Macbook Random Shutdown

White 2.0 Ghz Macbook bought in mid-August. I’m seeing:

- underside gets very hot, running or off, some times more than others
- when I close the lid, the sleep light stays solid instead of pulses and you can still hear that something is powered on (happens about 1/2 the time)
- when I shut it down, you can still hear that something is powered (about 1/2 the time) unless you hold down the power key again for it to stop; also sometimes the front LED stays on solid even after shut down with the lid closed
- occasionally shuts off without warning (3 or 4 times since I got it 2 wks ago)
- occasionally reboots by itself after being shut down
- sometimes difficult to wake up after it’s been put in one of the above-described sleep sates, needs rebooting, coaxing, etc.

I have been using various applications when the random shutdowns have occurred–Remote Desktop Connection, Firefox, Finder. The yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null command does, indeed, kick the fans into overdrive and cause considerable heat. I’m not sure whether that’s a difinitive test for anything, but it’s troublesome to know that Macs now come with a built-in “melt” command.

Reminds me of the PowerMac 6500’s when they first switched from SCSI to ATA drives. Lots of flashing question marks for weeks, with no word from Apple, then finally a fix came.

At the moment my strategy is to wait a bit longer until they have the source of the problem nailed down before taking it to an Apple store for repair. I’d rather do that than have them guess about what component(s) to replace–so far I’ve heard lots of different things–logic board, power supply, heat sink, etc.

Several others where I work (Yale) are encountering this with their Macbooks as well.