MacBook Air hot/fans running while sleeping

[maddux530]

Hi all,

This morning, I put my 2013 MacBook Air in my bag and went to work. Four hours later, I took the computer out of the bag and it was blazing hot and fans were running high. The battery had drained by 40% during those four hours it was in the bag and the fans were running. I have no idea how long it had been running like this, but it wasn't like that when I put it in the bag this morning. Activity Monitor only had a "kernel task" taking up 7.5% CPU and Dropbox with roughly 3%. I restarted my computer and the problem went away.

My questions are...

1. Did I potentially do damage to my computer?
2. What could have caused this? I don't have PowerNap enabled.

I'm more concerned with question 1. I'd hate to think I damaged this great computer after only owning it for a month.

Thank you.

 

[halledise]

1. probably not if it's working fine now.
2. simply closing the lid should put it to sleep, but you can always push the power button and select sleep from there to be sure it's asleep before you shut the lid.

remedies.
1. reset the SMC
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

scroll down to: "Resetting the SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own"

2. as it's only a month old, take it to an authorised Apple repairer and have them check it our thoroughly - which they'll do for free and if something is found then it'll be either repaired or replaced under warranty, I'd say.

 

[Jefe's MacAir]

I'm pretty sure it would have shut itself down before any damage would occur.

I'd take to Apple and explain what happened and ask them to do what ever it is they can do to make sure it's undamaged and otherwise working as intended. And possibly find out why it happened to begin with. It's still under warranty and anything you MIGHT have damaged may not show up until after the warranty period.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

1. probably not if it's working fine now.
2. simply closing the lid should put it to sleep, but you can always push the power button and select sleep from there to be sure it's asleep before you shut the lid.

remedies.
1. reset the SMC
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

scroll down to: "Resetting the SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own"

2. as it's only a month old, take it to an authorised Apple repairer and have them check it our thoroughly - which they'll do for free and if something is found then it'll be either repaired or replaced under warranty, I'd say.

Absolutely , spot on perfect advice!

 

[maddux530]

Thank you very much for the information and the advice!

 

[BeastMD]

Same thing happened to me. Put it in my bag last night, and it should have been asleep as the apple logo wasnt lit. Opened my bag this morning and I had 0 battery. Seems to be running fine and I ran XCOM on it a bit and it seemed ok.

Looking at the system logs it had run from almost the time I closed the lid until 4am in its closed pouch. Hope no damage was done, you figure it would have gone to sleep on its own after a while of not being used.

 

[luisito]

I'm pretty sure it would have shut itself down before any damage would occur.

Ditto.

Intel processors have a safety max temperature and if the processor crosses that bridge, it forces a shutoff in order to avoid damage.

 

[BeastMD]

Does this mean the CPU heated to max?

7/24/13 4:41:03.000 AM kernel[0]: IOPPF: Sent cpu-plimit-notification last value 16 (rounded time weighted average 16)

 

[luisito]

Does this mean the CPU heated to max?

7/24/13 4:41:03.000 AM kernel[0]: IOPPF: Sent cpu-plimit-notification last value 16 (rounded time weighted average 16)

Did the computer execute a forced shut down?

 

[mattferg]

Just because this computer doesn't have fans running all the time doesn't mean it's okay to put it in the bag while still on! Come on guys, just turn the thing off, it doesn't take long to turn back on!

 

[BeastMD]

Did the computer execute a forced shut down?

I assume that would be in the log? That was the last entry in the log from this morning before I discovered the battery depleted.

----------

Just because this computer doesn't have fans running all the time doesn't mean it's okay to put it in the bag while still on! Come on guys, just turn the thing off, it doesn't take long to turn back on!

The little apple light was out I assumed that to mean it was sleeping? Sorry new to the mac world, been a windows guy all my life.... I thought closing the lid put it to sleep. You can bet I will shut down from now on.

 

[Jefe's MacAir]

I thought closing the lid put it to sleep. You can bet I will shut down from now on.

It does. There is absolutely no need to shut it down before putting it in your bag. I'm on my third Air and never once has what happened to you happened to me. I rarely shut down. If I do it's usually a re-start. Even in Powernap it shouldn't be getting hot enough to run fans.

If I were you, I would at least call CS if you're still under the warranty period for that or take it in to the Genius Bar and ask them WTH?.

 

[luisito]

Just because this computer doesn't have fans running all the time doesn't mean it's okay to put it in the bag while still on! Come on guys, just turn the thing off, it doesn't take long to turn back on!

Just because a computer has the ability to shut off doesn't mean that is okay to shut it off! Come on mattferg! Just leave the thing to sleep, it doesn't take long to close the lid!

Anyways, mac OS is optimized to put a computer to sleep and come back 30 days later for an instantaneous wake and not a massive drop in battery life. This is not windows, so the sleep function that we are talking about does work. In terms of sleeping a computer, Apple has state of the art technology. Apple makes such claims because they have put money on it and it works. I've never encountered a person to shut off their MBP, MBA or rMBP ever. If you shut off your computer, it would only mean that you do know how to use it and aren't utilizing the optimized features that you paid for. Honestly.

