Randomly Turns Off

It is 4h619 I am going to call to get the case number and will post it, as I misplaced it.

Well I have a week 25 blackbook and it shuts off randomly. It differs from the videos of the problem that I have seen in that I can always turn it back on with one push of the power button. It happens randomly. Sometimes it will run for 8 hours and sometimes it will run for 20 minutes.

I've called Applecare 3 times and now they want me to use the computer in safemode to see if it turns off. If not, they want me to reinstall the whole OS. I can't do anything in safemode (no music, no videos, no games), so it's not stressing the system at all. I'm under the 14 day new purchase warranty and everytime I ask for a replacement they come up with something else for me to try.

My week 22 Blacbook is about one month old. I ordered it from the online store with an Apple installed 1GB RAM upgrade. It just started this earlier this week, the first time when I hit the save button on a NeoOffice 2 Alpha 4 (Intel version) spreadsheet I was working on. It shuts down randomly (completely turns off) - no multilingual kernel panic, it shuts off with absolutely no warning. This is my fourth Mac and I have never had a Mac shut down in such an ungraceful manner.

I thought this was related to the NeoOffice 2 Alpha 4 release but after removing the software the problem is still present.

I have cleaned up my computer and removed all third party software in trying to isolate the culprit. I also thought the problem may have been introduced with the 10.4.7 update. I noticed some have experienced this issue prior to the latest OS X update.

After googling this problem I came across a way to replicate the problem. All I have to do to crash my laptop is to open two (not one but two) terminal windows. I don't have to have any other applications running. These commands run up 100% cpu utilization. Two sessions are required, one for each cpu core. In each session run from the command line:

Yes > /dev /null

Within a brief moment my computer crashes as described.

I don't want to ship my laptop off yet for AppleCare. I want to make sure they determine the problem and refine the fix first. I am extremely dissappointed with this issue.

I am posting this information for others that may have recently experienced the same problem.

Hopefully a permanent fix is in the works.

Macbook (4H622) Mac OS X (10.4.7) 1GB Apple Installed RAM (Online Store)

After googling this problem I came across a way to
replicate the problem. All I have to do to crash my
laptop is to open two (not one but two) terminal
windows. I don't have to have any other applications
running. These commands run up 100% cpu utilization.
Two sessions are required, one for each cpu core. In
each session run from the command line:

Yes > /dev /null

Within a brief moment my computer crashes as
described.

I believe your problem is hardware related and you are going into thermal shutdown. I have an article on thermal problems here >>

How hot are your CPUs getting before it shuts down? If I run both my CPUs at 100%, mine hit around 92C with fans going like mad, but it does not shut down.

- Bmer
Mac Owners Support Group
Join Us @ MacOSG.com
ITMS: MacOSG Podcast
 An Apple User Group 

I am no longer able to recreate the problem. Intermittent? After shutting down several times after running the two simultaneous

Yes > /dev/null

commands, each in a seperate terminal window, it is no longer crashing. The machine ran for about half an hour without crashing. I am beginning to wonder if this problem is related to the speedit.kext file and the coreduotemp application and widget. Perhaps not as some people here may have never loaded the speedit application.

I am not sure of my recent temps as I removed all traces of the speedit/coreduotemp programs including the kext file.

The highest temp I ever seen since I have owned this machine is 90 degrees C.

After 5 shutdowns tonight. I cannot reproduce the problem. Unfortunately I ran Cocktail in Pilot mode and I believe it may have cleaned my log files as I don't see any record of the shutdown errors prior to 9 July. The program along with everything else has since been removed in trying to isolate the offending application if this is not hardware related (which it seems to be leaning toward)

Jul 9 19:47:30 localhost kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: -82
Jul 9 20:00:04 localhost kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: -82
Jul 9 21:52:10 localhost kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: -82
Jul 9 22:11:09 localhost kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: -82
Jul 9 22:16:55 localhost kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: -82

If it is a CPU/hardware problem, I wonder if a software or firmware fix can throttle the hardware to prevent the abrupt shutdowns?

Thank you and good luck to all.

Mine started doing it yesterday and I have had my MacBook since 5/24. It never did this prior to my installation of the 10.4.7 update.

Mine does start right back up and has stayed on. It did it 4 times yesterday and 3 today. A couple of times it was only on for a minute. Then I cut off all power including pulling out the battery and then it was okay for the time being.

I get the same -82 error.

What is the deal? Bad OS update. Apple needs to fix this.

I have talked to Apple Support on the phone and the guy thinks it is a logicboard problem. That has also been the word on these boards. Look into getting it replaced.

New firmware doesn't really help if you can't turn on the computer at all, though (as was my case). Hoepfully it will address it for those who can still turn their MacBooks on for a short while and download the update.

I don't think anyone has found a definitive way yet (it's random, so it is different for everyone). I know installing WoW made it crash for me, 3 times in a row, before it died entirely.

Don't put up with stall tactics, this is a widespread problem that they need to address. If you're within the window, I cannot stress this enough, return your machine and purchase another one. Else you will be stuck with a broken machine that you can't use, while they tell you to try all sorts of things.

I've been having the same problem as described by many others here. No problems for a couple weeks, then started getting intermittent shutoffs. The shutoffs have become more frequent over the last few days, to the point where I'm afraid to run a backup. I've documented my case as well as I could on a webpage.

http://nicwaller.com/macbook_issues/

Resetting the PMU did NOT help. I'll be reseating the RAM next, which is a pain.

See mine could not turn on at all, just like the one in the video, but when i took it in they took it in the back and made it turn on some how. The genius said if you can hear it doing anything at all when you hit the power button then its still good.

Ok I tried the terminal thing to kill it, it will only shut down if im running the duocore temp aplication at the same time. If i dont run that the fan start up just fine and its all good. However when the puter goes to sleep now after I have to restart the tunit. I never had this happen untill I took it in yesterday.

Hmmm...i'm having the same problem but not on the severity that some of you describe. I'm a 4H6255 model so a pretty new one. After looking at the log several times it seems to be that the previous shutdown reason is number 3...what this means i dont know but i would like to find out

I contacted a few mac pod casts to see what they say about this. Maybe get some airtime and get this addressed by apple