointer showing for me. I found that closing the lid for a bit seems to work, but clearly a macbook that cuts out in the middle of your work / presentation etc is somewhat sub-optimal. Posting here just to support the fact that this seems a bit more than an isolated occurence. Next stop Apple Support

Had a call with them today. We zapped the pram. Haven't had any recurrence yet but given how intermittent it was happening it's too early to call it resolved. Finger's crossed. If it hasn't happened again by the weekend I'll assume it's worked

They reset the PRAM on my first Air (the one I sent back) and it continued to happen.

FYI - that same Air had sound issues. The sound (on speakers only, never noticed it through the headphones, but I only had the computer for a week) would suddenly get quiet. It wouldn't go silent, just quieter, and would then go back to normal. Not sure if this is any way related to the screen going dark. So far, I haven't noticed that on the new one.

Apple called me. They want my laptop. So I'm going to an Apple Store Saturday to return my MBA and get a new one. I wouldn't be surpised if the new one does the same thing. I hope not though. I don't wanna do this every 3 weeks.

I just experienced the blackout to login screen again while right in the middle of working so I opened up system.log and copied this out. Not sure if someone is able to see anything useful from it, but I thought I would share:

MacBook-Air kernel[0]: AppleCamIn::handleWakeEvent_gated

MacBook-Air kernel[0]: AppleCamIn::acpiControlS2ChipPower - powerState=0, status = 0x0, result_value = 0x0

MacBook-Air.local airportd[2111]: _doAutoJoin: Already associated to “JG 5GHz”. Bailing on auto-join.

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Got user: ben

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Got ruser: ben

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Got service: screensaver

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in od_principal_for_user(): No authentication authority returned

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in od_principal_for_user(): failed: 7

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Failed to determine Kerberos principal name.

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Done cleanup3

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Kerberos 5 refuses you

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_acct_mgmt(): OpenDirectory - Membership cache TTL set to 1800.

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in od_record_check_pwpolicy(): retval: 0

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in od_record_attribute_create_cfstring(): returned 2 attributes for dsAttrTypeStandard:AuthenticationAuthority

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Establishing credentials

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Got user: ben

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Context initialised

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Got euid, egid: 501 20

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Done getpwnam()

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Done setegid() & seteuid()

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_setcred(): pam_sm_setcred: krb5 user ben doesn't have a principal

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Done cleanup3

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Done seteuid() & setegid()

MacBook-Air.local loginwindow[56]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Done cleanup4

Lets hope that the Apple engineers come up with a little neat update soon.

So, my MBA (i5, 8GB, 256GB) is going back to Apple - they have a new machine on order, but I thought I'd report another issue that I'm experiencing alongside the battery (auto sleep issue).

I'm having real trouble with Mail too - both on battery and power. Around 6 times per day, I'm getting the spinning wheel of death which no amount of patience seems to clear. It results in a forced close of Mail and then it's okay for an hour or so.

Is anyone else getting this issue, could it be related?