 

[BeastMD]

Just because a computer has the ability to shut off doesn't mean that is okay to shut it off! Come on mattferg! Just leave the thing to sleep, it doesn't take long to close the lid!

Anyways, mac OS is optimized to put a computer to sleep and come back 30 days later for an instantaneous wake and not a massive drop in battery life. This is not windows, so the sleep function that we are talking about does work. In terms of sleeping a computer, Apple has state of the art technology. Apple makes such claims because they have put money on it and it works. I've never encountered a person to shut off their MBP, MBA or rMBP ever. If you shut off your computer, it would only mean that you do know how to use it and aren't utilizing the optimized features that you paid for. Honestly.

Its a brand new mac, I already returned one before the wifi issue was widely known about. I think there may be a sleep bug somewhere with the new haswell chipset as I noticed that my air turned on by itself a few times now, looking at the log files. Always as some sort of event with bluetooth, at least going by the logs.

I dont know how hot mine got in the bag as I didnt get to it until hours after the event but it seems toward the end it got really hot just before shutdown(however the battery was probably dying as well). It seems to be working fine otherwise and I played a fairly demanding game on it yesterday for an hour or more so stressing it still it seemed to be stable. I have about 11.5 months of warranty left so I am not going to sweat it too much.

 

[luisito]

It seems to be working fine otherwise and I played a fairly demanding game on it yesterday for an hour or more so stressing it still it seemed to be stable. I have about 11.5 months of warranty left so I am not going to sweat it too much.

Nice.

A good stress test is a good way to sort this type of stuff out. As long as it holds ups, it only means that there was not permanent damage.

 

[maddux530]

After looking at the console, I think I figured out what happened.

On Monday night, I tried disabling hibernate using the following Terminal commands I found on the Apple support forums:

First, disable hibernation mode :
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

delete /private/var/vm/sleepimage :
sudo rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage

create an empty file and name it 'sleepimage' :
touch /private/var/vm/sleepimage

change his flag to immuable :
chflags -uchg /private/var/vm/sleepimage

Nothing of note happened on Monday night, but Tuesday morning was when the overheating happened. The console notes that computer was trying to write to the sleepimage file for 5 straight hours. It would try to write to the file, timeout, go to sleep, wake itself back up, try to write the file, timeout, go to sleep, wake up, etc. At some point, this constant cycling led to the CPU getting hot and the fans firing up.

I spoke with the local Genius Bar and they advised against coming in, saying that everything should be fine. I'm still thinking about making an appointment, but I have homework and wouldn't be able to leave the computer with them for days at a time (assuming they'd need to hold on to it to test it).

EDIT: After further research, looks like this is the code I was supposed to use, anyway:

create an empty file and name it 'sleepimage' :
sudo touch /private/var/vm/sleepimage

change his flag to immuable :
chflags schg /private/var/vm/sleepimage

 

[mattferg]

I assume that would be in the log? That was the last entry in the log from this morning before I discovered the battery depleted.

----------



The little apple light was out I assumed that to mean it was sleeping? Sorry new to the mac world, been a windows guy all my life.... I thought closing the lid put it to sleep. You can bet I will shut down from now on.

Just because it's sleeping doesn't mean it's alright to put it in the bag.

----------

It does. There is absolutely no need to shut it down before putting it in your bag. I'm on my third Air and never once has what happened to you happened to me. I rarely shut down. If I do it's usually a re-start. Even in Powernap it shouldn't be getting hot enough to run fans.

If I were you, I would at least call CS if you're still under the warranty period for that or take it in to the Genius Bar and ask them WTH?.

Plural of anecdote is not data. Just because you've never experienced an issue with this doesn't mean everyone else won't.

----------

Just because a computer has the ability to shut off doesn't mean that is okay to shut it off! Come on mattferg! Just leave the thing to sleep, it doesn't take long to close the lid!

Anyways, mac OS is optimized to put a computer to sleep and come back 30 days later for an instantaneous wake and not a massive drop in battery life. This is not windows, so the sleep function that we are talking about does work. In terms of sleeping a computer, Apple has state of the art technology. Apple makes such claims because they have put money on it and it works. I've never encountered a person to shut off their MBP, MBA or rMBP ever. If you shut off your computer, it would only mean that you do know how to use it and aren't utilizing the optimized features that you paid for. Honestly.

Um, yes it does? Because it can be shut down does mean it's alright to be shut down if the laptop isn't doing anything. Sleep is completely different. Poor troll.

I don't care how fancy their sleep technology is - when the laptop is in sleep and not shut down, it's still consuming power and as such is still producing heat, which, in certain circumstances, will cause issues like the OP had. Please don't give such bad advice in future!

 

[quangsang]

I decide to make a post here coz I did have the same problem. My battery went from 80% to 60% in 15 minutes. It got hot even when sleeping. But after I replaced the battery, the problem is GONE.
Macbook Air mid 2012, El Capitan.