huh? sudden blank screen

[fatties]

i have my mb for nearly 2 months already and so far it has been perfect... until just now where it decided to blank me. and then i couldn't get it to start up until i press the on button really hard and it gave a rather ominous 'duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuud' whats happening?

huh? is this going to be a new constant thing from now on?

please answer even with exciting wwdc news?!?

[mad jew]

What were you doing right before it went blank? Also, what changes have you made in terms of new apps or additional hardware peripherals in the last few days? :)

[fatties]

nothing... i uh downloaded a spongebob squarepants and deleted it a couple of days ago... and uh signed on to a wifi hotspot service. otherwise nothing has changed!

i was just surfing the net (news +mail) normal stuff when it happened.

thanks madjew for helping again!!!!!!!!!! you are the greatest.

[mad jew]

Okay, maybe go into Console in the Utilities folder and check out what the System Log has to say for itself around the time the screen went blank. Also, I'm assuming it's working normally now, right? :)

[fatties]

yes it is working fine now.

i don't really understand all this computer language but lots of kernals doing somethings and errors reported with keychain/airport...

so was it a kernal panic? i never understood what they were. just interested incase it happens again.

[DJMastaWes]

If it was a kernal panic, your screen would have dimed black and a message saying you must maualy restart b holding the on button.

Like so:

http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/51/1062271121205790/www.info.apple.com/images/kbase/106227/106227_3.jpg

That's a kernal panic.

[mad jew]

Here is a bit more information about a kernel panic (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106227). DJMastaWes is correct in saying there should be a screen telling you to restart however the machine doesn't always get a chance to display this message. Sometimes it just doesn't respond, requiring you to take the initiative and restart without being told in a variety of different languages.

As a rule, I let one-off kernel panics slip by. Sometimes something small like a memory leak in an open app, combined with some other small problem, can potentially cause a one-off kernel panic. They're not usually worth troubleshooting though. Keep an eye on it and if it happens again, report back with details of what you were doing at the time and what changes you'd made to the system. :)