Randomly Turns Off

To help bring widespread attention to this problem, and maybe make apple take notice, digg this article; http://digg.com/apple/AnotherMacBook_problem_Randomshutdowns

MacBook + iPod = 🙂 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Oh I sure will. This thread does move fast!

Apple support has treated me well so far but as this is my first mac, it's going to take some extra time to build my confidence in them again. I was expecting it to "just work" and not crash and all the other what I can only see as hyperbole that their multi-million dollar marketing got me hooked on. I know that this is the exception so we shall see how the repair goes.

My overall so far horrible experience with this issue and others:

As you can see, I have been dealing with this issues plus many others since first week of July. I tried everything possible to fix this issue, nothing worked. Resetting the PRAM, the PMU, complete reformat reinstall to factory, reseating of the RAM, nothing fixed this, nothing!!!

As a die hard Mac user I wanted nothing more than for this problem to be fixed easily. My experience with Macs has always been great, they never die!! I have an iMac, PowerBook 12" G4 and iBook 14" G3 all are fanstatic machines and still running great! However, the MacBook, is clearly a lemon. Not only is is randomly shutting off, the screen also has dark splotches all around the edge like ghosting or something, the fan never kicks on and it should just mooos and wheezes and the darn thing is yellowing. And, no my hands are not dirty, I am super anal about my iBook and MacBook and do no let anyone touch it without washing their hands. I just have a lemon of a MacBook.

I am also a Mac and PC tech and know my trade well. Technology is complex and sometimes PCs and Macs are defective or lemons. It happens, bad batches what have you. Many of us clearly appear to have a lemon, these systems are very faulity and Apple should recall them.

After much grief, I finally made the dreaded call to Apple Support. I have a made to order and cannot work to get it replaced through the stores. To make a long story short, all they say they will do is repair it. I do not want it repaired, there are way to many things wrong with it. It is a lemon. So, I was hung up on twice, yes twice. They spoke to me like I was an idiot and were extremely condescending. I was nothing but nice. I begged them to keep me happy, that I know from experience that I have a severly defective machine. Instead of making me happy, they hung up on me, not once, twice!!

I am so unhappy with the treatment I received and just devastated that Apple would treat a long time customer this way. What happened to customer is always right? What about honoring the lemon laws? Apple does not seem to care. They are leaving all of us hanging by trying to repair a serious hardware defect.

I am one unhappy Apple customer. They just made a $472 million dollar profit last quarter but they do not care to make the customers that made that happen for them happy.

I encourage all of you that have these issues to rise up and get what you deserve. A working MacBook without issues well worth the $1500+ you paid for it.

Your experience sounds bad. You have many options really if you want a new machine or refund. 1) Call your credit card company, many will investigate your claims and some, like AMEX or other "premium" cards offer a 90 day product protection and will refund you whether Apple agrees to it or not.

2) Try the BBB. www.bbb.org. You can submit your complaint to them. I have used them once when circuit city was screwing me over on a warranty plan I bought from them and the response was VERY effective, however not immediate. It took a couple of months.

If the company that sold it to you wont help, then you have really no other choice but to complain to organisations that will assist you.

Mine went out via DHL tonight for this issue. If it comes back and the issue continues I'll do the two things I just suggested to you in exactly the order listed.

Good luck!

Nick

What lemon laws apply to computers? Most of the info out there relates to vehicles ...
http://www.nationallemonlawcenter.com/

Add up all the productivity we've lost to this issue, we could have a real case on our hands.

Bottom line is, several people on this thread have had their computers outright replaced instead of repaired. Were they all within the 14-week replacement period? Was it something they said to the Apple rep? Just lucky?

Apple needs to ship us replacement units with an apology, take the broken ones back and refurb them on their own time, NOT OURS...

I sent mine in for this issue on 6/10, I bought 5/21. After some careful negotiation I convinced them to send me a new one on 6/30, they upgraded me to the black as well. I was probably one of the first people to send it in with this issue because it took the a long time to figure out what was wrong. At this point, they have probably found a fix to this problem and will take care of it.

UPDATE:

I got mine back from the genius bar yesterday; they said they could find any problems.

Today: After the return of the random shut-offs, my entire screen is now filled with multi-colored vertical lines (logic board, maybe?). Back to the genius bar! I'll try the SoHo store this time; maybe I'll have better luck.

As many have said before this is a heating issue, I have the following configuration:

Hardware Overview:

Machine Name: MacBook Pro 15"
Machine Model: MacBookPro1,1
CPU Type: Intel Core Duo
Number Of Cores: 2
CPU Speed: 2.16 GHz
L2 Cache (shared): 2 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP11.0055.B03
SMC Version: 1.2f10
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

This problem happen to me four times, and it was always when I tried to do something intensive (playing Quake IV or Doom III is a good example), at the beggining I did not take it seriously but one day while I was playing WoW (yes I do use the computer for fun ; ) the right fan started to do a ratttle like sound, and that was an unacceptable behaviour on my mac (specially if it interrupts my WoW session!). I called AppleCare (I did not buy the applecare warranty, and it must be clear that I have never and I shall never pay for this on a brand new computer), I explain to them my problem, they told me that what I was experiencing could be software related because the shut down was happening exclusivelly with Doom III. I hang up decided to prove them wrong, so I throw some tasks to my computer (as it was my belief that the shut down was caused by heat and usually more tasks mean more processing power which generates heat), I did open iMovie and applied some filters to a movie, iTunes was importing music, Xbench running on the back, copying a huge file from an external hard drive, updating my iPod, converting a file on Quicktime, downloading some stuff from the internet, compressing a folder (I was surprised how many things this computer could do at the same time without blinking) and then, I tried to play Quake IV ; ) - This was it, the computer immediatelly shut down - BINGO!!

