Q: Mid-2013 Macbook Air screen goes black?

T Cappenberg wrote:

 

And what did you do next? Switch to Macbook Pro?

That's exactly what I did.

Ahem....that's what I did too :-). Gents it's made clearly now with all the documented incidences occurring with these Mba it's not worth  the headache. Sadly to say just jump ship and get the macbook pro 13" and you won't look back ever.

All of the same problems here! I am in the middle of trying to get a pro although they are being difficult about it. Hopefully when the woman from corporate calls back today they will let me give them more money and get the pro. At this point my 5 year old PC was more reliable for exams then my essentially brand new MBA. Fix the problem and stop selling people broken computers that don't work

So a senior advisor called me today from Apple telling me that Apple is aware about the issue and they are working on a Firmware fix for the problem. The only option for us now is to sit and wait. There are no replacements and no fixes of any kind as of now. SO sit and wait .

That is good news! I really don't want to return mine. I've been using the MacBook Pro for a long time and frankly i prefer the MacBook Air. So if they can do a firmware fix, that would be awesome.

I have an issue with macbook air 8GB/25GB screen going black. I read this thread and was skeptical of the shake method. But boy!!! to my wonder it works. Can the apple genius bar resolve this issue? Any known fix?

Not yet...reports of a firmware fix coming. Do you know what the three biggests lies are? The biggest has something todo with  ACA.

I think the easiest way to reproduce the problem is like this (REMEMBER this will most likely hang your computer requiering a forced restart, I don't take any responsibiblity for any trouble that might cause you):

1. Have the MacBook Air (Mid 2013) running with the display/lid open.

2. Hold down the ”cmd alt/option” keys and press the power key (this will cause the MacBook Air to enter sleep mode)…

3. …then immediately after pressing the above key combo, press random keys on the keyboard in an attempt to wake up the computer.

After the first or a few tries you should have a hanged MacBook Air, i.e. black screen and not responding to keyboard input.

I've noticed that it sometimes doesn't hang directly (still responding to keyboard input) but the screen stays black. After a while it seems it hangs, though. Can be that it restarts automatically (”because of a problem”) that you then can send to Apple.

Anyway, like has been said before, though: it seems Apple are aware of this and a Firmware fix will hopefully come out relatively soon to take care of it.

Apple have been aware of this since 2011 and continued to sell MBAs.

The issue is now affecting rMBPs as well.

I have zero confidence in Apple's ability to define the problem and if they can't do that, it will never be resolved.

I've just experienced this thing crashing out to black screen (with no energy saver options, and no typing/trackpad activity - literally just went black for no reason) in the middle of a product demonstration to some very important stakeholders. I've tried to make an appointment at my Apple store, but surprise surprise, there are no appointments available whatsover for the forseeable future. I have already lodged a formal complaint with Apple months ago, and did not receive a response - under my country's consumer law, their lack of response has left them open to a consumer dispute claim, and their faulty product means they are obligated to fully refund or replace the product if they cannot repair it. This weekend I will go to my Apple store, albeit without an appointment (I cannot find any reference to 'Genius appointments' as a requisite for consumer law enaction in our consumer law), and return the product. I will digitally record the entire transaction (yes I will inform the staff that they're on the record), and based on their actions, I will issue Apple with a summons through our Consumer Affairs and Fair Trading Tribunal, in addition to lodging a complaint with the Australian Consumer and Competion Commission asking them to investigate a mandatory recall (they are already watching Apple closely). I have lodged numerous support tickets, made several complaints, and have experienced the most unprofessional, discrespectful, and comptemptuous response from what has always been my favourite technology company. This is my second faulty Macbook Air in a row. My last one didn't last 9 months before its battery swelled up and pushed out the trackpad. Literally everybody I know who has a MBA is experiencing the black screen problem.

That should get their attention.

An update to add to the pile. Just off the phone to AppleCare and was passed to a senior support person. They gave me something along the lines of:

"Apple is aware of the issue. They require no futher evidence. It has been flagged as important. The internal document is referred to as 'Cannot wake from sleep MacBook Air mid-2013'. I'm very sorry."

I asked if the internal doc had a reference code but he wouldn't give that out.

The tone was along the lines of 'just wait for a software update'.

Thanks for the update. Lets hope it's sonner than later.

No known fix. Solution for many had been to switch to the MacBook Pro. However it seems we might get an update to resolve the issue.

The good thing is the problem is easy to reproduce (i.e. not random) and there are logs that gets created when it happens that can be analyzed. So hopefully the fix is not that far off.