mba-2012 freezes, ways to diagnost

Question

daavaa Author

Level 1

4 points

mba-2012 freezes, ways to diagnost

Hello all! Here is my situation:

- 13 inch mba 2012, i7 2.0, 8GB, 256GB

- lastest OS X with the lastest update available on this moment

- freezes from time to time. From time to time means 3-4 per month, or 1 per 2 month, randomly but not very often.

Characteristics of freezing:

- totaly, only restarting only using power button

- freezes in 98 windows style if such ajective is possible. Generally all sounds (music, system, video) hangs with a hickups. All other keeps being still. No mose move no nothing.

As for me it seems like hardware problem may be SSD or memory, but I have no idea how to investigate this kinda of issue.

I have a ligal US warranty but I'm a Ukrainian citizen and have no option for a official service. I probably could bring it to third party service center, but it is my only one laptop for work and entertaiment so, it is the last option that I'd prefer.

the question to the community is foollowing:

- does somebody have the same issues, especially on the same hardware?

- any ideas for diagnostic and investigation methods? how to parse logs?

- can I get some assistance from US apple tech support? (I have leagal warranty yet)

From my side I'm ready to give you all necessary information about this case. Hoping to get some help here 🙂

Cheers!

MacBook Air

Posted on Dec 17, 2013 6:53 AM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 17, 2013 2:21 PM in response to daavaa

MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

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Answer 2

daavaa Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 17, 2013 3:33 PM in response to Linc Davis

They say, that only 128 and 64 GB drives were affected, mine is 256 GB. I'll try to contact "Apple Technical Support" directly according to this, but I suppose I'll get a refuse. Thanks any way!

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Answer 3

daavaa Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 18, 2013 10:16 AM in response to daavaa

I bought it directly from apple.com, but as I have just checked I've ran out from Apple's 1-year limited warranty or AppleCare Protection Plan 😟 so no official warranty I guess.

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Answer 4

daavaa Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 19, 2013 3:09 AM in response to daavaa

Yesterday it happened again. I left it for a couple of minutes, after which it restarted automatically. I guess this was automatic restart after crash

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Answer 5

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 19, 2013 7:19 AM in response to daavaa

The hardware needs to be tested by an authorized service provider.

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Answer 6

daavaa Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 19, 2013 7:59 AM in response to Linc Davis

Thanks, but what I'm looking here — is the way to determinate the issue by my own, reding logs or something similar. But I guess you're right, but again I can't afford it right now, because I have to work on this laptop, and can't simply leave it at the service for a week or less 😟

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Answer 7

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 19, 2013 11:10 AM in response to daavaa

Apple Diagnostics or the Apple Hardware Test, though generally unreliable, will sometimes detect a fault. A negative test can't be depended on. Run the extended version of the test, if applicable.

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Answer 8

daavaa Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 13, 2014 8:01 AM in response to daavaa

Since that time, I have no any freeze yet, I did 3 times an advanced test, it was negative, quick one also. Thanks for the help. Currently I'm stuck and probably will wait till next freeze

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Answer 9

Apr 17, 2014 5:32 AM in response to daavaa

Your description fits my problem exactly.

MBP Retina, current OS.

I took it to Apple for diagnostics, and the genius ran hardware and disk checks and both came back okay.

She looked at the console log, and immediately said software. Wipe and reinstall.

I asked if there was something less drastic.

She brought up that Google Drive was a possible cause. I disabled that and got the freeze a week later.

I've started disabling/uninstalling other system-level add-ons like Box.com.

These are what else I have to try:

Dropbox

Monosnap

Flash

Chrome

I had suspected Chrome and/or Flash, but sometimes the crashes happened in iPhoto or other apps.

Looking at login items just now and see that Google Drive is still showing as sort of installed, with a blank icon and a yellow warning - "This item couldn't be found". Box helper is the same way. I'll kill those, too.

Other troubling detail. I had similar crashes on my iMac that I previously used, and Time-Machine migrated to the new MacBook. So, further support that it's something in the software I'm running.

The good news is that the SSD and speed of the MacBook boots again very quickly.

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Answer 10

daavaa Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 17, 2014 7:51 AM in response to Thomas Evers

Hi Thomas, thanks for that big note from you.

From my side I want to add that there was one or two freezes scinse my last message here. At one particuar time when my mba crashed, I checked the time, and after reboot began to read logs. And supprisingly I found nothing 😟 no logs according to that time or near it +/- 1-2 min when laptop got crashed.

So It seems to me that the probmlem with a hard drive, some failure that is so dramatic so can't be logged 🙂

I have a samsung branded ssd (256 GB). That's all that I can tell you about this problem.

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