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MBP freeze with black screen during calibration

R

ramzhh

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 21, 2010
173
0
Howdy!

Today I left my MBP on without the Power Adapter for calibration. Three hours later, when I arrived home, I found it with a black screen, unresponsive (didn't respond to any key or mouse movement whatsoever). No, the battery wasn't empty of charge, it still had half the charge! This is the second time this happens to me, I can't seem to think of a reason for this to happen.


I believe JDownloader was open, but not doing any downloads, but I'm not sure whether it was open or not, but besides it, nothing else was open.


Any thoughts?
 
bamf said:
How low was the battery once you got the machine booted back up?
Click to expand...

I answered that already in the first post, it had half the charge.

@GGJstudios Thank you, but I have already read that FAQ, and besides, the issue isn't that the computer doesn't turn on. It was On when I found it, I could hear hear the fans and the backlight seemed lit. The computer was definitely On.

BTW, now that I've created a thread, there's something small I would like to ask. Each time I turn on my MBP I hear like a hard drive noise for a split second, then everything goes absolutely normal. Is it supposed to do this? It's doing this since I got it but I have never really thought about it.


Cheers!
 
ramzhh said:
Each time I turn on my MBP I hear like a hard drive noise for a split second, then everything goes absolutely normal. Is it supposed to do this? It's doing this since I got it but I have never really thought about it.
Click to expand...
Yes, it's normal. The sound you hear is probably the OS checking the optical drive, in case you have an installation DVD in it.
 
GGJstudios said:
It could be something as simple as adjusting the brightness on the keyboard, or something more sinister:

MBP not booting, black screen,
Advice with MBP black screen of death
Going to Apple Store tomorrow... Macbook Pro screen black
Black screen on MacBook Pro
Macbook working but screen is black
Click to expand...

First of all, I tried every setting I could change - nothing. Second, none of those issues were like mine. In their case, the display went black when they booted up their machine. In my case, the computer had been on for a few hours before, and suddenly the display went black and everything froze.
 
ramzhh said:
First of all, I tried every setting I could change - nothing. Second, none of those issues were like mine. In their case, the display went black when they booted up their machine. In my case, the computer had been on for a few hours before, and suddenly the display went black and everything froze.
Click to expand...

And when you forced it to turn off and turned it back on, what happened?
 
ramzhh said:
Absolutely normal, nothing out of the ordinary. Fast, elegant and beautiful.

I hate to kill my aluminum baby like that!
Click to expand...

So you're saying it's running fine now and the black screen issue only happened one time?
 
GGJstudios said:
So you're saying it's running fine now and the black screen issue only happened one time?
Click to expand...

It's happened twice. Both times, I was calibrating it.

Maybe, Just MAYBE, it happened a third time, but that time, I'm not sure if it was a freeze or just because the battery was with almost no charge whatsoever.
 
ramzhh said:
It's happened twice. Both times, I was calibrating it.

Maybe, Just MAYBE, it happened a third time, but that time, I'm not sure if it was a freeze or just because the battery was with almost no charge whatsoever.
Click to expand...

Have you been able to successfully calibrate since then?
 
GGJstudios said:
Have you been able to successfully calibrate since then?
Click to expand...

No, the only time I successfully calibrated my battery was the first time I tried, the other times, always failed to do it. Always froze...
 
ramzhh said:
No, the only time I successfully calibrated my battery was the first time I tried, the other times, always failed to do it. Always froze...
Click to expand...

Did you try my tip about using the Caffeine app while calibrating, in the link I posted?
 
GGJstudios said:
Did you try my tip about using the Caffeine app while calibrating, in the link I posted?
Click to expand...

I'll try that, although I'm skeptic about it, since I thought we were supposed to to exactly as Apple stated, by letting the computer go to sleep.

Besides, if the issue is deeper than it seems, I would rather get it fixed.
 
ramzhh said:
I'll try that, although I'm skeptic about it, since I thought we were supposed to to exactly as Apple stated, by letting the computer go to sleep.
Click to expand...
It doesn't change the process. It simply makes sure your Mac stays awake until the battery is drained. Whether it shuts down or sleeps is irrelevant. Be sure to save your work, of course.
 
GGJstudios said:
It doesn't change the process. It simply makes sure your Mac stays awake until the battery is drained. Whether it shuts down or sleeps is irrelevant. Be sure to save your work, of course.
Click to expand...

Alright then, tomorrow I'll try it.
Any chance you got anything on the actual issue? I'm trying to narrow down the issue to a certain component of the machine.
 
ramzhh said:
Alright then, tomorrow I'll try it.
Any chance you got anything on the actual issue? I'm trying to narrow down the issue to a certain component of the machine.
Click to expand...

If you can't consistently reproduce the symptoms, it makes it harder to diagnose. There are too many variables that could be a factor, both hardware and software, both OS and apps.
 
GGJstudios said:
If you can't consistently reproduce the symptoms, it makes it harder to diagnose. There are too many variables that could be a factor, both hardware and software, both OS and apps.
Click to expand...

When I try using Caffeine I will be monitoring the machine every ~20 minutes, hopefully I will know more about the issue.
 
Great news! Caffeine did its job and all went fine.

I'm still wondering what caused the problem, though. Very odd and it's something that must be fixed.
 
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