Random Restarts

Hey guys!

So lately my MB has been randomly restarting itself. It's done it twice already within 10 minutes. I have no idea why this is happening. I haven't downloaded anything or done anything differently. I already tried using my install disk and pressing C. It's still doing it. Usually when it happens I'm just doing the normal thing; browsing the internet, listening to music, editing photos in iPhoto.

Thank goodness I got applecare. I called but I thought it might be better if I make an appt. with a Mac genius.

Any ideas are appreciated

bad ram or drive?

try and run disk utility and do a repair disk...

Not sure which OS X version you are using (if Tiger, which one? If Leopard, which one?) but in any case you might want to take a look at this blog entry.

The author gives a rundown of what he went through to finally end up sending it back to Apple. It ended being a hardware problem,more specifically the logic board.

Does a new user account exhibit the same problems? If so, it is a system-wide problem and could be at this point either a software issue or hardware.

If the new user account doesn't help:

- if you're still under Apple Care, I would give them a call: they'll make you try stuff, and it'll either work (best case scenario) or it won't and they'll tell you to take it back in for repairs. Besides, they must have statistics on MacBook problems.

The only Apple troubleshooting I found on this problems is the tips and links the blogger gives in his article. So try them out and see if anything is fixed or not. If it still happens, get Apple Care to try to solve this.

Nothing you can do if it is a faulty logic board.

Thanks for the article MHC. That sounds just like my MB. Mine is also the "late 2006" model. I'm still running 10.4.11. I'm going to try using a different user account and see if it still happens.

The only thing is that I don't have an external HD to back up just in case I need to. I guess I may have to go out and buy one.

Ok, my MB just restarted itself 3 times within half an hour. Grrr..not good. I guess I'll call applecare tomorrow.

So, I have my appt. at the genius bar today at 10am. Last night my MB restarted itself 6 times in one hour. It was pretty bazaar haha Hopefully they figure out what's wrong and are able to fix it.

Keep us up to date Netty. What they find as the cause of these problems might help anyone else researching for these symptoms and knowing what's going on.

try reinstalling the RAM, sometimes it has come oh so loose!

Try the standard ones:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303319
I'll bet you a rep point they do the second one when you take it in.

technologist said:

Try the standard ones:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303319
I'll bet you a rep point they do the second one when you take it in.

Click to expand...

Actually, they didn't do any of that. He looked at the console log but because I couldn't recreate the problem there wasn't much to do. He said that I should make a back up of my home folder and try reinstalling the OS. I don't have a back up drive, so I have to go out and buy one now.

What does it mean when my MB completely freezes and the screen colors go weird? That just happened to me. I had to press the power button for a bit, it beeped, and now Macky is back.

Weird. I'm calling applecare right now.

Netty4mac said:

What does it mean when my MB completely freezes and the screen colors go weird? That just happened to me. I had to press the power button for a bit, it beeped, and now Macky is back.

Weird. I'm calling applecare right now.

Click to expand...

Seems like it's overheating to me. That's what happens when a GPU overheats (at least in my experience). Any odd fan noises when the problem occurs? Does it get really warm (hot) at the time?

Hey Netty,

I'm just about in your same boat. I think I'm a little further along the river than you are. My MB is just back from the shop for I dunno, the 6 time in a few months. I pretty bummed about it.

Here's the breakdown of my woes:


I have a MB that was bought new about 12 months ago, 12/2006.
About 3 weeks after getting it, it started randomly shutting down. Seems to be a very rare problem that is hard to fix. Apple care via the phone was clueless about it when I called them 4 different times about it.
I had 2 M of RAM that was installed about 3 months ago.
About 2 months ago the HD was replaced. Two weeks later they replaced the logic board.
And today they replaced the logic board again.

Making one sad me.

I've heard that your machine may be replaced if they have to replace the same part 3 times. But today they told me maybe not. I'm wuped, The contant back ups and fear of reinstalling everything again are killing me. And I feel like I must have some bad Karma here b/c most of my recent posts have been pretty much ignored. waaaaa.

Now back to you. It certainly seems that this issue is logic board based. I don't know what else it could be.

Were you able to get an external drive? I got a portable one, which nice, it fits in my bag easily and doesn't need to be plugged in. I've been trying to get some info here on how to back things up regularly without copy and pasting your whole user folder everytime. That can take 30 - 60 minutes depending on what's on your machine. Also, I had to back up applications separately, they were not in my user folder. That took a while. And since you're having some serious problems and could be software related, I've been advised repeatedly NOT to achive and reinstall. Which means if your OS needs to be reinstalled and/or you lose your data, to just put back what you need a little at a time so if it is software related you can have an idea. For example if you reinstall Word and suddenly the problem comes back, then maybe it's that program. Really the hardest part was reinstalling all the user preferences for the apps. And itunes, that took me a while, too. Not very fun.

Back to backing up. I've also been told, "back up frequently and in multiple ways", like a portable external drive and desktop external drive and CD/DVD's. The portable drive I got was about $70 for 80 gigs. They might make smaller ones for less. If you don't have a ton of stuff, maybe a jump drive? I don't think those are as stable/reliable though... I've heard some horror stories about them.

Gotta put my kids to bed, be back in a minute.

cwa107 said:

Seems like it's overheating to me. That's what happens when a GPU overheats (at least in my experience). Any odd fan noises when the problem occurs? Does it get really warm (hot) at the time?

Click to expand...

Yes, after this happened that fans were loud. It's also still restarting itself. I called applecare but I hung up. I had been on hold for almost 1 hour. I'm going to try again later.

rcronin, No external hard drive yet. I've been putting off. I better get it now.

Netty4mac said:

Yes, after this happened that fans were loud. It's also still restarting itself. I called applecare but I hung up. I had been on hold for almost 1 hour. I'm going to try again later.

Click to expand...

Have you run the Apple Hardware Test yet? Perhaps that will detect a problem the cooling system. I would try running it now while the problem seems to be repeatedly occurring and note any errors detected.

rcronin, No external hard drive yet. I've been putting off. I better get it now.

Click to expand...

I'd lean toward this being a hardware problem, but it's never a bad thing to have a backup. In fact, that's got to be the most important peripheral to have - especially if you value any of the data stored on your machine.

I just ran the Apple Hardware test and everything checked out okay.

Netty4mac said:

I just ran the Apple Hardware test and everything checked out okay.

Click to expand...

Ugh... intermittent problems are always the worst to try to nail down. Unfortunately, I think you're going to need to actually get someone from Apple Care on the phone.

cwa107 said:

Ugh... intermittent problems are always the worst to try to nail down. Unfortunately, I think you're going to need to actually get someone from Apple Care on the phone.

Click to expand...

Thanks cwa! I'm going to call them again right now.

My MB froze again just now. It had little blue lines on the screen going vertically, and it got a little distorted. I restarted it and now the fans are going crazy again but it wasn't hot before it froze.

Booo

cwa107 said:

Have you run the Apple Hardware Test yet? Perhaps that will detect a problem the cooling system. I would try running it now while the problem seems to be repeatedly occurring and note any errors detected.

Click to expand...

How is this different from verify/repair disk using disk utility?

Also, can you say a bit more about the heat issue? I have fan control and have never see the temp get or stay unreasonably high.

That Apple Hardware Test, did you ask for the extended test? It's way longer to run that the normal test but it's much more thorough in the tests and it will test all hardware components.