I have just spent the good part of two days trying to figure out why my 17″ Powerbook (1.67GHz) has narcolepsy. And an annoying couple of days it has been. I've narrowed the problem down finally, but I still have not come up with a solution. I'm blogging here in hopes that someone has either A) seen the solution or B) can answer a couple questions I have that will lead me to it. C'mon Mac-heads, time to step up here! Imagine my surprise when I logged in to find the last post here was Tom Mucks' post on his dead Toshiba laptop. LOL I haven't had trouble with this one at all until this. And no, I don't have Apple Care and it's out of warranty.
Before someone hops into the comments and tells me to:
- Repair permissions
- Zap the PRAM
- Reset the PMU
- Repair permissions
- Boot into single user and run fsck -fy
- Repair permissions
- Create a new user and test while running that
- Check the console.log and system.log
Let me just save you the time and let you know that I've done all that ad nauseum… and none of it works for more than a little bit. However, in doing all that, I found that I do have the error in my system.log that states that the machine has overheated and is being put to sleep. The problem is, after installing Temperature Monitor, and keeping track for a couple days, I found that I don't have an overheating problem at all. What I have is an insanely whacked out Trackpad sensor — or at least a whacked out reading — caused by “I don't know what.” And that's what I'm determined (hopefully with your help) to find out — with as little down time as possible. A gurl has to work y'know! (The sensor readings can vary within a two second readout period from -193F to 243F. Likely these are incorrect since I'd either be freezing or burning at either temperature.)
I found two posts (actually more, but two that were somewhat helpful and confirmed my findings) outside the Apple forums. Why am I outside the Apple forums you ask? Well, for one, I found at least three threads there with the same problem — but no solution. And also, because something is bad wrong with those forums right now and sometimes I have to click and time out five times before a page loads. Forget it. I done quit and gone ta googlin'…
In the first post I found at MacFixItForums, the guy was in Korea and ended up sending in his machine. Apple fixed it and according to him, the way they fixed it was, “Something about two contacts being pressed together under the surface to the left of the trackpad.” OK… that's plausible. But I don't really want to take my machine apart to check for such unless that turns out to be the solution with none other.
In the second thread I found, a gentlemen that apparently works on Macs seems to have fixed it another way. He states he “repaired permissions using Terminal and discovered a library widget had the wrong permissions. Once the Widget permissions were fixed, the laptop immediately stopped going to sleep and had been fine ever since.” This sounds much more like a solution I would like to try for myself. However, I've not figured out how to use the terminal to repair permissions. I know how to do it using Disk Utility only.
Does anyone have any clues for me? Has this triggered thoughts in your brain you might like to share? Here's hoping…
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I found the command to do permission repair from the terminal… if anyone is looking for it later, it is:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030120061404240
And the command itself is:
sudo diskutil repairPermissions /
Whether it worked or not remains to be seen. I had to reboot right before I did it due to the return of the narcolepsy… so I can’t say one way or the other yet since I’m holding steady at -1.3F right now.
Hi Stef, long time no see….
“why my 17″ Powerbook (1.67GHz) has narcolepsy” How does “narcolepsy” manifest? Beachball or none, sluggishness or actual “Sleep” menu item? What do you see?
(If it’s that the screen goes dark, but is pretty fast to start up again, then one scenario is moving the mouse to the lower-left corner of the screen… I’m not sure what you’re seeing, though, so this may be irrelevant.)
I’m not sure whether the temperature sensor is directly related to sleep, or whether it’s just something which says it’s related to sleep. But if it’s a live potential factor, then does the computer behave differently if used in different environments, in a different room, away from other equipment?
Long time no see …
The narcolepsy is manifested by instant black sleep! I turned off all ability for it to go to sleep by permission… turned off all hot corners… put all settings for all power types on NEVER sleep… etc…
The system.log says this when it malfunctions:
Jan 23 17:40:06 name-of-computer kernel[0]: Power Management received emergency overtemp signal. Going to sleep.
And then it nods off. Very rude of it to do while I’m using it! Hrmph.
