MacBook random shutdown

[ShosMeister]

Bad news:

Note: This update is only or the original MacBook, and will not install on a MacBook (Late 2006).

Mine is past that and was confirmed by trying to run the update. It did tell me that it could not install on this machine although, I'm confused about the versions. As I posted above, mine is 1.13f3 and the update is supposed to take it to 1.4f12 (although I think that is supposed to be 1.14f12). Either way, mine is older.

I'm hating taking it to the store with such an intermittent problem though. Any other thoughts?

 

[ShosMeister]

Update:

In trying to get to a point where I could duplicate this, I started looking at what was running thinking that it may be a heating problem. And, I think it is.

I have been running the machine for over a week without a shutdown. The only thing I turned off was BOINC. Since that runs the CPU at 100% constantly, maybe that's it? It's just overheating? The problem is that I can't find anything in any of the logs that I know of to help point to this.

Does anyone know of any logs to look at after it shuts down? I'm going to leave it running for another week and then turn BOINC back on. If it shuts down, I'm hoping to find something in the log somewhere to help point to that. Maybe it's just a fan or something - although according to iStat everything seems to be doing okay.

Thanks all!!!

 

[phototoasty]

Not just MacBooks!

I have a iMac G5 20" 2.0GHz with 2GB RAM which is 30 months old and has been running constantly for most of that time. This Sunday it started the random shutdown - a complete loss of power and then reboot. It did it about 4 times in the space of an hour and a half.

Doesn't feel like a software problem - if it were it would have to be very low level... and I haven't installed anything recently.

Did a full hardware test... everything fine, including the RAM.

Luckily I have Apple Care program with 6 months to run so called Apple this evening. The support lady immediately said that it is very likely to be a logic board problem. I have a case number, but unfortunately for Apple I live in the Channel Island of Guernsey with no Apple service centre... so I guess they'll have to send someone ;-) I have to ring back tomorrow to see if the local Apple Premium reseller can do the fix!

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to bring forward my purchase of a new Mac.... iMac 24" or Mac Pro 8 core with Cinema screen...??? Ummmm?

Better submit this before the next random shutdown

 

[furcalchick]

i could possibly have a random restart problem. just started today, and it's restarted 3 times in the past hour or so.

for the past week, i had lots of windows open and it's been up for almost a week, and all of a sudden, the computer just shuts down and i have to restart the computer. when i turn it back on, it's running as it's on overdrive even though i'm not opening alot of apps as i was earlier. even now, the fan is running crazy and it's super hot. i hope the logic board didn't go bad and i have to take this to the apple store, because i'm outside of warranty.

i'm thinking if i turn the computer off for a while, it will fix the problem. i already removed the battery and it's doing better for now. do you think this fixes the problem? thanks.

update: the temperature is back to normal and there looks to be nothing wrong with the logic board at least, looks as if it was a battery problem. disregard what i said.

 

[willbak]

Solution

beloved84: Are you sure it's always caused by the logic board? When the tech people ran my machine off the hardware test CD they couldn't get the problem to occur. But as soon as I booted off my HD the problem came back right away. This leads me to think that it's a software problem.

I've had exactly the same problem and I finally found a solution. The first thing I did was to change the RAM back to standard (which didn't work). Then I got i repaired at an officiel apple repair shop. They changed the logic board but i still didn't work!! So untill last week i had a Macbook Pro I couldn't use. But i finally got it fixed by an old friend. It took him some time but if you know what you're doing it's pretty simple. He figured out that it proberly had something to do with an overheating of the cpu, and since it's about year old he thought it was the thermal paste that had shrunk. The paste is used as a heat conductive paste. He applied it on the cleaned cpu and finally i got my Mac back!!