Randomly Turns Off

Better be sweating indeed. College / Back-to-school market is a large target market for this machine. Apple should not take lightly the momentum of complaints (iPod Battery comes to mind). This random shutoff issue/flaw reported on this forum and on private complaint sites will impact sales of the Macbook.

I'm VERY pleased Apple gave me a new week 24 Macbook after my week 21 had randowm shutoffs. BUT, if any college student (or anyone really) asked me if they should buy a Macbook, I would say no, NOT UNTIL Apple has an official response / fix to this issue. Otherwise, it's a crapshoot and a ticking time bomb.

I agree. I wish I'd known of the complaint before I purchased my Macbook for college in the fall- although I still may have taken the gamble.

i did in fact power up by holding down the power button until the light started blinking at me and it made a loud beep. i find that after a shutdown, if i don't do that, then often it will shut down again before it even completely boots up. i'll try the "cold" test. thanks.

My macbook does this as well. I've had it for a while and as soon as I updated to the new version of the OS, it started. It never did this before the new update on the OS. I'm just hoping that another update can fix this.

Sure, no problem. I was wondering what is actually happening with the hardware when you hold the power button to turn it on. The closest thing I could find is that some macs initated a firmware upgrade from cd by doing this. It must bypass a hardware check that would normally cause a shutdown.

I liked it running at 1Ghz though. For simple browsing and email, the mac was still snappy and it ran a lot cooler and the battery life was up by 15 or so percent.

When my MacBook first developed the random sudden shutdown problem it was after updating to 10.4.7. However, even going back to a clean install of 10.4.6 did NOT stop it from recurring. Only a logic board replacement got the machine back to stable operation. Hopefully the "new" week 19 logic board does not develop the same fault.

IanMH,
Could you give us an update on how your new week 28 MacBook is running? Any shutdowns yet? How is the temp and genral overall performance compared to your previous machine? It would be good to hear from anyone else that has a week 28 machine, to see if the issue has finally been solved.

Just curious, how do you tell your new logic board is a
"week 19". For example, if you have a "week 19" machine, if
Apple replaced it with a new logic board, is it still a
"week 19" machine? I don't suppose the serial number of the
machine is changed, am I correct?

This started happening to me July 17th. Week 21
Macbook, 2 GB Ram. I can consistently recreate the
shutdown by running yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null
in a single terminal. My MB will shut down in about
45 seconds. I purchased this on June 2nd.

I will be visiting the Palo Alto store tomorrow, and
will let you know what happens.

MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.7)

MacBook
Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I went to the Palo Alto, CA Apple Store today, and when I discussed it with the Genius, he concurred immediately that this is probably hardware related. Nothing new there. He hadn't heard about the sudden reboots issue yet, but I did show him this thread. I'll be calling Apple Care to have them send me a box for service. Since this issue is still unanswered, I'm going to open a case with Apple Care, but I'm not going to send it in right away. I'll try to tough it out for another week in the probably vain hope that Apple will respond to this issue.



MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I did the same thing last week. I opened a case as reference to my problem but I wasn't about to send it back without a clear answer from apple that they found a fix.

I called back this past Monday and the support person told me that apple was doing captures on this problem (which I assume means that they are collecting failing machines to diagnose while I get a new one). After a few more minutes on hold he came back and told me that they ended the captures last week and a fix (he didn't say exactly what it was) had been developed and is being implemented. I sent it in then and now I'm waiting for parts. I checked and it's for a logic board.

White Macbook Mac OS X (10.4.7) 2.0GHz | 2GB RAM | 100GB 7200RPM HD

The MLB on my MacBook was replaced and System Profiler is showing the same original week 18 serial number.

Ok so I thought I would write a follow up regarding my visit to a Mac Genius Bar here in NJ today.

Just like all of you my MacBook started randomly shutting off. Maybe one to three times a day. I certainly don't have it as bad as some of you who can't keep the thing on long enough to backup.

As soon as I got there I referred the guy to this post and told him I had the famous "CrashBook" issue and that I wasn't alone. I told him I already did all the basic checks and that none of it worked. I asked him if he's heard of this before and he said with a smirk that Apple is aware of the issue and that there is a note on it in the system. I told him I didn't want to send it in for a replacement logic board because I'd just get a new one and in a few weeks it would all start again just like with most of you. He said that he recommended that I do nothing right now. He said to keep checking the boards and calling in every couple of weeks until they come up with a fix.

So my advice to all of you is to make as much noise about this as possible but don't send your machines away. It's not helping. There is a two week wait for the logic board and when you do get it nothing will be solved. But we really have to let Apple know that we are not happy.

I have already lost work due to these random crashes and I now have a policy in place that nothing important can go on this machine because it is unstable. I cannont work on this computer. It's merely for surfing the web. That is unacceptable. I have NEVER had a problem with Apple hardware before and I I'm sure they will fix this eventually. But it's up to us how quickly they resolve it.

So that's it. I'm typing this to all of you on my $1,500 "e-machine". Pretty insane. This needs to be fixed right away. I'm just going to keep calling in until I find out that they have a definite fix. I suggest you all do the same.

MacBook, G5 Dual 2.0 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

That's what I was trying to say. The customer support person and product support specialist I spoke with said a fix had been developed. I'm going to have to believe apple at some point. I do know that whatever the fix is, I'm going to be a beta tester for it. I don't think apple is going to announce anything formal until they see how this goes which could be who knows how long. It's useless to me anyway so I might as well send it in.

And don't call this thing an e-machine, it's an insult to the e-machine! I've never seen one that crashed this much 🙂

Great.

So my MB is currently waiting for a logicboard. And you're telling me that won't do anything?

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?

Hey mmike70! I'm sorry I somehow missed your post up there. That's great news that they said they have a fix. I got different info at the store but my guy didn't try to find out too many details. Please (and I know you will) post details when you get that sucker back. Thanks for "beta" testing. I'm sure everyone here will thank you too!!!

...especially if it's fixed. 🙂



MacBook, G5 Dual 2.0 Mac OS X (10.4.6)