I just found that my repairing of permissions with the terminal did nothing more than anything else. I just had to reboot again. I guess I’m going to be on the phone with Apple shortly and mailing this in a box. Sad.
I couldn’t read your comment while writing mine so I forgot to answer that last bit.
It acts the same while I’m using it in the office, or in the living room or bedroom… And in the office, I even tried sitting it up on a little platform so about 3″ of air could circulate below it… AND I put an ice pack under it. All to no avail (I believe because it’s not REALLY hot… so it doesn’t need to be cooled)… I think it’s simply a malfunctioning readout…
The bad thing is — other people with this problem have had their computers returned with “We couldn’t find anything”… That’s because they have to USE it for about an hour before it goes all wrong (though just now on reboot, my readout said that the trackpad was -187F)… so I don’t think they sit and make it crunch long enough to exhibit the behavior… My hopes are not too high!
Okay, well, you stumped me, then.
You wouldn’t happen to have an Apple Store nearby, would you? Reason I ask is that there should be a few people working there who collect strange symptoms, and they may be able to get a match for it.
Sure sounds like a malfunction in the hardware, though… makes it hard to focus to get work done….
cya, j
Nope… I’m in a small town… nearest Apple store is 2 hours away in Raleigh/Durham.
I called Apple and they’re sending me a box to ship it in. Ugh.
There is one more thing I’ve not tried that someone mentioned — and that is to remove one of my extra RAM chips. So I may try that tonight… The fun never stops.
2 hours away in Raleigh? Then you could probably have deputy Fife drive it over…
Hey, Steph. This page
http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/macbasics_repairing_permissions_and_the_terminal/
may help. Haven’t tried it myself, though, and I’m not near a Mac at the moment, so proceed with care.
-Tom
Hi Steph,
I have a 15″ 1.67 powerbook with EXACTLY the same problem.
I brought it in for repair on January 2nd and received it back yesterday (!!) only to find out the problem isn’t solved.
They replaced the entire motherboard….(under warranty) but now when I use the temperature monitor program I still see a funky trackpad sensor. *sigh*
They said they kept the machine running for a week without problems. I’m curious to know how they did that. Probably with a hardware test disk or something. And that one doesn’t load the full OS. So that got me thinking it is some kind of software problem.
I’m about to do a full clean system install to see if the problem goes away. If that doesn’t work then I’ll bring it back to repair again.
Can you believe it…I bought a 2nd hand titanium powerbook just to be able to work….
Cheers,
Maxim
Hi Maxim… That’s exactly why the shipping box is sitting next to me and I’ve not sent the computer in yet. :-\ I fear I’ll go without it for days and then it won’t be fixed.
That said, two different people in the thread on the Apple forum have reported sending in their computer, having Apple report that they’re not finding anything — but then finding that their computer is fixed. (The thread is here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=226508&start=0&tstart=0 )
This has brought me to the conclusion that you’re coming to as well — it’s a software issue. And *something* the Apple Engineers are doing in the testing process is actually fixing the issue. I’m thinking that today, I’m going to call and see if I can get escalated to an engineer (or someone that knows)… and then see if I can discern what tests they’re running and what they’re doing.
Thing is, my sleep problem is SO intermittent at this point, there’s no doubt in my mind that they could probably let my machine sit there in repair and “just run” (you KNOW no one has time to just sit and use it till it acts up) and it would never display the narcolepsy. Plus, everyone knows that when you send your machine in to repair, they’re AFRAID to act up. They only do that for their parents.
BTW Maxim, are you simply still seeing the wonky temp readings? Or are you still going to sleep a lot as well?
Good luck…
Hi Steph,
I kept the machine running all day. Every 30 minutes or so it went to sleep due to “overheating”.
And after a couple of times, it didn’t even want to wake up. Now I have to remove the battery, press the power button, put the battery back and reboot!
More bad news: I spoke to a friend of mine today who works at Apple. He says probably the top-casing has to be exchanged. Cause that is where the trackpad and temp. sensor are sitting. But due to who-knows-what the top-casing is not avaiable worldwide and won’t be until at least halfway through March.
OMG!
