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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

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929 replies

Jul 28, 2013 6:57 AM in response to jportnoy

I too am having this problem with my customized 11" 8 Gig MacBook Air. I had this problem once, so I took the laptop back to Apple where I requested a new one since it was less than two weeks old. They customized me a new one and shipped it, and now I still have the same problem. Screen goes black randomly and won't come back for 3-4 seconds no matter what I do. Mouse doesn't work, keys don't work, nothing. I use Chrome for almost everything I do, but I can't say for sure that's the only thing I'm doing when it happens. I'm not wearing any jewelry that would interact with the magnet near the track pad, as was suggested by an Apple employee. I'm frustrated and not willing to return this one only to wait for another one to be shipped from China, so I'm hoping Apple will come up with an update that fixes this problem.

Jul 28, 2013 7:52 AM in response to minalee

I think this method of repro might be a clue to the solution:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5134424?start=0&tstart=0


Obviously, this happens somewhat right after getting out of a sleep, and there might be a mismatch somewhere around an internal clock.


If you wake this thing up within a certain timeframe after sleeps, you met this symptom. If you are lucky enough to avoid this timeframe whenever you wake up, you won't see any problem....


I just hope this is a software issue.

Jul 28, 2013 11:06 AM in response to jportnoy

This sleep issue reminds me with the slow wifi issue in some iPhone 5s when they were first introduced.


I bought my iPhone 5 from UK and traveled outside. After discovering the issue and how several others also have it I tried every suggestion to solve the problem but it didn't (even thou some had this issue fixed with the suggestions).


In my case and some others the only option was to replace the iPhone and get a new one from Apple.

Some of the people who did that received new ones with the same symptoms and for some of them it did take up to 4 exchanges to finally get rid of this issue.


As for me I didn't want to go through the process of shipping the phone to another country and so on.

But when iOS 7 was introduced, I updated my iPhone and noticed that this issue was finally gone :-).


Now the moral of this long story (excuse me for that) is to give you all hope that YES it might probably be a software issue and soon to be solved :-).


Jul 29, 2013 5:16 AM in response to Saeid

Yeah, I thought that way too, but if that was a software bug then it would have caused way more general turmoil among users as it would impact every single customers who recently bought the machines..

Too quiet just to assume it's only software issue.


Of course, Apple can fix the glitch by applying a bypass logic coded by software some day. 🙂

Jul 29, 2013 7:31 AM in response to jportnoy

I've had this occur 3 times. I have a 512GB SSD 8GB 13" 2013 Macbook Air. In all three cases, it was not plugged in. In the first two cases, I was using Parallels in Windows 7. In the third case not. In all three cases I was using an AT&T Beam USB 4g modem.


The beam is new and could be causing the issue, but I don't see anyone else talking about it here so I'm guessing not. In all cases, I look over, notice the display is dark and have to power it down manually and up before it comes to life.


Given that I was a week solving the wifi issue, I'm not very happy about this. Here we have a laptop designed as the ideal go along laptop and it has problems with wifi and sleep settings. I turned off all the sleep settings I could and am hoping I can hold on until Apple fixes this.

Jul 29, 2013 11:53 AM in response to jportnoy

Just for the record: I have the same/a similar problem with my week old 13" MacBook Air (base spec.).

Just seems to switch itself off (or at least the display....sometimes I hear the odd sound effect, e.g. calendar reminder) when the black screen occurs. Backlit keyboard also darkens at the same time. After about ten seconds of hitting keys/trackpad the keyboard and display spring to life.


Apple, please sort this. It is clearly a common problem.

Jul 29, 2013 1:32 PM in response to keribillen

I Had this same problem when I got my mid-2011 iMac. When I brought it home it worked for a day or two then I noticed it would go black for a few seconds then come back it had osx mouton lion. Also it would happen every day then also when I would play games online games would flash or I would go to twitter it would do the same thing. Called apple did resets did not work so I was told take it to the apple store get diagnostics test. Checked out fine then I tried to get it go black to show the guy but never happend. Showed the guy the others thing with twitter he saw that and said that's an adobe flash problem and can't be fixed. But said maby with a future update. Said he would keep it over night but I said never mind took it home and just sent it back and got new one now I don't expernce the black schreen but still flash with anything that runs flash. By the way I have 27 inch model.

Jul 29, 2013 2:15 PM in response to carbon_dragon

Since the crash this morning I turned off ALL the energy saving options and it hasn't crashed, but then that doesn't mean much. I have a feeling it's the energy saving settings though while on battery. I didn't have it when I was working the laptop steady at the car dealership waiting for my car. I was working every minute and that meant that the energy saving options didn't come up. At work I was letting it alone for a few minutes to longer and it crashed under those circumstances.


The bad part is Apple isn't owning up to the problem yet, are they? It'd be nice if the tech websites held their feet to the fire a bit more I think so they'd at least make a statement. These are pretty serious errors.

Jul 29, 2013 2:56 PM in response to MLeardo

same custom configuration here - seems to happen once a day or so. Usually shortly (withing 5 min) after waking the machine from sleep. I can get the screen back by pressing the trackpad. This has happened both on battery and wall power...



I plan to call apple tomorrow - I was thinking this was a SW problem - but not so sure now.

Mid-2013 Macbook Air screen goes black?

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