Q: Mid-2013 Macbook Air screen goes black?

In my case, sometimes I'm working on my Macbook (mid 2013, 8 GB Ram, 500 Gb SSD), when the screen goes blank, but the computer does not go to sleep.  I mean, it remains active, but you cannot see anything on the screen.  If I plug a HDMI cable to a screen or TV, the content of the computer is visible and I can use the TV screen.  The funny thing is that if a turn the lights off and point a flashlight directly to the screen, I can notice the content of the screen...

Another funny thing is that after a few days, for no apparent reason, the screen lights came up again, and then, after another couple of months, it went blank again.

Now I work with my fingers crossed, hoping the my MB will not let me down again...in the middle of some important job...

have u managed to get it fixed? my MBA just started to went black screen today. i've tried Pram n SMC reset but didn't helped. now as i m type, the screen is back up n working again. wonder how long will it last...

I have had this happen to my MBA. And I got a brand new one and loaded from the back up of the old one and of course it is happening on the brand new one too. For me if I shake or turn it, it comes back on though I have to login again. Bizarre.

I have the same problem as well but I am using this computer for presentations in a theatre so when it goes out - it is a real problem.  I have noticed that both times this happened I was plugged into power however the computer was either 100% charged or very close to 100%.  Then at the same time the screen went black the charge light on the plug went from green to orange.  I tapped the touch pad several times, unplugged the power cord and an HDMI adapter going into our projector but nothing worked until I held down the power button for a long time.  Oddly enough the first time it happened I was presenting a PPT and when I switched over to the projector after the screen went dead on the Macbook Air - the projector was showing the presenter mode rather than the display that it should have been seeing.  Also it seemed that 1/2 of that screen was blacked out as well.  Looking forward to a fix for this.

While I'm not sure yet that this is a 100% fix, by upgrading to El Capitan 10.11.5 (15F34) and doing a thorough cleaning of my hard drive from large files, suspicious ones, that the problem seems to be gone. It happened on two different Macbook Air and Macbook Pro as well and the OS 10.11.3 was the common element.

I think I actually found the culprit and it was in my pocket. I got a new money clip that has a magnet in it a few weeks ago and that seems to be the missing link. Have something magnetic in your lap and have your Mac go black :-)

Thanks for the thought - but this has happened in various places including

on tables & desks where there were no magnets around.

Jeremy L Baker

Technical Director, Waxlax Center for the Performing Arts

Associate Chair Fine Arts Department

Saint Edward's School

1895 Saint Edward's Drive

Vero Beach, FL. 32963

772-492-2374

On Fri, May 27, 2016 at 7:13 PM, Apple Support Communities Updates <

So I was having this problem too with the screen just randomly going black while using it.  I took the MacBook Air into the Apple Store and they had it for a week and they said it was fixed.  When I went to pick it up at the Apple Store, the moment I touched it the screen went black right in front of the Apple Genius.  And that's where everything clicked for him, the problem wasn't the computer, it was the case.  The case is a leather sleeve that has magnets in it and if the magnet hits "The Sweet Spot" the computer goes to sleep.  This happens because there is a magnet in the display and when that hits "The Sweet Spot" on the body of the computer it thinks the lid is down and can go to sleep.  But in this situation the magnet wasn't on the display it was on the case.  The Genius also said magnets that people wear on their wrists can cause this too and that on some MacBook Pros "The Sweet Spot" is in a different spot.

I hope this helps some other people out there...

this was my issue.. on a Macbook 12" the spot is just between the left shift and Fn keys.. thanks!

I have been having this problem on and off for months.  Up until now the screen has come back after a few seconds in response to a mouse gesture or a key press. Sometimes it happens several times in a row. It seems to happen more often when the MBA is plugged into an external monitor. This morning several times the MBA screen went blank while the external monitor was still alive.  I tried force shutdown and restart.  I noticed that when it was restarting that the boot progress widget was very faintly visible. It looked like the machine booted fully but with the screen so dim it was completely unusable.

My current hypothesis is that what I saw this morning was different from previous incidents.  And may be the result of the MBA sitting on top of another magnetic case. I removed the case with the magnets and restarted and, for now at least, I seem to have a functional system.

I would be very interested to hear from a macOS engineer whether the system puts the screen into a very dim state, rather than an off state, in response to the case being closed.  If that is so then the problem that I saw today is more likely to be around handling case open/closed state rather than anything more serious.

It still does not explain why I get the repeated brief shutdowns on other occasions. It looks like it may be two separate problems.

ps. I just got another brief shutdown, only seconds after typing the last character, before hitting the reply button on this page. (****!)

I got the black screen of death, a few weeks ago, macbook pro 13" 2013, seems like a quality issue with the hardware, solder or tracks issue. i'm taking my mac to Genius bar this Friday, lets see what they say. Diagnostic check, carried out by myself, w/o Apple support, indicates VFD002...

Apparently, NOT COVERED IN WARRANTY, THEREFORE HEFTY BILL FOR ME ;-(

Please advise further.

thanks