I am considering on selling the machine, but I can’t sell it in this state…
-Maxim
I was having the exact same problem. I just tried replacing my third-party ac adapter with the official apple adapter, and at least for the last hour or so, the temperature sensor trackpad readings have been normal.
Not that this is particularly helpful, but I have the same problem. Random sleeping via wonky trackpad temperatures, and I often have to remove the power and press the power button to restart it. I’m getting a bit tired of it. I bet my filesystem is too.
It seems like a small epidemic, so I’m sort of surprised Apple is not able to fix it for everyone.
Anyway, I’m no help, I’m just ranting.
Actually Eric, it does help. In fact, if you want to email me (design@violetsky.net), we can gather enough people to prove this is a major issue for us. I WILL go to bat and talk to Apple armed with the info. I’m just that kind of girl.
But seriously, one thing we’re looking at now is power supply — those of you with this problem — do you use the power supply that came with your computer or a third party cord? And have you noticed whether the narcolepsy happens while you’re running on battery? Or just when you’re plugged in?
Any info would be helpful. Thanks!
Hey Stef,
Way to organize the masses! I have the original Apple power cord, power supply and battery. I’ve had the problem running on A/C and battery, and with either of my two batteries. I also checked to make sure my batteries didn’t need the firmware upgrade (which they didn’t).
One thing I haven’t tried is A/C without a battery in there. Actually, I guess there are lots of things I haven’t tried, but there are only so many hours in the day. I should mention that I have a 15in G4 1.67 GHz, so it’s not just the 17-inchers that are suffering.
It sounds more and more to me that it’s a hardware problem (i.e. the contacts near the trackpad). Or rather a hardware *design* problem. Is there a lemon law for computers?
-Eric
Hmm…I might have spoken to hastily about the battery thing. Today I used it for several hours on battery and it was fine. Once I plugged it in (within 15 minutes), it went all My Own Private Idaho. At least the sleeping bit.
I also used it several days successfully in the past week or so, and I remember using it on battery power a lot this past week as well So maybe ya got something there.
I’ll try it some more. Good thing I have two batteries.
-Eric
Yeah that lousy trackpad sensor I am having exactly the same problem with my 15″ 1.67ghz Powerbook. I am using the original power adaptor and the battery it came with. The thing is, once the trackpad sensor starts behaving like a woman getting her menopause it doesn’t seem to matter if the computer is running on battery, adaptor with battery or adaptor without battery but I had days when i was able to use my computer without problems the sensor showing a constant 25 degrees Celcius and i could plug and unplug the adapter move it around with nothing happening.
That sensor contact issue sounds interesting though I will have to open my Powerbook up and have a look at it myself, if that is indeed possible and that sensor is in clear sight once the top case is removed.
Does anyone of you know if there is a possibility to edit a kernel extension to just shut that sensor down?
It just bugs me that my gurantee stopped like a month ago and now my powerbook is just getting soooo tired.
Oh by the way banging the computer against a wall doesn’t help either (but interstingly enough it doesn’t make things worse.)
Anyway where can i sign up for the petition?
17 inch powerbook, new in August, used little. One day it started randomly sleeping, had to reset the PMU to restart, etc. Now it sleeps immediately after startup and is unusable. It boots, give message box about the time, then imediately sleeps. If I restart it (removing battery, resetting PMU, etc…) over and over again it eventually gets warm enough that if I keep hitting keys or clicking the mouse it will stay on for awhile (like 15 minutes.)
I’m totally fed up with Apple as they won’t help me (no Applecare) over the phone and I have to send in my personal iBook (with Applecare) for repair. But, now I can’t because my powerbook isn’t working. This is clearly a widespread issue with the 17inch that they need to acknowledge and address. I’ve NEVER faced this kind of unhelpful, head-in-the-sand attitude from Apple and am really baffled. Are they trying to look like idiots or a**h***s?
So, the motherboard of my 15″ powerbook was replaced in January and Apple said the problem had disappeared but in fact it hadn’t. After I got it back (after 4 weeks!) I again spent hours on the phone with an Apple technician. In the end he concluded that the topcase had to be replaced (that’s where the trackpad and trackpad-temp.sensor are seated)….but those weren’t going to be available for 3 months and he said I had to wait for that. (!!) I said that was unacceptable because I desperately need the machine for work.