I called AppleCare again and referenced my case number (this was given to me on the first call), then I update them with my recent experience (and bfore anyone asks, no they did not tell me that those were to much tasks for the computer), my call was forwarded to an apple technician (this was surprising for me, I thought that they did not have different levels of phone support), the technician asked me some additional questions and send me a nice app called "Capture Data". I was instructed to run the application on my computer. This little app - and cool BTW (it has an apple logo as an icon ; ), collects all your .log files and compress them into a .zip file. The technician also asked me to send him the file for reviewing. After he examined the contents of the file, he immediattely gave me a dispatch number. A day after I received a box to send the macbook pro back (prepaid shipping!), three days later I received my mac repaired (I did not have a single penny, since this is covered by the apple warranty - regular one, no sugar - that expires a year later of the date of purchase).

Since then my mac is working like a charm, no more noises, no more heat and therefore no more shut downs (by no more heat, I mean that I can now put my computer on my lap!). They did replace my motherboard, the fan assemblies (two) and the sensor cables. Everyone there that is having this problem should call apple care and complain, they will take care of it, nobody deserves to have this kind of problems with a new computer, especially if it is an apple.



MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7) 15" 2.16Ghz, 2Gb Ram, 120 Gb, 256VRAM and it rocks!

entire screen is now filled with multi-colored
vertical lines (logic board, maybe?).

1. Shut the computer off.

2. Restart holding the Option-Command-R-P keys down, wait for three "bongs" and release keys. MacBook should boot normal with no lines.

3. Next, open your System Preferences control panel and open "Displays" in there. Now change your current resolution setting to some other resolution and then switch it back to your current setting. Close preferences and reboot to test. It should keep rebooting normal without the lines.

- Bmer
Mac Owners Support Group
Join Us @ MacOSG.com
ITMS: MacOSG Podcast
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Guys, I am another unfortunate person being hit with these random shutdowns. But, I am definite that mine is not due to overheating or running too much applications. Till today, I had only 3 random shutdowns, all in the mornings as soon as I woke up my BlackBook from Sleep-Mode. I was running only firefox and thunderbird and the BlackBook turned off within 2 minutes of waking up. I had to press power button several times to turn it on. It was making CDROM sound but was not turning on, but after 6-7 attempts it did turn on. It ran fine whole day and I put it to sleep at night and when I woke it up in the morning it again turned off. I am now afraid of closing the lid for long time. Till now mine does not turns off randomly but only when I woke it up in the morning... may be it is getting angry with me for waking it up early in the morning 😟 anyways I am going to call apple care but will not be sending my BlackBook for repair as I am in between moving my house. So, I'll wait till apple announces a definite fix and I move into my new place.

mine (white 2GHz week 18 - using it since 5/31) started shutting down about a week ago (7/15?). it usually happens about 10 min after booting the system in the morning. once it is restarted with couple tries, the system stays on for the rest of the day.

CPU usage does not seem to matter in my case. it just happens...even when i am away from this thing. i reseated the RAM and pulled out HD once last night and after that it's been OK for about 24 hours. i'm also waiting for the definite fix from Apple.

Macbook 2GHz White Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I like wise have been having this problem. My MacBook is in the shop right now getting it's motherboard replaced (I hope) which may fix the problem (I hope). It stinks because I've wrapped my entire life and work into my mac. 🙂 I've had withdrawl for the past 2 weeks. (heavy breathing)

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.

Sounds like you are speaking to the call centre in India whose staff work to a script.

Make sure your Applecare calls have been logged. Take it to a Genius Bar at your local Apple store and insist on it being replaced.

Add me to the list. Week 21 white MacBook, 1 GB Ram. First shutdown happened yesterday, in the morning, cold computer. Then all day no problem. This morning again, 2 shutdowns.

To me it seems like some kind of contact problem on the mainboard, where the heating up seems to "fix" something.

I'll Probably call Apple Support on Monday; maybe i'll wait some days more until they really know the problem.

Just don't want to send in my MacBook, 'cause otherwise it's a beautiful and fun machine.

You can add me to the list of affected people also.

I have a week 21 Black Macbook with 2gig of ram that I purchased on May 26th. It ran like a champ until Wednesday of this week. Then I had it shut-down on me a few times.

One time it shut-down while it was still in the early stages of boot-up. There wasn't even anything on the display yet.

I called Apple support today. They opened a case # and had me reset the pmu. They said if that didn't work I should re-install the OS and if that doesn't work call them back.

The pmu reset didn't work, so now I have to decide if I really want to wipe my OS and start over or if I should just wait and see what happens here.

It is frustrating because I know those things will probably not work based on the experiences of others here but it felt they had no idea what was going on.

I know some people say not to buy the first releases of Apple products, but this is really crazy. The last few years I have been a pretty loyal Apple user but I am getting tired of the problems I am having with their equipment, my intel iMac came with a miss-allined CD slot.

Hopefully they will figure out what is going on here. I suspect it has something to do with how long you use the machine. I am betting that even the folks that have their logic boards replaced will end up with the same problems a few weeks, or months, after they get their machines back.