Slight Movement - Immediate Lockup

[RubberShoes]

I have a 13" 2009 MBP (2.53GHz C2D)

About a month ago I was toying around on boot camp, probably playing Sim City 3000 on Windows and thoroughly enjoying myself when POOF

System locks up

Thinking no big deal. I force a shutdown, wait about 15 seconds, and press the power button again. Instead of anything on the screen, I find myself terrified to the sound of 3 beeps.

So I research the problem, understand it is the RAM, so I open the bottom of the laptop, blow the dust out and jockey the RAM around (switched the slots) before I boot it back up to a successful boot.

However, ever since I have had nothing but problems with system freezes. Between closing the lid or just moving the system around, everything, including the mouse, locks up.

I recently upgraded the hard drive, thoroughly cleaned and again switched the RAM around before I installed a clean copy of Lion. I don't have Windows up and running yet on my new partition but I've slowly been building my new "system" and everything has been great.

Except here I sit in class to the system freezes and lock ups...yet again.

I suspect the RAM is the culprit, but I don't understand how any movement and/or the accelerometer could screw the RAM up.

Is there a correlation between the RAM and movement with system freezes? Is there any way to disable the accelerometer's effect on the HDD?

Any help or suggestions would greatly be appreciated

Thanks for your time

-
RS

 

[SandboxGeneral]

I have a 13" 2009 MBP (2.53GHz C2D)

About a month ago I was toying around on boot camp, probably playing Sim City 3000 on Windows and thoroughly enjoying myself when POOF

System locks up

Thinking no big deal. I force a shutdown, wait about 15 seconds, and press the power button again. Instead of anything on the screen, I find myself terrified to the sound of 3 beeps.

So I research the problem, understand it is the RAM, so I open the bottom of the laptop, blow the dust out and jockey the RAM around (switched the slots) before I boot it back up to a successful boot.

However, ever since I have had nothing but problems with system freezes. Between closing the lid or just moving the system around, everything, including the mouse, locks up.

I recently upgraded the hard drive, thoroughly cleaned and again switched the RAM around before I installed a clean copy of Lion. I don't have Windows up and running yet on my new partition but I've slowly been building my new "system" and everything has been great.

Except here I sit in class to the system freezes and lock ups...yet again.

I suspect the RAM is the culprit, but I don't understand how any movement and/or the accelerometer could screw the RAM up.

Is there a correlation between the RAM and movement with system freezes? Is there any way to disable the accelerometer's effect on the HDD?

Any help or suggestions would greatly be appreciated

Thanks for your time

-
RS

No, to the best of my knowledge, physical movement and RAM have no relationship. If physical movement is suspected to be causing lockups, then that will point to the HDD. It is possible that the Sudden Motion Sensor is either a) in conflict with your new HDD or b) acting up all on it's own. What HDD did you put in it?

From Wikipedia:

Aftermarket hardware issues

Among the MacBook and MacBook Pro community there have been several owners who installed aftermarket hard drives already equipped with anti-shock features who reported experiencing kernel panic errors whenever their unit was physically moved. This is believed to be due to a conflict between SMS and the new drive's anti-shock function. The Western Digital Scorpio series of notebook hard drives have been the most frequently reported as being susceptible to this problem. In practically all cases, disabling SMS alleviated this problem without any negative performance impact.

In light of all that, try disabling SMS:

Apple Portables: Advanced tips for Sudden Motion Sensor

 

[kwackbars]

could it be heat?

My macbook pro started locking up when I would physically move the computer or bump it. I found it would happen more often while video was playing or music playing, so I thought it was related to heat. It started happening so often that it would just turn off during startup.

I replaced the thermal paste on the processors and it has not locked up since. This is on my MBP core duo from 2006.

I used this thread to help me. I posted my results on page 17.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/199840/

Maybe your issue is not heat but maybe this idea will help.

 

[SandboxGeneral]

My macbook pro started locking up when I would physically move the computer or bump it. I found it would happen more often while video was playing or music playing, so I thought it was related to heat. It started happening so often that it would just turn off during startup.

I replaced the thermal paste on the processors and it has not locked up since. This is on my MBP core duo from 2006.

I used this thread to help me. I posted my results on page 17.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/199840/

Maybe your issue is not heat but maybe this idea will help.

When adding a URL to your post, you need to add it to some text so it will show up.

The link you meant to show.

 

[RubberShoes]

Woah thank you so much for the detailed responses!

It started BEFORE I upgraded my HDD, and had regular lockups with the stock 250GB Fujitsu HDD after the sudden crash of my machine like I talk about in the initial post.

It is a 500GB Western Digital Scorpio I installed a month ago, and the lockups have been less frequent, but still happen from time to time.

I finally logged back in here and found these answers, and have just disabled the motion sensor through terminal. I will get back to you if that solves my problem!

Thank you for your responses and time.
RS

 

[alphaod]

If reseating the RAM fixes your issue and movement causes lockups, perhaps the RAM socket is loose? I would inspect that. Clean the contacts on your RAM and the socket. Possibly run the computer with only one stick of RAM and see if you still have a problem (if you do, try the other slot).

When adding a URL to your post, you need to add it to some text so it will show up.

The link you meant to show.

Image

Also if you don't want the forum to parse the BBCode you want to post… just use the "noparse" tags. For example here:
[plain][B][I][U][LEFT][CENTER][RIGHT]Link[/RIGHT][/CENTER][/LEFT][/U][/I][/B][/plain]

 

[RubberShoes]

Still locking up after disabling the motion sensor.

I think I'm going to try reseating the RAM tonight or tomorrow and see how that works.

Would it be an issue with the RAM or the slot(s) themselves?

 

[RubberShoes]

For the poor guy frantically searching the forums for an answer to this same problem, it was the RAM.

For anyone else who was following this, I tried both sticks of RAM in both RAM slots and found my system unresponsive to the bottom slot, only recognizing 2GB of RAM total instead of the two 2GB sticks, and when it did recognize any RAM in the second slot I encountered all of my freezing and kernel panics.

So here I sit on 2GB awaiting a 4GB single SODIMM from Amazon. However, this is only a temporary fix, and I'm not sure what to do.

In moving all of the RAM I used compressed air so I don't think any particles were causing the issue, and this issue began before I ever opened the MacBook.

So now what else can I do?