I then asked him where I could send a complaint-letter. He said “hold on” and he put me through to this really nice lady from Customer-relations.
And guess what? In 2 minutes I was offered a new powerbook or my money back.
Problem solved…
Though, after reading all of your stories it still sounds like a big-issue and Apple needs to get aware of this. And what if your powerbook is (just) out of warranty, then it’s still unacceptable and you should call Apple and demand a replacement. Just say you thought it was a software issue and were trying to solve it for months, to find out it is a hardware issue!!!
My powerbook is from April 2005 and I have a gut feeling it has something to do with the march/april/may batch of powerbooks.
Anyway, I hope my new powerbook won’t suffer from this…. I’ll keep you posted.
Cheers,
maxim
Hi new guys to the thread… Welcome!
Well, I have new info to report. I don’t think it makes a darn bit of difference whether I use the battery or power supply.
I have started out with the battery and then plugged in when it’s low… I have started out with the plug and then unplugged. I’m finding no rhyme or reason for this relating to my power supply.
What I DEFINITELY do see is that if I turn the computer off at night (which I rarely do), it definitely lasts longer the next day. But when I don’t shut down, over time, it gets progressively worse and worse…
Doesn’t that sound like SOFTWARE?? Or does rebooting somehow reset the hardware?
I tried to get help from a genius in the SFO Apple store (since I don’t have one nearby). I was there with Tom Green this summer and the LA Times was writing an article on the new Studio bar in the store. Somehow, Tom and I ended up being the picture that accompanied the article in the LA Times. Not surprisingly, that still didn’t give me any clout with the girl answering the phone at the SFO store. She still wouldn’t let me talk to a genius.
I guess my next step, now that I’ve ruled out everything I can, is to try to get my case escalated with the phone support — point them to this thread and the Apple forums threads, and then try to go to the next step for all of us. I AM NOT sending my machine in until someone has a successful fix from Apple. Everyone I know of gets their machine sent back and is told there’s nothing wrong. I don’t for one second have time for that stuff.
Keep reporting in people — and new people that happen on this… We WILL figure this out…
I know I’m going to jinx it by saying this, but since I installed the 10.4.5 patch several days ago, I haven’t had the problem. The temperature of the trackpad reported by Temperature Monitor is now behaving regularly (i.e. warming and cooling gradually like the other components). Before it was just a flat line which would occasionally go hyper. Perhaps this is coincidence, or perhaps it’s just gearing up for the “big one”.
I’ve also noticed that, prior to the recent good spell, heat would definitely exacerbate the problem. It was much more likely to freak out if the processor was chunking away, I was in a hot room, I spilled hot coffee on it, etc. Once it freaked out, though, no amount of cooling or resting would fix it.
Steph,
Thanks for this thread. Add me to the list of perplexed narcoleptic powerbooks owners. 15″ 1.67hz with the trackpad sensor all-a-whacky. I plan on driving to the apple store in the morning. I’ll let you know what they say, but I too am reluctant to let them crack open my baby without a real clue as to what they are looking for!
Matt
Hey Matt… thanks for jumping in. Please report back here when you get home — it would be SO helpful to know what happens.
Good luck!
For those of you following the comments here – I’ve posted a quick poll I’d love to see your answers to here:
http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=667
Stef,
I took my powerbook to the Apple Store this AM, armed with a printout of the console log showing the “emergency overtwmp signal” and a printout of the temp spikes that TempMonitor thinks it sees (anywhere from -167 to +230F.
I waited an hour while about 50 people brought in dead ipods and asked the genius such mind-numbing questions as “how do I write an email”…oye!
Anyway, once it was finally my turn, the Apple Genius believed that first the logic board should be replaced ($867.19) and if that fails, then the top case assembly ($217.19) with a labor charge of $135. Since this is still warrantied…there really is no cost.
However, they gave me two choice. 1. Have them ship it away for repair with a turn around time of at least a week. Or 2. Purchase Procare and when the parts arrive, they will do it in-shop with a 24 hour turnaround. I need this computer to make my living…so I bucked up the 99 clams for ProCare and am hanging onto my computer until the parts arrive.
