MBA 13 Mid 2013 crash Black screen

10.9.2 is officially released! Give it a try and see if it fixes the issue. I hope it does. 🙂

Seems to have fixed it for me. Interesting that they didn't mention this issue in the release notes.

John

Unfortunately 10.9.2 didn't resolve the issue for me. I installed the update at work, put my computer to sleep, and went on my way home.

About 2 hours later, pulled my 2013 mid MBA 13" out of my bag, opened it up to a black screen which required another hard reset in order to reboot.

Oh well.

Hi Kevin

You're not alone, others on our Fac ebook group still have problems.

You can't mask degrading hardware problems with a software patch but it appears to have had a positive affect for others.

My concern is that this won't last and the hardware will continue to degrade until everyone is in the same position as you.

Please search for MacBook Air sreen goes black on Fac ebook and help us get to the bottom of this whilst Apple try to get away with selling dodgy products to an unsuspecting, trusting public.

That's really sad. 😟

Are you able to reproduce the wake problem by holding ”cmd” and ”option/alt” keys and then pressing the power button (to make the computer go to sleep) and then immidiately attempting to wake it by pressing random keyboards on the keyboard?

I know that simpy pressing the power button when running OS X 10.9.2 doesn't put the computer to sleep any longer (one has to keep it held of about half a second), so the quickest way to put the computer to sleep should be by holding ”cmd” and ”option/alt” and pressing the power button.

It's also possible to hold down the power button for two seconds (and then release) to get the ”Restart, Sleep, Cancel, Shut Down” dialog.

It seems 10.9.2 fixed the issue for some.

Are we sure everyone is having the same issue?

Martin, I haven't tried to reproduce the issue intentionally and I'm in clam-shell mode right now, attached to a monitor, so I'd rather not disconnect everything.

All I know is that normal use (that is, using the laptop, and putting it asleep to immediately pick up work later on with "near instant-on", one of the touted features of the MacBook Air) is impacted greatly; I'd peg it at about 70-80% of the time.

The only saving grace, in my eyes, is that the saved-state of windows and files with Mavericks is so good that after I force restart, I generally can pick up right where I left off. If this were happening 3-4 years ago, there'd be no way that I still have this laptop in my possession.

Incidentally, when I first received this MacBook Air, the screen was very "blue", and it took an eventual full restoration, reset of PRAM and SMC, in order for the screen to behave correctly. Adjusting the color profiles in the display settings did nothing. In retrospect, that probably should have been a larger redflag for me then.

Once I figured out the 2 mechanisms that would reproduce the problem and I learned to not do them I resolved my issues with the black screen 100%. But you describe closing your lid and leaving it closed for 2 hours and then get the black screen. I found that it only happened to me if I immediatley opened my lid after closing it. Hence the "test" Martin suggests for my computer would give me a black screen. The other thing that would cause a black screen is if I hit the power buttom and simultaneously hit another key at the same time. That means Martin's suggestion would again cause me a black screen. I realized that when I had a black screen I also lit keyboard even with the clam shut. So I am curious if you have a lit keyboard with the clam shut? I would look inside the clam and see it was lit up and knew then I was going to get a black screen the next time I opened the lid no matter how long the lid was closed. So for me it was do not reopen immediately the clam after closing it. Hesitate a few seconds to allow the processor to go to sleep. And the other one was to avoid hitting the power key and another key (usually the delte or sound key due to their proxmitiy to the power key) at the same time. I continue to believe what is happening is the processor wants to sleep and if you immedately wake it up at the same time it freezes. But your issue sounds a bit different hence you may have a bad processor. But I would be curious if you have a lit keyboard when you have a black screen. And if you do then I would check everytime I closed the lid and look inside the clam to see if it is lit. If so then it does not matter whether you keep the lid closed 5 minutes or 5 hours you are going to get black screen. Now the real diaster would be if the keyboard stayed lit and you ran the battery down and the processor is stuck and it does not automatically shut down.

For me OS X 10.9.2 (13C64) resolved the issue.

I've tried the following for numerous times:

1. Close the lid and immediately open it,

2. Press the power button for half second and immediately press another button,

3. From Apple menu (top left) select Sleep and immediately press another button,

4. Press "cmd", "alt/option" & power button and immediately press another one.

All of them resulted to the expected normal wake up. Only in 1st occasion (lid reopening), in some of the tries, I had to wait 5-6 seconds for the password field to unstuck in order to type my password.

