Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

cold aspiration · Sep 7, 2006, 05:05 PM

Hey guys,

So I recently have been taking my 17" MBP to class every day. Its a commute of just under an hour. Mostly freeways. There are few bumpy roads but nothing too drastic. Regular city streets. I've been noticing that once I get to class, and open up my MBP, sometimes I open it up to a black screen and nothing won't work. The light indicating that my display is closed is on but thats it. I had to force restart and annoy the professor with the loud apple chime upon restart. The next time I opened it after the commute it was stuck on the beach ball of death forever. Again forced restart and loud annoying chime. Then once I got home after i put the mbp to sleep, into the case, and into my car ... I came home and opened up my case to find a smokin hot mbp. The inside of the case was steaming hot and the mbp was so hot i almost dropped it. Once i opened it, blackness. Not even the light on the button. So i guessed it was just shut down and I pressed the power button to see if a quick press would start it. Yup. So apparently it woke up in a closed state in my bag and drained the battery from about 70% down to 20% and got so hot it shut down on its own.

What gives?? I have it in my car in the back during the commute. I have it in my bag as i walk to class. The past few days is the only time this has happened. The first few weeks of class it performd like a champ. Could it be something with the motion sensor? My ibook never had any of this erratic behavior and I lugged that aroudn school every single day.

vinster · Sep 7, 2006, 05:58 PM

Try resetting the PMU and VRAM. You might also want to make sure the latch isn't coming undone during the commute and causing it to try and wake/sleep in too shor of a time scale.

mrmister · Sep 7, 2006, 10:25 PM

Also, mute before you close the laptop and if you have to restart it won't make the startup chime.

cold aspiration · Sep 8, 2006, 01:03 AM

^ Yeah I don't want to get in that habit just yet because it would mean I would be admitting I have an unreliable computer so I always have to prepare for a force restart. nuh uh! Gonna try to reset the PMU and VRAM. Its been awhile since i've done that so going to go look it up first =P

goMac · Sep 8, 2006, 01:13 AM

My Macbook Pro sometimes restarts on it's own after I wake it up. Darn annoying.

cbrfanatic · Sep 8, 2006, 01:47 AM

my 1.67 pb still works like a champ

11011001 · Sep 8, 2006, 03:38 AM

Originally Posted by vinster

Try resetting the PMU and VRAM. You might also want to make sure the latch isn't coming undone during the commute and causing it to try and wake/sleep in too shor of a time scale.

You mean PRAM right? Or has it been replaced with VRAM not to be confused with Video RAM?

vinster · Sep 8, 2006, 08:02 AM

Originally Posted by 11011001

You mean PRAM right? Or has it been replaced with VRAM not to be confused with Video RAM?

I did mean PRAM, thanks!

cold aspiration · Sep 12, 2006, 03:41 PM

Well after all that, I found it happened again. I went to class and opened up my bag to find a smoking hot MBP with half the battery drained. Needed to force restart.

I think it might be becase I started carrying my MBP (in an incase sleeve) in my timbuk2 messenger bag as well. I usually carry it separate. Maybe it gets jostled around more on my back....

amazing · Sep 13, 2006, 12:49 AM

There are different apps which mute (or reduce) the startup gong. Works great:

StartupSound.prefPane 1.1b1 - VersionTracker:

If you commute on a bumpy road and find that the laptop "opens" enough to wake from sleep, then you're better off shutting it down for the commute. You could rubber band it shut, but that looks very fishy later on.