BTW…does this sleep thing seem to happen more to you when safari is running???
Matt
I’ve got the same problem — just posted details to the poll thread.
spoke with two apple phone-support reps today, neither of which could see the syndrome from the symptoms. the second guy basically said that unless they see hundreds of people having the same problem, it won’t be on the official engineering radar.
they’re sending me the box to ship it off in…
just letting yall know i am in the same sleepy boat. however after a horrible 4-5 days of sleep issues ive only had it sleep troubles once in the last 3 days. the last thing i did was install the temperature monitor and it was all wacky for a few days but right now its at 77.f, however it was at -115.f this am. i do have a box sitting here from apple but i have a bad feeling about that so ima hold off until something is clarrified. sucks, desiging in fear.
Stef,
Well, here’s the update.
I was called by my Apple Store and told my parts were in. I dropped the laptop off at 11AM and was told that my new Procare membership would entitle me to “lickity-split” service. They were true to their word, as I was called at 6:45PM and told that the logic board and top case had been replaced.
So far so good.
Hi Stef et al.,
I was right about jinxing things with my 10.4.5 comment above. The thing worked fine all week, then went to sleep in the middle of printing a big (and last-minute) poster job. On the plus side, I now know the Japanese characters for “paper error” and “form feed”. (And several Japanese grad students have been introduced to a particularly colorful dialect of American English.)
I filled out the poll. One thing I should mention is that rebooting or shutting down alone doesn’t seem to help as much as resetting the Power Management (remove the power cord and battery, hold down power button for 5 seconds). I usually have to do this after a sleeping episode, since I can’t wake it up any other way.
So you might try that occasionally. You’ll have to reset some settings (clock, sound, etc.) afterwards.
Laters,
Eric
I had posted earlier that using the original apple power cord made things better. Let’s just say that didn’t last long.
I sent the computer into Apple (still under warranty), and they are saying that because there some dents on it (I admit that it’s dented), they are blaming the problem on me and refusing to cover the problem under the warranty.
I spent quite a while arguing with customer service to no avail that this is an increasingly widespread problem with 2005 vintage powerbooks, and that I’ve heard nothing more than their “suspicion” that the trackpad temperature problem has anything to do with the dents. Their response is that I should trust the Apple technicians, because they’re God or something like that.
I’m very angry
I’m a 1.67 GHz 15″ powerBook G4 user running 10.4.5.
Experienced similar problems, and tried similar solutions as all of the above posts – to no avail.
Temperature monitor had my trackpad temp from anywhere between -200 and 200 degrees F.
Upon the suggestion from AppleCare, I performed an “Archive and Install” from the Installation Disk. It still nodded off about 5 times suring the re-installation of the OS during Disk 2, but after the whole ordeal, running software update to bring me back up to speed and the requisite permissions repair, my trackpad temp has been running at a steady 113 for an hour or so now with no fluctuations.
Pretty painless process considering some of the alternatives. Sounds like it must be software related.
Fingers crossed that the fix holds.
Good luck.
I think if you live anywhere close to an Apple store, just do what I did. Print out your console log and your Temp Monitor spikes. All I did was show that to the Apple Genius and his response was “you need a logic board and top case” 8 hours later it was fixed.
update:
sent it off on tues to apple in the box they provided. got it back fri with the top case replaced. they did not replace the logic board. seems to be in good shape now — no more narcolepsy.
Just wanted to chime in that I too have this problem with the trackpad temperature spiking all over the place. I bought my 1.67 ghz PB in June 2005 through the Student ADC Hardware program, so AppleCare was not available, doh! I also live in Santa Fe which is 6 hours from the nearest Apple Store in Denver. Double doh!!
What I can say is that I believe this problem first happened once or twice as early as last August, then it happened quite a bit in January but seemed to work fine for several weeks. Now all of a sudden it’s back with a vengeance. I’m really not sure what to do. This machine is my bread and butter. I may have to take out a loan to buy a new one just to be able to afford sending it in for repairs.
