2013 MBA Crash

[mat25]

Hey everyone, my brother has been having some trouble with his 2013 baseline 13inch MBA.

The main issues he's had is that his screen will go black and the computer will freeze, only a hard reset will restore. It should be noted that this a rare occurrence. It happened tonight while watching Netflix, strangely enough the audio kept playing while the screen was black.

I ran a hardware test, and the only issue found was that it wasn't plugged in. Also he's on the latest version of OS X, and did not have a bad SSD (never received the update). I did notice some strange graphic artifacts while in the hardware test, clicking the apple support links. My gut says its a graphics issue and logic board needs to be replaced, but the hardware test did not come up with anything.

Are there anymore tests or anything I should do, before we resort to booking a genius appointment? Thanks everyone!

 

[lagisibuk]

what the situation make's you MBA freeze?
just using for browsing, render or editing...
OR the MBA freeze when using OFFICE 11?

I have experience with retina that have problem with OFFICE 11, when i'm using office 11 without update, screen will blank/black and freeze, i need push "power button" and after a few moment will normal again.

maybe you can try to update the latest patch.

 

[cerberusss]

Are there anymore tests or anything I should do, before we resort to booking a genius appointment? Thanks everyone!

It may help if you save the system log after such a crash. It may contain error messages that are helpful to the genius. You can post them here as well.

Open the Console app (I always do that via Spotlight) and on the left, click on system log. Then using the date and time, copy a bunch of relevant lines into a text file.

 

[mat25]

Last night it froze while full screen in Netflix. Also the screen turns black when viewing a powerpoint presentation (office 11) in fullscreen mode, but it fixes itself and closes after about a minute. I'll try and update office. He did mention it happened when viewing a PDF, but I wasn't there to witness that, so it might not be completely accurate.

Here are what I think might be the most relevant lines from the log:

12/29/2013 11:13:37.463 PM sessionlogoutd[1534]: sessionlogoutd Launched
12/29/2013 11:13:37.483 PM sessionlogoutd[1534]: DEAD_PROCESS: 65 console
12/29/2013 11:13:37.520 PM shutdown[1535]: reboot by _securityagent:
12/29/2013 11:13:37.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext loading now disabled.
12/29/2013 11:13:37.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext unloading now disabled.
12/29/2013 11:13:37.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext autounloading now disabled.
12/29/2013 11:13:37.000 PM kernel[0]: Kernel requests now disabled.
12/29/2013 11:13:37.521 PM shutdown[1535]: SHUTDOWN_TIME: 1388376817 520607

I could be wrong, but this seems like its the most relevant and was around the same time. Thanks for your help!

 

[Weaselboy]

I ran a hardware test, and the only issue found was that it wasn't plugged in. Also he's on the latest version of OS X, and did not have a bad SSD (never received the update). I did notice some strange graphic artifacts while in the hardware test, clicking the apple support links. My gut says its a graphics issue and logic board needs to be replaced, but the hardware test did not come up with anything.

Are there anymore tests or anything I should do, before we resort to booking a genius appointment? Thanks everyone!

That points to a hardware issue only Apple will be able to fix for you.

 

[mat25]

That points to a hardware issue only Apple will be able to fix for you.

Yeah, very true. Its interesting though, as I only noticed the graphic issues while clicking the support links in the 'hardware test mode', I wasn't fully logged into the computer, if that makes any sense.

 

[Weaselboy]

Yeah, very true. Its interesting though, as I only noticed the graphic issues while clicking the support links in the 'hardware test mode', I wasn't fully logged into the computer, if that makes any sense.

That is partly the reason I suspect bad hardware, because while you are in that test mode no other drivers or software are running, just the test loaded from firmware. If it is glitching during that, it can't be anything wrong with the OS install since the OS is not even running.

 

[mat25]

That is partly the reason I suspect bad hardware, because while you are in that test mode no other drivers or software are running, just the test loaded from firmware. If it is glitching during that, it can't be anything wrong with the OS install since the OS is not even running.

Okay, that makes sense. The glitches occurred when viewing the support links in safari, while in that mode. There really isn't much installed on this computer either. Thanks for your reply!

 

[krazykleo]

I've been having this same issues where I am in full screen for something and it freezes. Only resolution I've found so far is hard reset by holding the power button for about 10 secs. It's rare that it happens but extremely annoying.