owlmoose | Computer gah

So after three days of testing and running diagnostics and scouring logs, the Apple Store techs could neither reproduce nor diagnose the problem. They gave it back to me today with a shrug and a suggestion to buy the extended warranty (I'll have had it for a year about three weeks from now) "just in case". I asked if I should do a clean reinstallation of the operating system and/or upgrade to Leopard, and they basically said "can't hurt", which isn't exactly a stirring recommendation for a process that will be a serious pain in the ass (and, in the case of Leopard, cost money -- admittedly not *that* much money -- and force me to switch to a new email client).

I've done a little poking around online, and I can't find anyone else who's had this exact problem, or even ones that sound similar. Which suggests that it might be some random third-party software problem, and the problem with diagnosing that is the inability to replicate the behavior -- I can't just remove things until the problem goes away, because who knows when it will happen again? I think my two choices are to either start from scratch or just live with it, and since I get the feeling the computer isn't badly endangered by the problem (like, not on the verge of death), I think for now I will live with it, and just get in the habit of saving important things before I sleep it, and of shutting it down overnight on a regular basis (which was T's suggestion). Then when I get back from my trip, I can think about reinstalling/upgrading/shelling out for AppleCare.

Oh well, at least I have it back. And I got actual good advice on the fact that my wireless has been so flaky as to be unusable for the last several months -- he just tweaked a setting, and I think that did it. I've been off the Ethernet ever since I got it home and it hasn't cut out once. So at least something has improved.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My MacBook occasionally doesn't want to wake from sleep. If I close the lid again and wait half a minute or so before reopening it, it seems to recover fine. Is that the same kind of problem you're having?

No, this only happens when I'm putting it to sleep, never when it's waking from sleep. The screen goes blank as though it's sleeping, but then the fan spins up, and I can't wake it up no matter what I do. I have to shut it down with the power button.

Oh, hmm, yeah, that sounds pretty different. I wish I could help!

Your problem sounds a lot like the problem I was having with my Macbook a while ago - I'd put it to sleep and it would restart instead. Strangely enough, although I never took it in, it sort of faded away after a while and it hasn't happened in months, even though at the time it was near constant and I wanted to throw the computer across the room.

Not sure if that's advice or what.

I should add - I'd put it to sleep and it would either restart immediately (within a few seconds) or, upon opening the laptop again, I'd get it stuck on the black screen and have to force-restart.

And like I said, it really did just go away on it's own after a couple of weeks.

Hmm, interesting. This problem is intermittent -- it'll happen a lot, then seem to go away, then happen again as if out of nowhere.

The tech people at the store seemed to keep wanting the problem to be on waking from sleep rather than when I was putting it to sleep, so I wonder if that problem isn't more common, and maybe was fixed by an update to the OS. They also kept asking about a problem that I used to have, where it would freeze suddenly while I was using it. That seems to have gone away, fortunately -- that was WAY more annoying.

It was really bad with me, I don't know if you remember my posts complaining about it. The worst was that sometimes when restarting it would get stuck in an infinite loop - I could deal with just restarting the computer every time I wanted to use it, but when it got really bad, it would actually load the desktop and then about a minute later restart itself again.

Aside from the normal software update downloads there wasn't anything I did to the laptop to fix it, it just gradually went away. It happened once last week - the put-to-sleep-freeze thing - but it was the first and only time in a very long while.

Check your sleep settings. If you have it set to go to sleep when you close the screen and put it to sleep manually before you close the screen it may be getting conflicting messages and start up again just to interpret them. I know my mom had a problem along those lines with her Sony... and the battery kept dying b/c she thought it was off and would unplug it and it was actually still running.

That's a good idea, I'll check on it. The only thing is that usually when this happens, the screen is already closed -- unless I'm away from my desk, I run my laptop attached to a monitor and keyboard. And it almost never freezes when I'm not plugged in like that. Which may be a clue, too, hmm.

I must have missed a post or something, what is the problem and when did it start?

I've had problems with the Mac freezing ever since I got it, but I guess I'd say it's settled into this particular one for the last six months or so. Basically, sometimes, when I put it to sleep, the screen goes blank as if it's going to sleep, but then the fan spins up and it freezes. The fan keeps running, the light doesn't go into sleep blinking mode, and I can't wake it up no matter what I do. I have to do a hard power off. It seems to happen fairly randomly -- I can't recreate the problem on demand, and sometimes I go for a couple of weeks without it happening. Then, for no apparent reason, it happens three days in a row. If there's a pattern, I haven't picked up on it.

The computer is a MacBook btw, running Tiger (OS 10.4).

Ah, and this problem is apparently a new one that apple have never seen before? Although it would be a pain in the arse it sounds like the computer itself needs replacing, if it's just you that suffers the problem and have done so since day one.

I swear I never had this problem before, but since reading your first post my mbp (running leopard) has died TWICE on waking from sleep. The last time, no software other than the OS was running. Maybe sympathy pains? ;)

Computer gah

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