I wish there were some way to disable the trackpad sensor. I mean, what are the chances the trackpad overheats but the CPU and disk don’t?
I don’t want to jump the gun here, but I want to get feedback from the rest of you guys. I had installed 2GB of Crucial RAM when I bought this PB back in June. At the time all seemed to be fine. I happened to notice that my system was only showing 1GB of RAM. Not sure when the RAM chips stopped working, but I figured I’d have a test to see if it was a bad slot or a bad chip.
Having just shut the machine down due to the Trackpad temp spiking issue, I opened up the back and swapped the RAM chips. I powered back up and lo and behold both chips are working again. I also noticed the startup sound which had been absent for a long time (I never noticed when it stopped because I never used to shut down, just sleep). Firing up Temperature Monitor it’s showing 8 minutes so far with no spiking. This is after powering down for only 10 minutes, which normally would not be long enough for the sensor to settle down.
Everyone else check your RAM and report back… I’ll post a message in the other thread as well.
Hi Gabe… I checked and my 1.5GB RAM does show… That said, I don’t think I ever hear a start up chime either… but then I keep my sound off most of the time (does it chime when the sound is off?)…
I just spoke with a very nice PB specialist from Apple… I’m compiling all this info and sending it in to him so that he can pass it along. Please continue to report and let us all know what’s going on. Thanks!
Haha… In trying to get through this whole thread, my 15″ 1.67 PowerBook has fallen asleep like 20 times. This all just started about a week ago for me. It’s quite annoying, and will be the death of me if I can’t get this programming homework [falls asleep] in on time.
Add my name to the [falls asleep] list! This is getting ridiculous. I can wake it (usually) almost instantly by just insanely tapping on all the keys, but I have a feeling that’s not going to last much longer.[falls asleep] SDLFKHJWI(@#$F*(DWSJD(D&DF)(G*
AHHH!!! Thanks [falls asleep] for the thread, though. At least I’m not alone.
Happy sleeping,
Justin
UNIX geek and recent mac user here.
I’ll confirm this behavior in my powerbook. One thing I’d like to note: I figured out how to remove the PMU kernel extension. I had to do this to back it up (so it wouldn’t go to sleep in the middle of a backup). Once I did that, the trackpad temp read a constant 77 degrees for an entire week before it started to go to sleep again.
A store which will remain nameless tried to tell me it’s my ram chip, which happened to be third party. I replaced this with apple memory but this did NOT cure the problem.
I so need to use this laptop it’s not funny. I hope a solution is found.
I’m sorry to say that the RAM was a red herring. The sudden unexpected recurrence of the startup chime really got my hopes up, but sure enough, after an hour or so the problem was just as bad as ever.
I also noticed that if I turn on the machine cold and put it to sleep right away and leave it for several hours, the problem will still develop while its asleep. Then when I wake it up its already spiking wildly. Whereas if I turn it on cold I can usually get 2-3 hours of use.
Oh well, at least I know my RAM works
I’d hate to have to send it in to Apple for two things at once.
Since I couldn’t go without a computer, I decided to pick up one of the new Mac Minis to fill in. I opted for the stock single core for $599 because it was the cheapest, and also ships the fastest. I ordered at 9pm Monday, and it arrived 9am Wednesday… 36 hours! Performance-wise I think it will fill in nicely for my PB, though I need to upgrade the RAM, and it definitely suffers a bit on the Microsoft and Adobe apps. All in all, good experience though.
I Just wanted to add in here – I am having the same problem on my PB 17″ too. I am looking at my iStat Nano widget, and its saying my trackpad is at -17F…so far it hasn’t fallen asleep today but at times it will happen so many times in a row my network doesnt have time to come back to life.
If I can ask, what exactly is everyone looking at for their temps to print out, if I wanted to bring this in to an apple store?
-Evan
I had temps that spiked at 195 and bottomed out at -170. I printed out the Temp Monitor graph, along with my console log and took that to the apple store genius. I also told them that based on everything I read on these boards, that the top case and logic board needed replaced. They quickly agreed. My computer was left and was fixed the next day. Two weeks straight of solid running without any sudden sleep or spikes. I suggest everyone who has this problem do the same, before your warranty period expires.
