Macbook resets whenever moved.

[Sargus]

Hopefully this goes here and not the "help" forum. I'm coming to you guys for help because I'm not use to solving Mac-related issues. I'm more of a PC guy usually.

My girlfriend's Macbook (older white one. Bought in 2008, but I believe it was refurbished. I think it's a 13" but I'm not positive) fell a few feet yesterday (it was closed, but hibernating), and I thought it was fine until later that night stuff kept crashing on her and it reset a couple of times. Then it refused to boot up. Finally it started beeping at her 3 times instead of starting up, so I knew it had to be a RAM issue. I figured maybe it got knocked loose.

So I took out the RAM and put it back in. No dice, so I tried it again. This time the Mac booted up like normal. I thought that was it.

Except now, every time she moves the Mac much at all (which is somewhat important, being a laptop and all) something apparently gets jostled and the computer resets. One of these times, it beeped at her three times again, but I was able to boot it back up without having to touch the RAM again.

Any ideas of what the issue or possible fix could be? She's running OS X. It's up and running fine now but I'm afraid to move it too much.

 

[spinnerlys]

Not a fix, but the beep codes are explained here and here.

It may have something to do with the Sudden Motion Sensor, which is responsible for parking the head of the HDD when a sudden movement occurs.

 

[Sargus]

Not a fix, but the beep codes are explained here and here.

It may have something to do with the Sudden Motion Sensor, which is responsible for parking the head of the HDD when a sudden movement occurs.

Thanks. I had looked up the beep codes last night when it started, which is why I decided to mess with the RAM. Since the computer now boots after doing so, I wonder if the issue is still related somehow. But I didn't even know about the Sudden Motion Sensor, so I'll definitely look into that.

 

[Sargus]

A little update: I've had intermittent trouble booting up from time to time - taking out the RAM and putting it back in usually seems to work. If I keep the Macbook VERY still, things work fine.

I went through the steps of reseting the PRAM and I even turned off the Sudden Motion Sensor, hoping that was somehow the problem. No dice.

Something's slightly different, though. Instead of reseting, it now simply freezes every time I move it. I don't know if that's a result of something I did (like turning off the SMS) or not.

I've been reading about issues with it being a Logic board issue, in which case a replacement would be very expensive, correct? The Macbook is not under warranty, and as such I'm hesitant to even bother calling Apple. Any last tips?

 

[Frysk]

Same problem - any luck?

Hi Sargus, I'm going through the exact symptoms you described. Did you have any luck diagnosing or fixing the problem?

I've tried:
re-seating the RAM and HDD
clearing out the dust
resetting PRAM
disabling sudden motion sensors
tightening screws
cursing

Running 10.6 on an older macbook, 2 x 512MB RAM, 1.83GHz