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3 OS X issues that are bugging the everlivingcrap out of me....

D

Draddy

macrumors regular
Original poster
seriously... why do these problems exist? these are stupid freaking problems to have.


just incase you were wondering... I have a 3 week old fresh install of OS X 10.5 on my computer with the latest updates.


1st and MOST annoying. within 5 minutes of starting up (from a shutdown state) All of my upper right hand options are greyed out..... airport, bluetooth, date, everything. what in the world!? the only way to fix this is to shutdown and do a PMU reset, and then within 5 minutes, they grey out again. ( and NEVER come back.)


2nd and 2nd most annoying: the battery popup warning will not go away.. (the reserved power thing) no matter how many times you click "okay" it makes a chime and stays there...


3rd and 3rd most annoying: (might be related to the one above) my sleep FInally has been working reliably... if I close the lid... it does go to sleep (didn't used to) but now, at the end of my battery life (with the clock saying about 4 minutes left) the computer just cuts power..... no warning, no sleep, no dark screen no nothing... at 4-6 minutes left, my computer just cuts power.

In addition to that one, if I only have 5% left at night, and I don't plug it up, when I wake up (with the 3% drain every 12 hours or whatever it is) the computer is turned off... not in sleep mode.


so basically it's really easy to loose whatever project I was working on. Neither of these result in the grey loading screen it used to when it stored the contents on the memory on the drive before sleeping. (oh and it still takes 3 minutes for the computer to go to sleep when I close the lid... so it is writing to the disk still.


I would really appreciate some troubleshooting help if you guys don't mind.
 

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If you're still under warranty, get thee to an Apple Store (or Authorized equivalent). #1 & #2 sound like they should be looked at by the mothership.

As for #3, why do you run the battery down so far (sounds like repeatedly)? Just plug the dem thing in. Deep-cycling/conditioning the battery doesn't need to be done very often. I run from the mains a good 90% of the time. I condition it about every three months or so, and rarely get below 65% any other time. My year-old MB's battery now has a greater capacity than the day I bought it, by a fair margin.
 
Some of number 3 is normal. Sleep is not the same as off. A charge is still pulled from the battery to maintain minimal functions like monitoring the USB ports and keeping the RAM charged. I lose 5-10% of my battery life while in sleep overnight. This is really very good compared to many other notebook brands and on a full change it should happily stay asleep for days on end with an instant on when you return.

However everything else you mention is abnormal. My MBP (of the same generation) goes to sleep and wakes up in seconds. It never writes back to the HDD just to go to sleep with a normal charge.

Do you see the same results on both battery power and when plugged in?
Have you done a battery calibration?

You could consider reinstalling OS X and applying all of the apple updates. Before installing any 3rd party software, see if you have the same issues.
(I hate to recommend this, but it can provide conclusive information as to whether you have a HW or SW problem)
 
Thanks for all the responses!

JohnNotBeatle said:
If you're still under warranty, get thee to an Apple Store (or Authorized equivalent). #1 & #2 sound like they should be looked at by the mothership.

As for #3, why do you run the battery down so far (sounds like repeatedly)? Just plug the dem thing in. Deep-cycling/conditioning the battery doesn't need to be done very often. I run from the mains a good 90% of the time. I condition it about every three months or so, and rarely get below 65% any other time. My year-old MB's battery now has a greater capacity than the day I bought it, by a fair margin.
Click to expand...
I agree about taking it to the apple store... but this would be the 4th time I've had something fixed (the last being a hard drive replacement). I do still have applecare, I should take it in, I just am tired of getting my computer fixed.

Well, I don't feel I'm using my computer inappropriately... I feel like I should be able to run my battery out safely.

I mean, I use it as a laptop, if I'm sitting on the couch using it, I'm not watching the meter, I just wait till it tells me to plug it up.
Consultant said:
1: sounds like you have a hardware problem

2: Hardware problem? Perhaps you killed your battery?

3: unlikely to lose any work, due to the "Safe Sleep" feature on recent Macs. (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302477) All recent Macs save contents of memory to the harddrive when sleeping, and restored when powered on.
Click to expand...

My battery may be in bad shape, 66% health, 570 cycles ... but that wouldn't effect little things like the warning stick.

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough... I was trying to say that "Safe Sleep" is no longer working. It doesn't save, when I open the lid it acts as if the computer is shut down.. when I hit the power button, it starts up from a shut down state, not the safe sleep mode.


err404 said:
Some of number 3 is normal. Sleep is not the same as off. A charge is still pulled from the battery to maintain minimal functions like monitoring the USB ports and keeping the RAM charged. I lose 5-10% of my battery life while in sleep overnight. This is really very good compared to many other notebook brands and on a full change it should happily stay asleep for days on end with an instant on when you return.

However everything else you mention is abnormal. My MBP (of the same generation) goes to sleep and wakes up in seconds. It never writes back to the HDD just to go to sleep with a normal charge.

Do you see the same results on both battery power and when plugged in?
Have you done a battery calibration?

You could consider reinstalling OS X and applying all of the apple updates. Before installing any 3rd party software, see if you have the same issues.
(I hate to recommend this, but it can provide conclusive information as to whether you have a HW or SW problem)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips, I understand the normal drainage of battery, the problem is that safe sleep does not function... it just cuts power when the battery drains out.

Good tip on the reinstall... unfortunately I'm on a 3 week old fresh install on a new harddrive.

they're such weird problems that don't seem that big, but this is just the top 3 of many problems that are just incredibly annoying, and really shouldn't be happening.
 
Draddy said:
My battery may be in bad shape, 66% health, 570 cycles
Click to expand...
They are odd problems, but most of it sounds battery related. Your MBP may have trouble predicting the remaining life in a dieing battery, leading to sudden loss of power. My first MBP battery died an early death and Applecare took care of me. I called them I and they cross shipped a new one, so I was never without my laptop and I didn't have to travel to a store.
However, like the tires on a car, the battery is a consumable part and may have had a natural death. With that many cycles Apple may not help you for free, but getting a fresh battery would be a good idea regardless of being out of your pocket or thiers.

BTW - You mention using your laptop on the couch. This may or may not apply, but I used to use my laptop on the arm of my couch which lead to the bottom of my laptop getting much warmer then if it were on a flat table. This situation could lead to a shortened battery life.
 
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