Sleep issues...

[sebrat]

I have a MacBook Pro 15" 2.8 Ghz late-2008 model. I've looked up this problem several times but nobody seems to have the same thing - it seems to be going to sleep at random times without invocation, for a few seconds. The display goes black, and if I'm playing music or a movie it stops, and the backlighting on the keyboard dies. It comes back, but the problem seems to be getting more persistent, and can happen within 5-10 minutes - very counter-productive. I've tried all the standard fixes - changing energy saver preferences, switching the graphics card, resetting the PRAM, repairing disk permissions - and it doesn't seem to be making any difference. The main problem is that the timing is so random, and I can go for several hours without it happening, but then it will happen in a series of bursts. I've called Apple's helpline and it seems that I've only just run out of warranty on it - worse still, I'm in France for the next few months and don't speak much French. I'm not prepared to pay for a repair, so I desperately need to know if there is some kind of fix to this problem. Thanks in advance for help!

 

[mrcodewizard]

Did you get Applecare? If you did, have you run the diags on the disk?

Also have you tried reinstalling?

Have you cleaned out the vents?

Are you in an unfriendly operating environment? (it is France)

Does it happen only when you do certain things? Does it happen when it's warm, or muggy, or dry, or cool, or a combination of those?

also what are the settings for sleep? and on your media player? DON'T assume the settings have not changed.

 

[sebrat]

Did you get Applecare? If you did, have you run the diags on the disk?

Also have you tried reinstalling?

Have you cleaned out the vents?

Are you in an unfriendly operating environment? (it is France)

Does it happen only when you do certain things? Does it happen when it's warm, or muggy, or dry, or cool, or a combination of those?

also what are the settings for sleep? and on your media player? DON'T assume the settings have not changed.

I believe that this computer has AppleCare - unfortunately I didn't buy it so I'll have to ask my brother, and I can't contact him for another few days - but in any case the details will be back in New Zealand and I won't be back there for another few months, so that's no good. I did an archive reinstall, no good. I've tried cleaning out the vents, though possibly not thoroughly enough. There doesn't seem to be much logic to when and why it happens, especially since the weather has been very changeable lately and that doesn't seem to affect the problem. And finally my sleep settings are at 'never', doesn't seem to be making any difference. I have no idea what the media player settings are, and I guess it is possible that this could be causing it.

Thanks!

EDIT: And I forgot to ask, what do you mean by an unfriendly operating environment? I'm in the middle of Paris, so I don't think that's the case.