Macbook Random Shutdown

I realize that this whole random shutdown things is upsetting and is a huge inconvenience, but let’s not over react. I brought mine in earlier this month, got it back within 2 weeks, and it has been working great ever since. The high revving of the fan has ceased, and the overall heat of the machine has decreased. Best of all - nothing even close to a random shutdown. They replaced the heat sync, ram, the logic board, and I think even the processor and a few other items, so I give them the benefit of the doubt on the repair side. They even backed up everything for me, so when I got my macbook back it was like the day I sent it in (minus the problems). As far as I can tell this is going to run like a charm for the next 5+ years, just like every other mac I have owned. I am probably going to go buy a 2nd macbook this weekend.

3x clean 4+ hour bootups, most consecutive non rss’ing since Sep. 6th or whenever i posted first on “the list” around the 3-400 mark.

I put some more arctic silver on my CPUs, they were a tad dry in spots. released the black temp sensor cables from their clamps to the heatsink, they now live neatly between the fan & the clamps. I did wrap them with elec. tape. I got one shutdown within 15, so I removed the tape. Rebooted. Ran ‘yes’ test for 1 hour plus browsing & burning CDs. Also changed batteries, but have run off AC and batt. 3 times now.

My temps really haven’t changed much, according to CDtemp 55+ idle 70+ load. BUT I can touch the above F4 again without it feeling burning hot.

I DONT RECOMMEND POPPING IT OPEN UNLESS YOU ARE COMFORTABLE AND KEEP TRACK 100% OF THE SCREWS. NOTE: DONT BEND THE FAN COVER, IT’S VERY THIN ! USE A MINI FLATHEAD TO ASSIST WITH THE MINI PHILIPS. AND BEST OF LUCK.

The longer I don’t post the more this fixed it. I can’t be without this personal computer, it is doing some important work and was fine for 3 months till rss. gonna sell this beast asap.

pics:
(small) http://i9.tinypic.com/48r441z.jpg
(Big) http://i10.tinypic.com/316qkp0.jpg

Wow. we just hit the 1,000 registered cases of Random Shutdown Syndrome on the site. I strongly believe that there are least 25x if not more users affected than what we have logged on the site. If that is conservative (which I think it might be honestly), then according to this article from Apple Insider, with Apple shipping just at 775,000 Macbooks thus far by the end of their fiscal quarter, a little less than 5% of all Macbooks have the Random Shutdown Syndrome. If my estimate of 25x is low - say maybe it’s 100x, then that brings the % of affected Macbooks to 12.9% - an unreal number at anyrate.

Also, here is a quick breakdown of our 1,000 plus cases by machine type and color: *a sample size of 1,000 isn’t much, but this is quite interesting - 70%+ of the affected machines are the 2Ghz models - hmmmm

Like I said, my estimates may be way off here, but if our site is registering 1,000 cases thus far, I have to believe the total number of affected users is way higher than that figure.

Here is an excerpt from the article on Apple Insider:

In a research note released to clients on Monday, analyst Robert Semple said his channel checks indicate overall MacBook shipments are tracking at approximately 200,000 units ahead of his initial estimate of 580,000 for the company’s fourth fiscal quarter of 2006, which ends later this month.

“Specifically, we estimate total shipments will reach at least 775,000 with a blended average selling price of of $1,100, driving upside of $215 million to our original $4.6 billion revenue estimate,” he wrote. “We are also raising our fiscal year 2006 revenue estimate to $22.65 billion from $22.03 billion.”

Thoughts?
Matthew

It has been suggested that we continue to email some of the major news outlets about our ’story’ behind all this Macbook hoopla - I head read about this a few weeks ago, but CNN now has a way where readers can contribute content, stories, etc.

I think we should all do our part and tell CNN about Macbook Random Shutdown and what all is going on - just an idea to get the word out more!

Cheers!
Matthew

i guess all of you who keep trying to post a reference about this blog on the mac discussion forum are experiencing the same problem. my posting got deleted.
i read about this program on WCBS-TV NEW YORK that is called SHAME ON YOU, but it need to be someone in the States to get in touch and submit the story. Any of you wants to go ahead? Here is the link to get started:

http://wcbstv.com/shame/

After having my MB on repair for a week, I decided to call the apple store to find out the status. They told me that my repair was “on hold” and no further explanation could be given to me. So, the guy offered to transer me to apple care. Waited for about 20 minutes. When I finally got through, the support guy told me that my repair was not “on hold”, instead he said that they were still trying to reproduce the problem. This is so stupid since when I took the MB to the apple store, the problem occurred twice in front of the Apple “Genius”. This is becoming to be a real pain and I am willing to contribute with any legal action.

Unhappy first-time apple customer

What do you guys/girls think about picking a date to gather at the apple stores across the country with posters/t-shirts and inviting the local news in that area. We can coordinate with upset users across the country and create a huge media storm.

Campos

I bought my MacBook in June of 06. I have been a life long die hard Mac user. I thought my black MB was really the greatest computer ever made. In fact, it really was…until the random shut downs! It worked perfectly, flawlessly for about 3 months. Then 2 weeks ago, I experienced my first shutdown - in the middle of finalizing a Keynote presentation! I thought the battery was the problem, and simply plugged in and charged it up. However, the next series of shut downs began occurring even when the battery was fully charged. I reset the PMU and PRAM. the problem continued. I re-seated the RAM. The problem continued. I then ultimately changed/upgraded the RAM from 512 to 2GB. The problem continued. I finally Googled “sudden shut down MacBook” and found this website. My problem also seems to occur both when the machine is hot or cold and is not affected by processor load - it ran the y’s “diagnostic” without issue. I was shocked and dismayed at how widespread this problem is and how little has been done about it. Clearly this is a lemon issue. Apple must do the right thing and replace these MacBooks. I have yet to turn in my MB for repair, as I don’t have a back up laptop and can’t go without one for an indefinite period of time while Apple tries to “repair” it. From the sites that I have looked at, it seems as though most folks continue to have this problem even after 3 repairs. I doubt that the problem is fixed. I wonder if there is any possibility for a legal action citing lemon laws? Any thoughts??

Hey all. I found this blog after my MacBook randomly shut down 3-4 times in a 24 hour period. After reading the various posts here, I expected several months of nightmares. On the contrary, I was able to identify and solve the random shutdown problem in my short-lived case.

First, I ran the “ys” processor test found on this site for 15+ minutes 3 times with no crashes. Then I used the OSX Activity Monitor to see if any apps were eating up processor time. Turns out a wi-fi sniffer widget called AirTrafficControl was using up an unusual amount of processor capacity (90%), CONSTANTLY

I removed the widget and I haven’t had a single random shutdown since (that was three days ago).

So my advice to everyone is check your Activity Monitor and see if an “innocent” widget is abusing your processors. My guess is that many rrs problems are software-based.

Yahoo takes notice…

http://tech.yahoo.com/blog/raskin/1527