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What is causing random system freezes on MacBook Air (1304)?

I went to an apple certified reseller, and the technician there did a check up on my macbook air. All the hardware seemed to be O.K. with the 'MRI' system check they did. After that he did an extended harddrive test with Disk Warrior and it froze up. So his conclusion was a broken SSD. He said replacing an SSD costed €700 ex. labor.

At home I cloned the SSD to an external harddrive using Carbon Copy Cloner, and removed the SSD from the macbook. Then I booted using my external harddisk via USB. Guess what? It still froze up. I also had a bootable USB and triple checked, again it froze up. So my conclusion is that the SSD must be fine. The apple technician drew his conclusions too quickly.

Since then I have put the SSD back in, and it seems to run more stable than before (weird). It doesn't freeze up every 2-5 minutes, rather it freezes up every 30min - 7 hours (top 7 hour heavy use without a crash). So I'm back to zero.

The problem is i'm having random freezes inside Mac OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.2. and there doesn't seem to be any particular program causing the crashes. Sometimes it's idle, sometimes its when I open finder, sometimes when I open the lid and it comes out of sleep...

Update

Unknown problem, it's not the memory either.

I do have a "solution";

I have installed kext files/drivers from within OSX Latitude E.D.P Version #4 (Rev: 71) for a Dell Dual Core based laptop (Configure Kexts, dsdt and plists) on my Macbook Air. The keyboard backlight and sound doesn't work anymore, but atleast there are no crashes. Everything else works. I wonder what is wrong.

Why does a default OSX Mountain Lion installation make the laptop unstable? And some third party drivers and configured plists that are not designed for this laptop, make it stable?

Update 2

I did the oven trick. Put the logic board in the oven for 7:40 minutes on 180 degrees Celcius so the cold solder joints could be fixed, so far so good. Here are some pictures of the proces: http://sphotos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak... http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak... http://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak... http://sphotos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak... And after putting it back together: http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak... I'll report back in some time.

As you can see I wrapped foil around the logic board and left two spots open, for the CPU and GPU, because I was suspecting those to have bad solder/cold points. I hope the fix lasts for some time or even a long time, if not, I will repeat the process, but a little higher temperatures. But no rushing, it's running fine at the moment!

Update 3 Fixed!

Still running stable after the motherboard was put into the oven. See update 2 for details.

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The ram is the problem. Now I can live in peace. But the Macbook Air is completely useless. Good idea to solder the ram onto the logic board ahum. What a waste of equipment.

da

Eric - Did AHT help you diagnose the problem as RAM Vs SSD or did you run Activity Monitor to discover the problem was RAM memory (bad or to little for what you where trying to do). If the RAM memory was bad I would bring the system into Apple to get it serviced and complain if they try to charge you a fee to replace it.

da

The AHT decided to freeze at the test, so a logical explanation would be faulthy ram, since I have excluded the SSD (I booted from USB and other harddrive with the same problems)

BUT, there is still hope. I am running memtest86 in single user verbose mode and now in the OS itself, to burn-in the memory. What does this mean? It means i'm stressing the memory to it's fullest (and the system), which could make the RAM stable. This is called a burn in process, and takes hours or even days. Burning-in ram is known better in the pc overclocking scene, but i'm thinking it's helping stabilize my ram aswell. So far no crashes in 17 hours. I'll keep this updated and let you know if it helped.

da

My thoughts are corrupt files/extensions. Maybe a corrupt font. BTW The A1237 max OS rating is 10.7.5 (with limitations) as the A1304 has provisions running 10.8 so you're pushing those boxes pretty hard. . . IMHO it would be better to run the OEM OS or drop back one rev....

da

Very odd! I suspect some how the files you have are corrupted. Did you rename the system folder so the files there would not be reused when you re-installed OS-X. You could bring your system into an Apple Store and have them install from their copy a fresh install.

da

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Why not remove the battery and see if it still freezes? I don't think I've ever known a battery to cause a computer to freeze, but if you want to rule it out, removing it from the computer seems like the obvious step.

If you have verified that it still freezes using multiple hard drives that have totally separate OS installs (i.e. not clones of the same system), then you have confirmed the HD is not the issue. It's important that the different drives have different installs of the OS, and preferably a fresh install, because if you're putting the same clone of the OS on all the drives, you could potentially be spreading the same software issue across all the drives.

