Screen goes blank randomly - Anyone else?

Hi AXs,

Simply for the purpose of diagnosing the issue, would you be kind enough to go into 'Energy Saver' in System Preferences, and change the settings to never let the computer/display/hard disk sleep when on Power Adapter?

If you could briefly do this and then continue to use your computer? Therefore we can diagnose that if the issue ceases to happen, it's something to do with the power settings. Conversely, if the issue persists, it may be something hardware related, or could indicate the need to reset the PRAM or SMC.

Best wishes.

AXs said:

Hi fellow users.

I was wondering if anyone else has a problem with their screen randomly going blank at different points? It just happened to me again just now for the 2nd time today. Mostly happens when my Air is not plugged in.

It's like auto sleep or something in the middle of process.

Anyone else facing similar issues? i'm about to call support but I wanted a brief understanding of the problem first.

Thanks

Click to expand...

assuming it's not saver mode settings like keysofanxiety is trying to rule out, i suspect this is related to the SSD not playing nicely with ML.

is it just the screen sleeping or is it going to sleep? it could be trying to sleep but you're interrupting it with your next key stroke.

which reminds me, also make sure there's not a weird shortcut causing it. is there any pattern to what keys you are hitting (especially one containing the command/opt/cntrl keys) when it happens?

Sounds like expected behaviour. Like the other poster said, simply turn off the power sleep settings. Coming out of sleep the monitor can sometimes blank out if the time it goes to sleep coincides with when you wake it. Then it will wake and go to sleep immediately. This is nothing to worry about. If you are worried make a genius appointment. They're happy to have a look and explain the power settings to you at no cost except time.

AXs - I have seen the same problem a few times. The screen goes black even though I was typing just a few seconds previously. I doesn't happen often - maybe only 4 or 5 times in the 3 weeks I have had my MBA. I don't recall if it is always either plugged in or on battery - I'll pay more attention to the circumstances if it happens again and try to post some details. I have the power settings to default. When it first happened I changed the Display Sleep time (on battery) from the default of 2 mins to 5 mins and that seemed to help (even though it was only 5 seconds since typing that the computer went to sleep). It may be a coincidence, but it didn't happen again until I reset the energy saver preferences back to default. I will leave them at the default setting for a while and see if it reoccurs.

I returned two machines due to the flickering Photoshop issue and this phenomenon occurred around twice with each of the machines during the fortnight I had them. The 3rd machine I have now has never turned off in the month I've had it.

AXs said:

Hi fellow users.

I was wondering if anyone else has a problem with their screen randomly going blank at different points? It just happened to me again just now for the 2nd time today. Mostly happens when my Air is not plugged in.

It's like auto sleep or something in the middle of process.

Anyone else facing similar issues? i'm about to call support but I wanted a brief understanding of the problem first.

Thanks

Click to expand...

I'm having this same issue, and it is definitely not a sleep/power saving issue.

As someone else has posted, I could be in the middle of typing, or just finished and all of a sudden the screen blacks out as if it did enter a sleep state.

I noticed, at least for me, the issue was when I was entering passwords/fields in chrome. I am attributing this problem to Chrome though... Prior to upgrading to my MBA, I was having a weird screen flicker issue when browsing pages in chrome on my MBP. After some researching I found the issue was with chrome.


Those experiencing the problem, are you only experiencing it in Chrome when browsing the web?

Here is the link;
https://productforums.google.com/fo...ubleshooting-help/mac/L1LX9gMnwa8[1-25-false]

Just a consideration: Was watching a video the other day where somebody was demonstrating this and it turns out their cause was sitting the MBA on top of a case - with magnets as the closing mechanism - which was making the MBA think the screen was being closed any time there was movement or every time the user was lifting off and placing back onto the case.

Oops, my less than 48 hours old MBA is doing the same thing. It not plugged in when this happens so haven't changed any sleep preferences. My MBA goes of to sleep fairly quickly and when I wake it after I enter my password, after a few seconds goes into this black screen with the mouse pointer shown. Then its once again locked. It's happened to me quite frequently today, all while I'm on the battery.

Is this of major concern?
There are no magnets around, apart from other apple devices like my iphone/ipad/old macbook but don't think they are causing any of this.

Should I contact Apple about this?

I'm having the same issue. I'm curious whether anyone knows the official explanation for this behaviour - perhaps somebody that's taken their machine for a genius appointment.

philosopherdog said:

Sounds like expected behaviour. Like the other poster said, simply turn off the power sleep settings. Coming out of sleep the monitor can sometimes blank out if the time it goes to sleep coincides with when you wake it. Then it will wake and go to sleep immediately. This is nothing to worry about. If you are worried make a genius appointment. They're happy to have a look and explain the power settings to you at no cost except time.

Click to expand...

i don't think what he is describing is "expected behaviour" at all. my theory is it has something to do with ML not playing well with the SSD because this happens on both my air and my old 2009 MB that i upgraded.

There's a long trail about this issue on the apple forums: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5118135?start=150&tstart=0

TripleMoxy said:

There's a long trail about this issue on the apple forums: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5118135?start=150&tstart=0

Click to expand...

Oh wow, im a little relieved that it is not just me... but saddened this a bigger problem than I expected.

My Specs; i7/8gb/256 ssd

this has happened to me alot (it would go black for a few seconds and then return) on the 13.3/1.3/4/256 model

I only had it for about 12 days and then I returned it. I also experienced crackling noise in the speakers. However, I may end up repurchasing a Haswell MBA, but I hope this problem isn't a big issue, or there is a solution

Wow, this sounds like the random blank screen issue with the 2012 Mini, which was seen across both PCs and Macs with the HD4000. Don't know if it was ever resolved, but returned the 2012 Mini after experiencing it a few times, and bought a 2011 Mini with Radeon GPU.

for some cursed reason, i have been experiencing this the past few days. utterly annoying. let's hope its due to some OS issue that Apple can issue an update for

had this two times few days ago, from second time it hanged and couldnt be resumed by opening lid and pressing power button. Only after holding power button to completely switch off and then booting it, it started to work. Havent had this issue since

Having the same issue with my new MBA 11/i5 1.3GHz/4GB/256GB. Never had it with my 2011 MBA 11.

It seems to happen only when on battery only. Otherwise random. Can be mid sentence typing when it happens. I find that if I hit the Power button, it wakes up. So it's like a random going to sleep. Though I have seen sometimes I can still see the mouse cursor outline (in white against complete black background). And in those cases, power button doesnt wake it up.

AXs said:

It can't be with software, because it seems older Mac models have no such issues with the latest OS. (1)

If it is happening to over 80% of users(2), it definitely is a mainstream issue.
I hope some site picks it up soon and takes it to the media...

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(1) - The 2013 MBA does not run the same version of 10.8 as other MacBooks, as it's specifically coded for Haswell. It very well could be and most likely is a software issue.

(2) - That's a very generous number? Where are you coming up with that? 80% users sampled, perhaps - but I am quite sure it's not 80% of units produced.