Macbook 13 inch sudden shutdown problem
 

I don't know if this would be considered a recall but Macbook 13 have been having a problem suddenly shutting down. Apple is acknowledging this problem and have a fix for it.


Macbook sudden shutdown

I don't want to turn this into a Mac bashing thread, but Apple really seems to be having bad luck with the new line of machines. I don't recall them having this many problems on the old G4 books... Are the intel chipsets just THAT buggy or hard to work with?

I think they are having an unusual number of problems, but it's hard to tell for sure. We Mac users tend to make noise (both good and bad) all out of proportion to our numbers, and to have much higher expectations than Windows users. That's great for Apple when things are going well, but not good when they're having difficulties.

The good news is that their support (at least in the US) tends to be excellent. The bad news is you really do need to buy the extended warranty with their notebooks.

I don't think it's fair to blame Intel though. Apple has occassionally had these rashes of hardware problems. The difficulties with the iBook G3 logic board are well documented.

It took a long time for apple to acknowledge this issue. There was a very in detail thread on their support forum at apple.com which then apple shutdown...shame on them!

And until now, many people couldn't get satisfaction: http://www.macbookrandomshutdown.com/

It now appears the cause of the RSS has been discovered:
http://www.powerpage.org/archives/20...l_brewing.html

It's not the intel chip but the damn CPU thermometer and heatsink (used to keep unit cool - how ironic) !!!

Now the question is whether apple will be a man and do a recall, or as they normally have done in the past, sweep under the floor. It has certainly made me put on hold decision to buy this otherwise great macbook :(

They still haven't aknowldged the power inverter for the screen which gives that electrical whine.At least not in UK.

*sigh*

/E

My understanding is that intel designed most of the internals. Everyone I've spoken with at work agree that Intel isn't known for making great motherboards.

Some of these issues are probably related to both Apple's unfamiliarity with the hardware and their desire to push the design to the limit of the hardware's capability.

I know the Core's are "cool" compared to their P4 cousins, but admit I was shocked to see that the cooling for my MacBook was just a row of vents at the screen hinge. You just can't get really good cooling with the hinge blocking the airflow and forcing it around it. I admit I like not having "grills and gills" along the left side of the machine where the CPU and GPU are, but I admit I worry that the underside of my case gets so seriously hot because there is no direct venting.

I noticed Apple waited for the new Mobile Core 2 Duos for the iMacs, because they generate half the heat as the desktop Core 2 Duos do. These new Mobile Core 2 Duos will also be used to refresh the MacBook Pro line (and evidently will plug directly into existing MacBooks and MacBook Pros), so hopefully this will help with the heat issue which should help with the hardware and cosmetic ("oranging" white acrylic) issues that have been cropping up.


Intel makes great motherboards. They just never made "enthusiast" motherboards that you could overclock and tweak, so the performance was always bog-standard and therefore most DIYers steered clear of them.

Intel has started making "enthusiast" boards and while not as extreme as the Taiwanese, they still do well and offer excellent stability.

I don't think you're turning this into a Mac bashing thread, as I'm an Apple fanatic and agree that the MacBooks have had more than their fair share of problems. I think Apple could've held off a bit longer on releasing the Intel products. I also think it's a combination of Intel chipsets being a bit finicky and Apple having to have their specific form factors, materials, design, and featureset. If the 15" was a couple millimeters thicker it'd probably have had far less heat/fan noise problems, but changing the form factor even minimally like that isn't an option.

I'm on my 2nd PB G4 (final-rev 1440x960 15" now, bought last November knowing full well that much faster Intel PowerBooks would be coming soon) and quite happy that I bought it. I've had no major issues with either; the first one was 2 years old and had the expected wear and tear from heavy usage as a primary machine, so after replacing the screen bezel (nicely bent from a couple drops), metal top-plate (dented as well, and pitted around the wrist areas from heat and sweat; my newer PB has TiArmor to avoid that), and keyboard myself, off to eBay it went. If I'd waited and bought a MacBook, I'd potentially have had serious support issues as I've been out of the US for most of the past year. (Although one of my two batteries is covered under the fire-hazard recall. I'm just not going to charge that one while sleeping until I can have it replaced. :))

I'll get an Intel MacBook when they're on the Core 2 Duos and several months have gone by to show that Apple's gotten their Intel hardware working well.

I have a reputation around here ;)

So I see. Would you take a free MacBook Pro with the caveat that you wouldn't be allowed to run Windows on it and would have to actually use it?

(Not that I'm offering. :))

My 'pro runs hot whether in Windows or OS X... it runs fine no matter what but IMO the thermal paste issue is what's making things so hot. I just haven't dissected it yet. I've got Vista on it now and it works almost perfectly. Haven't got the iSight working yet nor the eject key but do have the brightness and Startup panel applets going. It's now pretty much my main machine at home and I find myself in OS X about 50% of the time. The problem is that I use two or three windows-only apps a LOT. Might do Parallels and stay in OS X full time, just haven't gotten there yet.