Howdy,
Just an update to make you all jealous. My sleeping problem has completely disappeared over the last few weeks (21 days sleep-free). My trackpad temp has been behaving, changing smoothly instead of staying constant or wildly varying. I haven’t been doing anything differently. I have a feeling whatever hardware problem this is is only sort of wrong on my machine. Anyway, it will probably get worse again.
Thanks, Stef, for sending all this info to Apple, maybe something will come of it.
-Eric
Hello and hello.
My 15″ 1.5 GHz has recently aquired the need for mid-use napping. Don’t get me wrong, everyone ought to be able to take naps, but not in the middle of work (Even if my powerbook works much longer hours than I do).
I came across this blog while searching for an explanation and/or a cure for the sudden-sleep problem, and I’m pleased (but not surprised) to have others to relate to with this problem. My track pad follows a pretty specific regiment in temperature just before shut down. It will sink to -200 degrees or so, return to homeostasis at 7 degrees, and the spike up to 112 degrees for a few seconds before the inevitable black screen veers its crooked grin at my dissapointed grimace.
However, I don’t really have anything constructive to add to these comments other than I’m another tally mark for the same problem, and I found a reoccuring temperature fluxuation for my individual powerbook.
This seems to be an actual common practice with Apple/Mac. Lord knows I prefer their products over any other P.lainly C.rappy competition. It seems though, that when I stumble upon a small problem, no matter how common it may be, Apple seems reluctant (albeit sometimes bull headed) in addressing it. I went through this with the iPod lock-up plague, and now again with my little sleepy friend I’m watching the temperature of like a mother with a sick, young child.
I’m on my third replacement iPod, and I don’t mind that but I’d much rather know exactly how the problem manifests, and what needs to be done to fix it, rather than be sent anothern new, shiney, fixed one that has the same problem. I want the same with my powerbook. I’d like to know why my trackpad sensor goes from hundreds of degrees below freezing to 12 or so degrees above boiling (I don’t scroll and navigate THAT fast) in less than minute, and I’d like to know how replacing the logic board and top case (which are probably my next move when I feel like making the three hour drive to the apple store) solve the problem.
Not too much to ask, I think. Although, I wouldn’t thumb my nose at being sent a new powerbook (or for a small fee, upgrade to a macbook) that doesn’t have the problem. Take care, all.
Oh man, sorry for the winded nature. I’m a 2nd year journalism major, so it’s kinda a force of habit.
Hey… don’t feel bad about it. I’m happy for the info and the entertainment.
Let’s stay in touch…
Hey… don’t feel bad about it. I’m happy for the info and the entertainment.
Let’s stay in touch…
This is me keeping in touch.
I left my powerbook on all day while I was at work, and it’s stayed on without any problems.
That only means I’m going to ignore the problem a lot, and be even more frustrated when it returns.
Oh yea, it will be back. I’ve had a couple days to a week at a time where it didn’t do it. And that was right after I called Apple the first time, so I wasn’t willing to send my machine away while it wasn’t acting up (naively thinking it might quit on its own) and they said they’d never heard of the problem.
It came back with a vengeance after that… so prepare yourself.
Update! I sent my powerbook in on Monday, and now have it back with new top case, logic board, and… super drive? And they cleaned my screen!
I brought it to a genius at the Apple store, showed him this discussion, and he took care of it. DO NOT LET THEM TRY TO GET OUT OF PAYING FOR IT! I have a small ding on one of the corners of my laptop, and they tried to tell me this would make it void from warranty. I asked them if they had ever seen a powerbook WITHOUT a ding in it, and they said, “um…well…sometimes…” I repeat: GET IT COVERED UNDER WARRANTY. This sleeping problem is something inherently wrong with the hardware. It is Apple’s fault. Nothing you did to it made it any worse or better.
Take it to a genius. You’ll have it back, fixed, within five days.
Stephanie
Did you ever resolve this issue? I am having the same problem and was on the phone with Apple Care this afternoon. They don’t really have a clue – suggested I reset power management circuitry – which didn’t work. I am scheduling to send back my Powerbook tomorrow.
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