For those that have sent their MacBooks for Repair (Randon Shutdown)
It seems unfortunantly that many of us are sending are MacBooks in to deal with this random shutdown problem, so I thought it might be usefull if those that have sent their's in could post what parts were replaced and if it was succesfull or not. Thanks
There's a logic board on backorder for the black MacBook. Hard to tell when it will be back ...... they aren't doing the heatsink on this one. We'll see how it goes.
it broke again.. i had to send it in for another repair.
Not only did it break again, but it came back missing a screw and with a big dent in the battery.
i still love apple, but i'm definitely angry with this situation. I just want a new one now - hopefully i'll be able to work it out.
ps. the genious said that the random shut down problems were due to improper insulation with the top casing.
well...mine is still in the repair facility (authorized repair depot here in calgary).
here's my update:
August 14th - finally took it in as it had been shutting down for over a month.
August 16th - got it back having on the PMU reset!
August 16th - still random shutdowns
August 17th - took it back
August 23rd - apparently they don't know what it is (here in calgary), so they were going to send it to Apple.
August 24th - called back today to say that they cannot send it to Apple, but all the parts are ordered and are being sent. the kicker is that the parts are now BACKORDERED! maybe a week until they get them they said, but more likely longer. so i'm going to pick it up so that at least i have something to use for the next however many more weeks!
Just spent a couple of hours on the phone running some diagnostics.
2 things that we did that seemed to have fixed my shutdown issue:
1) Shut down. Restart and immediately after pressing power on, hold down the apple, option, P, and R keys and after hearing the 2nd tone, release. This clears the P Ram.
2) Change the display resolution from 1280X800 to 1152X720 and then back to 1280X800.
These have eliminated my problems. Big up to Paul at Apple where the other Apple "Geniuses" failed to help.
i think if zapping your PRAM and changing your resolution is all you had to do to fix your shutdown issue, then you didn't have the shutdown issue. that has been tried endlessly by people with no success...the problem is NOT software, it is hardware (hence the replacing of parts).
After 2 months of working perfectly, my Blackbook developed the "Random shutdown" issue. Started about 2 weeks ago. After being asleep all night, I opened it up for my morning newsreading. A couple minutes later, it lost power.
Turned it back on, got as far as the login screen, and it lost pwer again. From that point, it simply wouldn't come up, dying right after the boot chime.
Reset the PMU, and it came up fine. Worked fine all day, and well into the night. Put it to sleep. Next morning, the shutdown occured again. Reset the PMU again, but this time it didn't work. Zapped PRAM, and it came up.
Since then, in addition to resetting the PMU and zapping PRAM, I've reseated the ram, reseated the HDD, done a fresh OSX install, installed the SMC firmware update, swapped the factory 512MB ram back in (I have 2GB from OWC), swapped the factory drive back in. None of these fixed the problem for long.
What
did work to limp the machine along was to start up in "Forced 1GHz mode", by holding the power button down for ~20 seconds (until the long beep), then
slowly let the machine warm up. Once it was in the mid-40's C, I could sleep it, wake it immediately, and it'd generally (but not always) be good for the rest of the day.
I also found I could trigger a shutdown by starting
cold (off at least an hour or two), then opening two terminal windows, running 'yes > /dev/null' in each (loading both cores), and waiting about 2 minutes. CoreDuoTemp would show the heat gradually build up to ~65C, then a drop to ~54C, followed immediately by a shutdown.
Brought it into the Apple store tonight, and performed this while they watched. Immediately, it was OK'd for at least a new logic board and thermal assembly, possibly more. Should have it back sometime next week, they say. We'll see if they find the cause.
had a perfect macbook till the firmware update. Now I have random shutdowns, and the dreaded vertical lines upon startup.
Called into applecare, and afer some diagnostics, they set up a service call and shipped me a box to send it in.
A few minutes later, the tech called me back, and said he was cancelling the repair, because he talked to others there, and they said that it was not hardware related, but rather I should wait till a firmware/software update came out to fix the damage.
They replaced the mother board here. They had some other name for it. My Mc was 5 weeks old they took forever to replace the part and fix it. They didnt stand behidn teh product!
Same prob as everyone else...RSD, sent it in (techie said he had never heard of such a thing), got it back and last night it was scalding hot and wouldnt turn on. After countless pushing this am, it turned on and Im waiting for disaster.
Service Des...APP-605-0994 SVC, TOP CASE W APP-603-9857, ASSY, BEZEL, M42 APP-603-8071 ASSY, HEATSINK, M42 APP-630-7253 PCB MLB, 2.0 GHZ DC, SMS/ST
It would have seriously burned my lap last night and thats with it just plugged in to the wall. I waited THREE years to afford this and Ive got freagin' wedding vids to edit!!
I think the basic problem here is that there may be a degration of a comnponent on the system board. Since it may takes weeks for the problem to surface, it's easy to see why these systems are "fixed" when a new motherboard is installed. You can imagine how hard this is for the engineers to find a real solution. If you think it's maybe a capacitor, you change that on a system board and then you may have to wait weeks for it to fail. They must be pulling their hair out.
Interesting...I was reading in another forum that someone thought these shutdowns could be triggered by "thermal fatigue" in some of the logic board components--that is, cycling from cool to hot causes something on the LB to fail and trigger a shutdown...your observations seem to support this! I have also read that this issue could be related to the thermal monitoring system of the Intel chip:
PS I have returned my MB after experienceing the RSD 5 hrs into using it out of the box...I was given a full refund. I am grateful to Apple for not giving me any hassel with this...BUT I STILL WANT AN MB!!! However I think I will wait for 2nd Gen :-P
All was well till yesterday afternoon - then it started. Straight on the phone to Apple and had a case number issued . More or lesss told not to worry unless it happened again - in which unlikely event - straight on the phone.
So I spent the next hour or so backing up.
Good job I did - 2 hours after the support line closed last night I was on the phone and BAM - black screen again
Back on phone today [ for an hour ] and the upshot is it's being picked up ASAP - and as I am likely to be away when it's fixed it will be sent to me in France where I expect to be mid to late September.
I am NOT a happy camper about this - my previous G3 iBook suffered death by logic board in France in May , my MB was it's replacement.
So far today it has behaved reasonably well - and I have had enough time to do the Firmware update for the battery/fan.
Let's hope I do get my MB back when promised - and its Fixed properly.
I will be taking very detailed photos of it before it goes - and notes about things like what it's Hard drive is
This would make sense for what happened to me last night. I shut down properly and walked away, but came back to an incredibly hot mac. I then could not power ir up. THis am, I was able to power up after a few pushes on the power button.
Ive already had RSD on my 22wk, sent it in and had repaired...APP-605-0994 SVC, TOP CASE W APP-603-9857 ASSY, BEZEL, M42 APP-603-8071 ASSY, HEATSINK, M42 APP-630-7253 PCB MLB, 2.0 GHZ DC, SMS/ST
Installed CoreDuoTemp and now its running 50C...so far.