I don't know if there is still a hardware/processor issue, but at least now all my work will be secure every time I put or is putting itself to sleep.

Of course, the thing that they didn't mentioned the specific fix on their release notes, doesn't give me a full relief.

I hope this update will be a solution for everyone (at least for most of you).

Well I am essentially replying to myself but for a good reason. After downloading 10.9.2 I can no longer force my Mac Air to a black screen. Those things I had posted earlier that I had learned to avoid doing so I would not get a black screen no longer cause a black screen. So now when I hit the power key and any other key at the same time I get a "bonk" sound as in you cannot do this. I tried it multiple times on multiple keys. I also immediately bring it out of sleep over and over and over as fast as I can and it does not get stuck in the black screen. I also closed the lid and reopended immediately dozens of times and not one black screen. So for the moment it seems that this sucker is working. Now I gotta figure those who still have black screens might like Maritn sugggested "are we all having the same problems"? My guess is there is more than one reason causing the issue. Maybe the recent fix only worked on certain processers. I have a 1.3 GhZ and core i5 or maybe some processors are bad or maybe those with wireless keyboards still have a software issue?????

Yep. Just downloaded 10.9.2 - started some research for a graduate paper while my MBA was on battery (98% charged) and within 2 minutes the screen went black and it was unresponsive. Only way to get it running again was to hit the power button to reboot. This is EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING as I was really hoping the software upgrade would resolve this issue. I don't get the BSOD when the MBA is plugged in - but that is super inconvenient as I travel with the Macbook for classes and can't always plug it in everywhere I go. This is my first Apple computer and while I have always loved Apple products, this immense flaw makes me weary of purchasing something from Apple again.

Well, as the followers of this thread know, mine was fixed with the beta. It is still working as I demonstrated in the video I uploaded (http://videobam.com/iBWlh)

But I think our problem is not gone entirely. I wonder what Apple would say if those who still have the problem called Apple for it. In my last call, they told me that it's definitely a software problem which the engineers were working on a fix. Maybe this is not the fix we wait for.

Also, I still think that is a hardware problem covered/will be covered by a software workaround. Because the behaviour is still a little weird. Sometimes it just puts me to the desktop, sometimes it asks for password, sometimes if I open the lid, the screen stays off until I press a button, sometimes it is automatically open etc. Check the video.

"Of course, the thing that they didn't mentioned the specific fix on their release notes, doesn't give me a full relief."

There's mostly quite a lot that are omitted from the release notes, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

For example the 10.9.2 update brought us a new version of the Finder and an newer versions of the graphic card drivers (Kernel Extensions) in OS X. One welcome fix is that pre 10.9.2 the arrow cursor would occasionally change to the wait cursor (spinning beach ball) for no apparent reason (i.e. when doing non-CPU intensive tasks). This small distraction seems fixed in 10.9.2 and yet there was no notes about it.

On topic:

I'm sorry to hear some still have issues, but it seems that there's more than one kind of problem here since some seems to have the problem fixed after 10.9.2. I haven't got a MBA (2013) around right now, but when I do I'll give it a go.

This is the third time I've stated my situation, but I have never been able to force the BSOD by pushing a button right after sleeping. My problem came right out of the box. If my MBA sleeps for a little while (an hour or more) it sometimes will give me the BSOD upon wake. It's not very often, but it happens in all circumstances (plugged in, unplugged, sleep while open, sleep while closed, completely shut down.) It's not all the time, but it's really inconvenient. Especially when the display goes to sleep while watching a movie using a secondary display or playing itunes. It doesn't really seem to be a big deal for those who can recreate the problem, from my perspective, because all you have to do is wait a few more seconds before hitting a button and it seems like you would avoid this problem. My problem is unavoidable and there seems to be no fix in site, because 10.9.2 did not fix it. I'm not going to bother with a logic board replacement and all that, because it has not fixed it for anyone on this thread. Let me know your thoughts, peoples.

That sounds like it may not be the exact same issue (possibly a different root cause with the same result). I've *never* seen that problem on my MBA, and I routinely [everyday] have the machine in sleep mode for very long periods of time. The only BSOD I was ever able to reproduce ones were the ones where you quickly try to wake the machine immediately after it sleeps, and that specific issue at least seems to be fixed (I can't reproduce it since the 10.9.2 update).