Macbook Random Shutdown

I have stood behind apple on this issue, and it sounds like they finally figured it out. I brought mine in for repair in early September, they replaced the logic board, ram, and heat sink, I got it back, and then a couple of weeks later had a few random shut downs (3-4 total over a week’s time - this shutdown was a bit different as it would shutdown 3-4 times in a row as I tried to restart it and then it would fine for days). I brought it in again last sunday to the apple store by my house. They assured me that Apple had now confirmed it was the the heat sink. and theat a new thinner version is being installed. There is also a small piece of insulation they are adding that would fix the problem. Once they opened mine up they actually found that the depot failed to reconnect my heat sink properly so that was why it was shutting down (the 2nd time) They decided to replace the heat sink anyway just to be safe. They also found that the depot put the plastic on around the keys wrong which was making it difficult for me to get discs in and out with ease. I hope I never have an issue with my MB again or I will demand a brand new one. I hope this issue is done for all of us. Go Apple!

http://web.mac.com/mibes/iWeb/MacBook%20Pro%20Shut%20down/Blog/Blog.html
I have started this blog after falling victim of the dreaded logic board problems suffered by many MacBook Pro owners. I intend to chart my progress as I try to resolve the issue.

Thanks to some pictures of the MacBook heatsink on Flickr, the cause of random shutdowns in the 13″ MacBooks is now clearer! As previously thought, it is indeed an insulation issue. Here’s a close up of a melted heat sensor cable:

The area where the cable insulation melts actually houses a pair of cables and it is suspected that this is where the short circuit triggering a shut down occurs (when those two cables make electrical contact).

This is a cross post from The Apple Files. For the full article (and more pictures), read on.

My white MacBook started the random shutdown thing five days ago. I searched the net for solutions and only one course of action was being advised, and loathed: send it back to Apple. I’m not a send-it-back kinda guy so I rooted some more. A number of people were of the opinion that it had something to do with the heatsink, because that’s what Apple were tending to replace at their stores. There was also a mention of a German engineer and some wires that were too short. This gave me a sound idea what to look for despite my German being rather bad. So…

I ripped the thing apart and found the problem. Please let me stress, lest I get sued, that I do not condone, encourage or otherwise urge people to do this; I’m merely reporting what I decided to do.

I found an excellent guide to dissassembling the MacBook here: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/86.0.0.html

I took it apart and took out the heatsink. I could see nothing wrong at first and then I spotted it. There are four wires connecting the heatsink temperature sensor to the motherboard. They’re connected as two pairs (presumably two sensors). The routing of the cables is seriously dodgy. They’re passed through a small gap and are compressed between the heatsink and a metal post. It looks like the heat from the heatsink (OK, from the processors), caused the insulation on these wires to melt. They weren’t shorting out against each other though so I couldn’t understand the problem. Then it occurred to me that the angle of the wires in their original routing meant that they would have been in contact with the heatsink itself.

I’m guessing that either physical vibration, or expansion of the heatsink due to increased temperature, caused the wires to come into contact with the heatsink, shorting out, and thus triggering the MacBook’s protection against overheating. I simply insulated the wires with some standard insulating tape and found a routing for them further away from the heatsink. Five days, no random shutdown.

My fingers are still firmly crossed.

Lee

Hi all!
First of all sorry by my bad english.

I also have a MB with the RSS.

Three days ago I observed my first shutdown after my MB was “sleeping” about 6-7 hours. But from this moment, the CPU dont change the speed correctly.

For example: I choose “high performance”, and run the RSS test, but the cpu remains at 1GHz.
Or, in the other hand, this morning i was only with battery, i choosed “long battery live”, with no load (cpu at 2-5%) and the speed remain at 2Ghz for hours.

Anybody have the same problem???

I picked up my Macbook the Tuesday just gone from a shop called KRCS here in the UK. I live miles from the nearest Apple Store, and KRCS deal with Apple products so I took it to them to have it fixed under warrenty. The turnaround was 2 weeks (apparently, whilst Apple are now fixing Macbooks sent directly to them quickly, KRCS has had issues getting heatsinks from Apple). All they replaced was the heatsink. So far, so good. Although I’m a little bit worried all that may have been achieved is effectively resetting the 3 month timer until the problem occurs again! Still, at least it’ll be under warrenty still if that is the case.

I truly hope that is the problem dealt with. My Macbook is my first Mac and problems aside, I’ve loved every minute I’ve spent using it. I’d like to think I’ll never go back to Microsoft, but that will only happen if I experience the reliability I’ve been used to on all the Windows based machines I’ve purchased or built.

I received my shipping box last Friday and I finally sent my black MacBook to Apple on Monday. This was after 20 minutes on the phone explaining to them that this was *not* a noisy harddrive problem, but the random shutdown and would probably need some new hardware. After shipping it Monday morning they fixed it immediately and I got it back Wednesday morning (today). So far it’s running fine. No crashes, even running the random shutdown stress test. Crossing my fingers. I must say I’m quite impressed with the turnaround time.

We are already organising Class Action Suit. It just occured to me that we should some how try and inform the APPLE SHAREHOLDERS, INVESTORS, STOCK MARKET, BUSINESS NEWSPAPERS about this Macbook issue.

I think they are the ones along with all of us who are directly hit with APPLE’S ATTITUDE in dealing with the issue. APPLE might post healthy profits for now. But in long run they will loose as we have. Sooner or latter the APPLE stock will take a plunge.

So guys do posts some links hear and we will all start the join the Email Campaign.

RECALL MACBOOKS. WE DONT WANT REFURBISED MACBOOK. ELSE WE WANT OUR MONEY BACK.

Did anybody notice with only 25 reported cases of ipod affected with virus, Apple has released a full page report on the probelm and ways to solve it.
check this out at: http://www.apple.com/support/windowsvirus/

And with thousands of Macbook owners reporting RSS/RSD/Shutdown problems take a look at Apple official statement.
check out at: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304308

All this days I have been visiting and talking to Apple Service Center regularly. A guy working there tells me we simply ask for the serial number of the Macbook when the problem is first reported. with Machines with week upto 38 we are confirmed that the Heat Sink is defective. He also tells me that apart from Heat Sink the new Macbook has a revised logic board.

So I assume week 39 and above are REVISED Macbooks. But if someone else and confirm this it would be great.

And if these is true shouldnt we beta testers for Macbooks be offerd a replacement with the REVISION B.
For those who have been offered replacement dont settle anything less than week 40.

The solution have been discovered pretty late and idea guys how many Macbooks have been produced upto week 38.