When Macbook is closed it appears to be restarting itself and gets very hot

[shayneisspiffy]

Hello,
I would really love and appreciate any help anyone can give me.

I have a Macbook 15" Aluminuim. The problem began only recently. Every time I close the lid of my Macbook without shutting it down the Macbook apple logo on the outside keeps flicking on, it's like the computer is restarting itself or something like that (although when I open it back up the computer wakes back up like normal). If I just close it and leave it, it gets extremely hot and drains the battery. I'm not sure what it's doing - probably not restarting as it doesn't take me back to the login page. It's almost like it's trying to wake itself back up again and again and again etc...

Please help!

 

[416049]

Do you have energysaver on system prefernces setup to anything also regarding the drain on your battery do you have the app coffein installed and running cuz it disables sleep.

Cheers

 

[tuna9720]

Any bluetooth device such as mouse connected to your Mac?
In my case I figured out many times it woke up my mac before..

 

[shayneisspiffy]

Hello,
Thank you so much for your replies!! In answer to your questions:

maril1111:
My energy saver preferences are:
-Putting computer to sleep and display sleep are both on 5 minutes for both battery and power adapter

Currently ticked boxes for battery are:
-Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible
-Slightly dim the display when using this power source
-Automatically reduce the brightness of the display before display sleep

Currently ticked boxes for power adapter are:
- Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible
- Wake up for Ethernet network administrator access
- Automatically reduce the display brightness before display sleep

Not ticked boxes for power adapter:
Restart automatically after a power failure.

Are these OK? Do you think I should restore the defaults?...though these might already be on the defaults, I don't think I've fiddled with these too much.

I do not have coffein installed.

tuna9720 - No bluetooth anything installed, nothing external attached to the laptop.

 

[416049]

Yes that's fine except have you checked the schedule tab do you have anything enabled?

 

[patrick0brien]

There is another possibility. And I've experienced it with my MBP. It can take a few seconds, up to 20 for the computer to actually sleep after the lid is closed. If you jostle it hard enough, you may trigger the protection mechanism, and force a restart.

What I was doing was shutting the lid, picking it up and popping it into my backpack. I realized that the act of lifting the backpack and throwing it onto my back was causing a restart - sometimes I could hear the faint startup "bong". Then I realized it just could not breath in the bag, would overheat, and freak out - draining the battery.

Do you suppose this might be happening to you?

 

[shayneisspiffy]

Thanks again for the replies!

maril111: Nothing scheduled

patrick0brien: Even leaving it completely still on a desk it does this. Even if the lid is closed and I click on the sleep button through Finder the screen appears to go to sleep and then as soon as the little line light on the right front of the laptop goes off it whirs back up and the screen comes back on.

 

[tuna9720]

How old is your computer? if it's less than a year you have the opportunity to get that fixed by Apple , even if it's older , take it to the genius bar ,they will give you some ideas what might cause that..

 

[CubeHacker]

Its possible that the sensor that detects whether the lid is closed is malfunctioning. I suggest giving Apple a call and see what they say. You might have to bring it in for repair.