[Gossamer]

I have a friend who left her 17" MBP (turned off) outside in her car for about 2 hours in about 0 degree (F) weather. After bringing it back inside she let it warm up before turning it back on, but now apps like Firefox and the Adobe Suite are unexpectedly quitting, which hasn't happened before. In the past hours, this has happened at least 6 times, which is definitely unusual. Any thoughts?

[brokenjago]

Reset PMU, SMC? Remove Ram, Reseat? Apple Hardware Test? Restart?

Dance around topless with a fishstick in your pants?

[Philip J. Fry]

How long did she let it warm up before turning it on? If this continues, you could try reinstalling the OS and see if the issues persist, or even a new user before doing anything that drastic. If it still happens, more than likely the drive, and possibly other components, are failing due to the extreme weather.

[brokenjago]

I would hardly call it "Extreme Weather" for a MacBook Pro. It was well withing storage temperatures, as defined by Apple:

Storage temperature: -13° to 113° F (-24° to 45° C)

In addition, it was in a car. The car was probably several degrees warmer than the surrounding outside area.

I don't see how a hard drive could fail from cold. Or any other component, for that matter. (Well, I'm sure if you freeze them to 1 Kelvin or something, but 0 F seems well within operating parameters)

[SierraDragon]

My TiBooks, PB G4s and MBPs have all been exposed to freezing temps hundreds of times. One PB G4 had a motherboard fail but I have no reason to correlate that failure to temperature.

However it is easy to see how large temp variations (100+ degrees during heavy usage to zero degrees in the car) is deleterious to electronics. Expansion and contraction is not good for any kind of mechanical tolerance or connection.

During cold weather temps in a car usually very quickly reach the exterior ambient temperature if the vehicle is not sunlit.

-Allen Wicks

[Dork.]

Just leaving an MBP in the cold won't necessarily damage it. (Especially if it's turned off, and you let it warm up before using it).

If the HD was bad to begin with, though, the additional stress of the temperature change may have forced it off the cliff sooner.

Do all the standard things mentioned in this thread, first, though, before leaping to that conclusion. (Restart, reset PRAM/PMU, Apple Hardware Test, Reseat RAM, etc. No dancing required...)

[brokenjago]

Dancing is ABSOLUTELY required!

[tinkered]

Post hoc ergo proctor hoc doesn't always apply. Her mac does have an issue, I doubt it was the cold. I would the normal steps of rebooting, fixing permissions, testing the issue one a second user, etc.

[peeb]

What springs to mind is condensation. It's not the cold, but moisture condensing inside the machine, causing (possibly ram) to short occasionally. I would put it in a dry, warm environment for a while, with some of those moisture wicking packets you get in electronics sometimes - maybe prop it near a forced air vent for a while at normal room temperature.

[Waragainstsleep]

The vast majority of components actually like the cold. (I've seen data rescued from hard drives by putting them in a freezer for a while before plugging them in.) Damp on the other hand is a different matter.

[ghporter]

What peeb said. Plus the thermal stresses of taking it from a cold outside into a warm inside could have flexed the logic board just enough to make a "pretty good" RAM seating not so good. ALWAYS allow ANY electronics to warm up slowly after bringing them inside from the cold because of the condensation issue. It's a good idea to wrap a laptop in a blanket so that it will be relatively unaffected by inside humidity while it warms up.

[imitchellg5]

I've used our PowerBook G4 outside in -12˚ weather. It worked just fine.

[Macpilot]

Adobe and Firefox....make sure she is using the latest version of Firefox that is Intel-native. The Adobe stuff should crash, it is under Rosetta and most Rosetta stuff is pretty crash-prone, especially CS2.

[ghporter]

The latest Adobe reader is either universal or has an Intel version. Adobe has not spent the time yet (or not finished yet) rewriting their big apps to be universal, so things like the Suite do have to run through Rosetta. But I have yet to have Rosetta or any program under it crash, so I can't say that I agree with Macpilot on those apps being crash-prone. I still think the RAM could be a little out and it can't hurt to CAREFULLY ensure it's all still properly seated.

[Macpilot]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

The latest Adobe reader is either universal or has an Intel version. Adobe has not spent the time yet (or not finished yet) rewriting their big apps to be universal, so things like the Suite do have to run through Rosetta. But I have yet to have Rosetta or any program under it crash, so I can't say that I agree with Macpilot on those apps being crash-prone. I still think the RAM could be a little out and it can't hurt to CAREFULLY ensure it's all still properly seated.

Good advice about the RAM, however, if only certain apps are crashing it is almost certainly NOT a RAM issue.

Adobe CS2 is crash-prone on Intel Macs, just like any non-native app. I have seen this on many new Macs. People come in to my service provider all the time complaining about Office and CS2 apps crashing, or hanging, or reacting very slowly. All their native apps seem fine. People need to update their CS2 with the latest software patches and just wait til CS3 which hopefully will be better as it will be native.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by Macpilot 

Adobe CS2 is crash-prone on Intel Macs, just like any non-native app...

Actually I have found PSCS2 stable on PB G4 and a C2D Macbook Pro. Even PSCS3 Beta is stable on the C2D Macbbook Pro (3 GB RAM).

-Allen Wicks

[imitchellg5]

CS3 is Universal so it shouldn't be crashing on an Intel Mac.

[brokenjago]

It's also a Beta, so it should (theoretically) be crashing more than any official release of Photoshop for the Mac. Note that I didn't say it should crash in general, but that it should crash MORE.