Randomly Turns Off

You need to contact apple and get a case number so they know the magnitude of machines affected. From my experience it only gets worse.

Nick

Check one of my prior posts in this thread, but I'd get on the horn and demand a new machine if it's been "repaired" and the same issue is happening. If they don't budge take the case up with the BBB, www.bbb.org - they'll look into your complaint for free and I've had prior success with them dealing with a different issue with another company.

Also, call your credit card and try to charge it back. Some premium cards will refund you within 90 days no matter what the reason and regardless of whether apple agrees to it or not.

I hope your situation will not be common since mine is in for service for this issue. If mine comes back repaired and is still broke I plan to ask apple nicely for a new one, and if not I'll call AMEX and tell them I don't want it and they'll refund me with their 90 day product return policy.

Nick

Count me in this group.

My Black MacBook info:

Machine Name: MacBook
Machine Model: MacBook1,1
CPU Type: Intel Core Duo
Number Of Cores: 2
CPU Speed: 2 GHz
L2 Cache (shared): 2 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB11.005F.B00
Serial Number: 4H6200U0VMN
SMC Version: 1.4f8
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

Just started happening today. 3 completely random shutdowns unrelated to temperature (standard idle temp is about 64 degrees C though). Extended hardware test showed no errors. Looks like I'll need to call Apple.

Black MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.7) 2 GB RAM, 100 GB hard drive

Finally I got to join the club. Same old story: 3 week old Blackbook 2ghz, 2 gigs of Kingston ram. Week 24 machine. Had a few random shutdowns, and as far as I can remember it was only on battery power. It did it again today, so I decided to try the PMU reset procedure...... BIG mistake. Now I can't even turn it on when it is on battery power. I barely hear the chime and then it shuts down (despite of a fully charged battery) When ac is plugged in, then it boots up fine. This leads me to believe that it is battery related. (I know this may not be the case with other people) It is not heat related though. Had it up to 183 degrees Fahrenheit and nothing happened. Before my PMU-reset I had it happen both immediately after boot-up, and wakeup from sleep-mode and after several hours of use. I'm gonna call Apple Care on monday and see if I can't get them to ship me a new battery. That way I can at least rule that out as a possibility. I'd really hate for it to be repaired. I don't wanna send it in unless I know they can fix it. In any case I'm gonna try and press for a new replacement.

I had a similar problem. I would press the power button and it would shut-off almost immediately. Every time. This happened about ten times. Then I got upset and just keep the power button down and it made a loud beep and then it powered up.

Oddly enough it hasn't shutdown since but I know thats just luck. It will die at some point.

So if it happens to you again try keeping the power button pressed until it starts up again.

my computer has been doing this as well -- the whole turn off thing, turn it on and its ok, no error messages. so i went to the apple store, as they were in the process of checking it-- it turned off, i was quite happy since it doesnt always turn off, needless to say they gave me a new laptop right there and then, took maybe 20 mins. This being my first mac i was happy with the tech guys.

First off, if you're hesitant about sending it in to Apple to repair, you need
to get it back to the store pronto before your 14 day warranty expires.

thanks for the advice!

its not 14 days yet, but since i bought my macbook in bangkok and not with apple directly, i expect them to send it to singapore for repairs instead of just replacing it.

they did the same before when they replaced the motherboard of my faulty ibook G4 as part of the 1 year warranty.

but i might try whenever i can get off work for a day and post results here

Hey Groff, How old was your MacBook that the guys at the store replaced ?
Thanks

Machine Name: MacBook
Machine Model: MacBook1,1
I've been reading this post every couple of days with increasing frustration since Apple has a lot of my money as a dedicated customer and a stockholder (who bought the stock at $85 a share......). My MacBook is 3 weeks old. I went for about a week and a half without a problem. Since then I've had random shut-offs almost everyday. These shut-offs are primarily cold machine shut-downs either while in the boot process or shortly after logging in after re-booting. I have not once experienced a shut down after the machine has been running for awhile and is warm. At that point, it appears to be able to run continuously, working constantly, without at problem.

This is my primary computer for work so like many, it is my life. As I've read the posts, I've tried the different fixes. I've reset the PMU and the PRAM a few times. I've deleted the istat widget (and any other extraneous ones). I've run the tech tool and checked everything on the hardware twice and it says there aren't any problems. I spent an hour on the phone with AppleCare and they did some diagnostics and reset the PRAM.

The Apple tech thought that it might be software related because I did a firewire "transfer" from my PowerBook to this Mac. He wanted me to do a wipe and a clean install of the OS if the problem kept happening. Since that is a big deal to do given the amount of software and data I am dealing with, I thought I would ask some questions to see if there is some commonality to indicate it might be a software incompatibiity problem from the PowerBook to the MacBook.

Are those of you experiencing this problem also running MacBooks that you done a firewire of your old settings and data from earlier generation Macs?

Are those of you experiencing this problem running some type of Windows/emulation program on your MacBook, i.e. BootCamp or Parallels? I'm running Parallels and Windows XP Professional.

Are those of you experiencing this problem all running "upgraded" MacBooks from the "stock" standard configurations that they are selling?

These are the specs on my MacBook:

CPU Type: Intel Core Duo
Number Of Cores: 2
CPU Speed: 2 GHz
L2 Cache (shared): 2 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB11.005F.B00
Serial Number: 4H6270FKVMN
SMC Version: 1.4f8
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

I'm looking for the threads of commonality to see if we can find a solution for all.

Forgive my grammar. After five shutdowns this morning, I've had it............

To Redxk8:

In short:

Bootcamp/XP - no
Extra ram - yes 2gb
Firewire transfer from old mac? - no

It has to be hardware related. When I'm on ac, then no problem. Disconnect the ac and it shuts down immediately. Very strange.... I have experienced both cold and hot shutdowns.

Uh oh. You have a week 27?

This is not a good sign, guys. Sort of kills the whole week 19-24 theory.

I've been suffering from the random shutdown issue for several weeks, I've been documenting roughly the progressive worsening of the problem, with pictures and videos, and setting it all up in a blog-ish site.

I called AppleCare and the ran me through the normal checkups which do not improve the problem at all.

I took my week 22 MacBook to the local AppleCare representative who asked for the logic board replacement and will let me know when it arrives to replace it in my MacBook.

So far I've been unable to reproduce the problem and I'm not sure it's heat related, although the computer gets insanely hot when it's hot.

I've had many shutdowns ones easy to restart with the NVRAM set upprocedure.

I even shut it down a few days ago, and took out the battery and when I did put the battery back and turned it on again it came up like it was on sleep mode (weird!).

When I get the logic board replacement I think I'll wait a few weeks before reporting back if it works cause the original problem took about 3-4 weeks to appear.

So for now just count me in.

Best,
Pedro

MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.7) ... I also own a 12" PowerBook G4

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I wonder how many people out there had their first few crashes and just think it's a fluke. They'll be showing up here sooner or later.

I hope next week is a REALLY productive week for the people at Apple incharge of figuring this stuff out. It could get really ugly.

(Last crash was last night watching Family Guy through Front Row...a first)

I also booted the MacBook from an Ubuntu Linux Live CD, it boots great but the shutdown problem also happens while on linux so I really doubt this is a software realted issue, unless it's a firmware bug.