If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Last Friday I bought in my Macbook into a Genius Bar fully expected to be without it for somewhere between 1 and 4 weeks. Before I bought it down I did a full backup to a firewire drive then swapped out my 3rd party Hard Drive and memory with the stock components. The stock HDD has a fresh install of OS X on it because basically I don’t trust people with my data. When I got there they plugged in a 1G iPod Shuffle that they were clearly using as a thumbdrive and said they couldn’t see any evidence of they system randomly shutting down. This is because of the fresh install of OS X. My guess is they have some program that reads the console.log for the correct error code. AT this point I was starting to get frustrated because it seemed like without that log, they wouldn’t repair it. I then told the Genius to give the the laptop and started running “yes > /dev/null” twice while I just messed around online.

Within 3mins it had shutdown. This is kinda a relief for me because now i knew it wasn’t due to memory or my OS X install. He ran his program and started filing the paperwork. He told me it would probably be done today. TODAY?! Couldn’t believe it. He said it would be 2-3 hours and suggested to go see a movie. Unfortunately for me, I live about an hour from the Apple Store and didn’t really know the area too well. So to kill the 3 hours, i decided to run to work and pick up my paycheck, cash it then head back. Exactly 52mins later I for a call on my cell saying everything had been fixed and the system has been running for a good 20mins under stress. At that point I was no where near so I did what i had to do and headed back up later that night to pick it up.

Its been almost a week and I haven’t had any problems with shutdowns yet. I had the most problems when it first woke up from Sleep and it hasn’t had a problem waking up. So it seems I’m fixed for now. I am alittle skeptical as my first shutdown didn’t happen until months after my purchase. At this point only time will tell.

FYI, they only replaced my heatsink and not the logic board. The item number and description is:

885909147205 - Heatsink Kit, with Sponge, 1.0 MM Conn - $14.06

I’ll be bringing in my Macbook to repair my RSD problem today. I hope its only a week but Paul Stamatiou just got his back after 4 weeks. Christ. Since this is my only computer at the moment, I’m not really sure what I’m going to do if it takes 4 weeks. I have everything backed up on a firewire drive so If i need to pick up a $599 Mac Mini, so be it.

In the meantime, my only entertainment will be my new Xbox 360, as long as that doesn’t die on me again. My Xbox Live gamertag is “the8thsign”. Feel free to add me since I’m probably going to be spending most of my time there for the next week or so.

Focker Out.

The last few days have been interesting in the world of Macbook RSDs. Paul Stamatiou got hit with RSDs, possible theory and a hardware fix.

My Macbook has RSS, and I’m not talking about Really Simple Syndication. My 3 month old Macbook has recently started randomly rebooting itself. Random Shutdown Syndrome. It started 2 weeks ago, July 6th to exactly, out of no where. Outside of the discolored palm rests, the machine has been flawless.

For me it all started while I was installing Tiger on an external Firewire drive. Happened about 5-6 times that day, most of them in a row. I couldn’t get the system to boot until i reset the PMU. Since then I was installing Vista pre-RC1 using Boot Camp and it rebooted on me during the install there too. I can be surfing the web, reading rss, listen to music, or nothing at all. All of a sudden, BOOM! black screen. Hit the power button then BOOM! black screen again. This goes on for 3 or 4 tries before it will boot up usually. Right now I’m getting about 5 shutdowns a week but last night alone i had 3; 2 while inside Windows Vista.

It happens for while using Vista, OS X on 2 different internal drives, OS X on an external firewire so its not the operation system or software. I’ve used two different hard drives and two different set of memory chips. Does not matter. I did not have the problem prior to 10.4.7 but the update has nothing to do with it. The SMC firmware update, while helping my Macbook to run cooler, did not help or make it worst.

Here are come steps you can take to eliminate all troubleshooting:

1. If you have upgraded your RAM and/or Hard Drive, change them back to the stock components.
2. Back up your data and do a fresh install of Mac OS X from your install DVD.
3. Do a PMU reset. This involves removing the battery, disconnecting the AC adaptor then holding the Power button down for 5secs. replace the battey and connect the power supply back then restart the machine
4. Try resting the PRAM. Option-Command-P-R during startup until you here the chime 3 times.
5. With the battery and/or AC adaptor connected, hold down the Power Button for until you here a loud chime. This seems to help me when I cant get the system to boot.
6. After all this, startup a Terminal window and run the command “yes > /dev/null” then start another Terminal and run the same command. Let this run for about 15mins. Your Macbooks fans should kick in during this time. This will strain the CPUs and a lot of times you will get a shutdown during or shortly after this.
7. If your still having random reboots after all this, contact Applecare for a repair.

I’ve done all this and have yet to contact Applecare. My Macbook is my only computer and I reply on it for work and personal. I’ve been trying to find a older G4 machine, iBook or Mac Mini to hold me over while this would be away getting repaired but apparently Mac’s hold their value very well. I can’ seen to find anything reasonable to hold me over. So right now I’m kinda stuck and not sure what my next step is. According to the forums over at Apple, replacing the logic board doesn’t work and the problem will resurface. I had mine for 3 months before it started so who knows if people who aren’t having issues after a board replacement will see problems down the road.

I am not alone in this issue either.

Here are some links to others having the same problem:

• The Apple Blog
• The Apple Files
• www.macbookrandomshutdown.com
• Apple.com Fourms
• O’Grady

These are just a few. If anyone else is having this problem, drop me a comment and let me know how you made out or if anyone has a good deal on a Mac I could use as a replacement while this is back at Applecare, let me know.

Well, my Macbook got hit by the discoloration on the palm rests. While not as bad as the picture above, it was starting to be noticable. So before letting it get worst, I decided to get it taken care of ASAP. Made an appointment at a local Apple store’s Genius Bar and even tho it was only slightly starting to show, they said they would replace the top under warranty. All they asked was if I smoked(I don’t, if your wondering). 7 days was my turnaround time, which is along time to be with a computer, but now I’m back and better than ever.

2 days before I picked up my Macbook they offically acknoweledged the problem with KB Article 304058. I’ve since moved to using an iCurve and Apple KB/Mouse.