Macbook Random Shutdown

RSS = Random Shutdown Syndrome!

Yesterday was a great day for our site! We got a great article in eWeek by Scott Ferguson which touches on just what the site is about. Banding together to get figure out what is going on with our Macbooks

We are continuing to generate some buzz around the Mac world as well…here is a MacWorld article as well as one on The Inquirer.

If you have a story, please register today and share it!

Cheers!
-Matthew

1.Shuts down unexpectedly ’bout 10 times a day.
2.Boots after 10-20 times pushing the power button.
3.Sometimes it shows me vertical stripes, so I have to reset NVRAM to boot it.

On the 28/8/06 I handed in my Black Macbook to Next Byte (Apple reseller and repair centre) in Broadway Sydney, they changed the logic board and messaged me today on the 31/8/06 that it was ready for pick up. I went into the the Next Byte store on Glebe Point Rd and they handed me my â??repairedâ? MacBook. I opened it in the store and turned it on. I tested it in the store by opening 3-4 avi movies I had on my HDD and what do you know?? IT SHUT DOWN AGAIN!!! I showed the apple sale consultant and he wasn’t impressed…I then restarted and performed the xterm “yes >/dev/null &” test. It was performing well, but I was skeptical because I thought I may have pressed the power button too long causing the processor to be capped at 1GHz. So I shut it down without any problems. Then I went to restart it and it wouldn’t go passed the initial grey screen, after a while it starting having different coloured vertical lines and this is the current state of every restartâ?¦

The Sales guys were very nice, understanding and helpful. They said I should get it replaced but as I hadnâ??t bought it from that store they couldn’t replace it so I had to call Apple customer care and sort it out with them.

I called apple care and spoke with a tech support guy for a bit and was then passed on to a customer care rep who heard my story, gave me a new case number and instructions to take it back to the repair store with orders that the tech diagnostic guy should call him with the details….

I requested a replacement but he said that he couldn’t authorise that now because it must go through more diagnostics before he can pass it on for replacement approval…

So here begins week 2 without my computer and 5 days away from my thesis draft due date…

By the way, do any NSW Australians know how the consumer protection laws are applicible in this situation? When I was speaking with the customer care rep, I said that by law I’m entiled to a refund and he said that isn’t true. But from reading

http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/shopping/refundsrepairs.html

I’m not sure if he’s right because of some loop holes…Any ideas??

Same problem here: My client’s brand new MacBook 2GHz has R.S.S. (Random Shutdown Syndrome).

Called Apple hoping for a replacement unit (who wants a MacBook that fails the 1st day?), elevated to “product specialist”, elevated to “customer service”, refused to let me speak to her supervisor (”Sir, I am a supervisor…”) How do you report someone who won’t let you talk to their supervisor? A real beahtch. She should have been in collections, not customer service. Said no replacement possible since we bought from reseller instead of Apple. (Get the hint? Don’t buy from resellers! Shame on us!)

Anyway - off to repair. Fingers crossed. BTW - My MacBook Pro took over a month and 2 trips to Apple for a bad hard drive. Hope this isn’t a repeat.

Client NOT happy. She is the only Mac user in a company of 130+ PCs. IT guy is loving this. “See, if you used a Dell this wouldn’t have happened.”

Apple? Do you care?

I have the random shutdown problem with my week 19 build macbook. The apple store service dept doesnâ??t know what to do but have agreed to to swap the logic board, replace bezel, top case assy and heat sink. I hope Apple will hurry up and deal with this problem because replacing all these components under warranty canâ??t be cheap for them. This shutdown problem is extra devastating as Iâ??m out of the habit of saving my work thanks to the stability of OSX, so it sucks to have the hardware now crashing. Iâ??ll let yaâ??ll know how it all works out.

Well, my week 1 Macbook finally got around to taking a dirt nap today. Oh sure, I had the staining palmrest issue, then scratched CD issue (which ruined a perfectly good copy of WOW by the way), and the “talking” powerbrick. I was willing to live with those for a reasonable amount of time. Then last week, after the firmware update that really did make a big difference in the running temperature, I started getting RSS. Something feirce. Well you can image that this spun me to a new level of pissed that I was previously unaware of.

BUT, despite how mad I was that this is the 3rd Apple laptop that had factory defects (1st was the last TiBook with the spotty screen, 2nd was the next gen powerbook with 3 faulty logic board replacements), I will give Apple the benefit of the doubt and try to fix this through the normal process before demanding a new one off the shelf.

There were 2 people in line with me with Macbooks as well… how wide spread is this?

Oh, a few tips if you are trying to convince the manager of an Apple store (NOT the Genius, dont waste your time with them on this) to straight up replace your hardware:

1. BE NICE. Dont be a jerk. Thats not going to get you anywhere, trust me.
2. Dont just demand. Explain how not having a laptop will affect your work/personal life, whatever. Help them understand the urgency better.
3. Explain nicely that if they are unable to help you, you understand, but you will have to continue to take this to levels above them. Request the number of the person they report to. Then explain how from a customer services standpoint, it would look so much better if *they* solved the problem before it got higher. *They* would be ther hero!
4. Understand that if you got your laptop with a custom configuration or with the educational discount, there is just about nothing they can do for you in the store when it comes to hardware replacment short of shipping it out. Its because they cannot put it in the computer system as inventory due to the model/serial/purchase #’s. Dont fault the store guys for that.

Hope this helps, and I hope my Macbook comes back fixed!

I bought mine in Santiago, CHILE, and it’s randomply shutting down (even seconds after i turn it on).
At first i thought it had something to do with the overheating (burning my fingertips!), but after the latest upgrade + cooling-pad took care of that, it just keeps crashing!

My son bought a MacBook almost the day they were released. After sending it back to Apple for a problem with the discoloration and the occasional shutdown, he turned it on one morning to see only horizontal (not vertical) lines.

He took it to the local Apple store and walked out 20 minutes later with a new MacBook containing all of his data. No hassle, no problem, nada.

And the MacBook is working fine so far.

I wrote this as a comment before, but I wanted to let everyone know that my son had NO problems getting the new computer so I decided to post it.

By the way, this happened the night before he left for law school, so it was pretty imperative that he have a functional laptop.

I thought that the third party RAM might have caused the problem, when I put the Apple supplied stuff back in the thing would not boot at all.

The latest firmware update kept the temperature down but as the problem did not start until after it was applied I donâ??t think the heat issue was causing my shutdowns, the machine didnâ??t stay up long enough to get warm anyway.

At least my trusty G4 tower keeps me working while the MacBook is away; itâ??s not so portable though.

I purchased a white, (week 30) 1.83ghz MacBook on Friday Aug 25 (5 days ago) in New Delhi, India. When I got my ‘dream computer’ home from a reseller and started it, it shut down barely a few minutes after startup. Thought it was due to low battery as it shut down twice again. I then fully charged the battery and the next day (while running on battery), it shut down again. I then looked up for a solution on Google and was shocked to see the results! Couldn’t believe that so many people the world over are facing the same problem!!!! Just wanted to let you know that I had no time to update the OS to 10.4.7 or install the firmware update or install Core Duo temp as the machine started shutting down as soon as it started (but only when it ran on battery). Resetting the PMU had no effect. In the 6-7 hours that I used it, the machine shut down about 8 times, always when it was running on battery and always within 5 minutes of startup. Seems like Apple has really screwed up this time, releasing a product the world over without proper testing or without proper quality control. The reseller has been extremely helpful and supportive and I have asked for a replacement. Have documented the problem on video (which is too heavy to post), but then there are enough Random Shutdown videos on YouTube.

Mayank Bhatnagar
New Delhi