If it's not the hard drive (which I doubt it is) and it's not the battery (which I doubt it is), you're likely looking at a bad board. When you say it's forcing you to shut down, are you getting kernel panics, i.e. a black box with text in the middle of the screen?

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I won't waste the time or risk damaging something taking the battery out (not likely the problem given what you have stated it's health was). I do agree cloning OS's have a risk in passing something around that could be the problem here. I would still focus on the Apple Hardware Test as the first action. And I would recommend setting up a fresh thumb drive with a new fresh copy of OS from the Apple supplied image files as the next action (don't add anything to it) if AHT doesn't show any problems.

da

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There are a few things here I would try:

Have you installed a battery monitoring software program like Battery Health so you can watch things more closely?

Make sure you have updated all of your applications and Flash player which have issues running hot and locking things up.

Your comment on the SSD being better after you reinstalled it does offer a possible clue here. Do you have a fairly full SSD? if so you could be running into a know issue with SSD's unable to find enough free space. Try clearing off some of your un-needed files to make more free space. You may want to upgrade your SSD to a larger size if you can.

Try re-setting the SMC heres how Resetting the SMC

Lastly, does your system freeze up when its on the charger or only when its on battery alone?

Give these actions a try and let us know what happens.

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Causes for Mac's to freeze: #1 a corrupt master directory block, or a failing HD. #2 a corrupt file or preference. If you experience freezing when performing a certain task - delete the .plist file for the application(s) running. Corrupt FONTS are often a cause of freezing. #3 not enough Memory. On a Mac remember some applications continue to "run" with all windows closed leading window convert users to try to run too many programs at one time - hence the Mac "throbbers" or little dots under open (running) applications on the task bar reminding the user the app has not quit. Related to this is an almost full HD - (VRAM is stored on the HD - if there is not at least 20% free space on your HD it's too full!) e.g. a 500GB HD needs to always have 10GB free space. #4 Other hardware issues - bad RAM, a failing component, dry or loose thermal paste, overheating from dust inside the computer, a loose cable.

So, could it be your battery? YES -but I would ensure that all software updates are done, there's enough RAM/free space, that any apps you are using are in the most stable version, That your HD is known to be good (run AHT 2 or 3xs) often the first run of AHT may not disclose a problem. Look at your crash log.

If this answer was helpful please remember to mark it accepted.''

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Machead - He has a SSD in this system so it doesn't get your typical HD type of problems. As SSD's are small in size he just could be running into lack of space. Corrupt files are less likely here (again SSD's don't have this problem unlike HD's). Running Apple Hardware Test (AHT) was one of the next actions, once he cleaned things up.

da

That an SSD is exempt from MDB failures is news to me - I have experienced my own SSD corruption and failure to read-write and or format.

da

I'm running OSX Mountain Lion with all the latest updates. I have done a fresh install, tried a different hard disk, tried a bootable USB, but still it gives me random reeze ups, making me to shut down the system by holding the power button. The freeze ups do not occur on special events, sometimes the system is idle, sometimes it's right after it's bootep up, and sometimes it occurs after a few hours. The temperatures are fine.

The SSD is only 20% full, the rest is free space. I have resetted the SMC a couple of times, and even PRAM, but none help to eliminate the freeze ups. I have a Macbook Air, and no other mac around to do a AHT hardware test.

The battery health seems ok, 91 charge cycles, 4.1 years old, getting near max capacity.

It must be hardware related since everything else has been excluded (fresh install, other hard drive). Maybe the RAM is unstable? or the CPU? Is there any other hardware test except the Apple hardware test I could do?

da

Erik - AHT is free and easy to get, other good diagnostic software will cost you, and may not tell you as much as AHT. Apple does have some other diag tools, but limits there access to authorized service providers and them selves.

da

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Sorry to hear that you are having serious issue. Replace SATA RIBBON CABLE. That will solve the issue. Thanks.

If you liked it, please accept the answer and rate it. Thanks again.

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I don't think this would help here as he has tried an external HD & SSD which also encounter the same problem. If the SATA cable were the issue it wouldn't come to play when the external HD or SSD was used.

da

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Hello all. My Macbook air mid 2012 was freezing and having start up problems (boot). Only got a black screen. It was fixed by warranty repair.

Symptoms: Personally I think it was when internal temperature was changing. Shortly after disconnecting or reconnecting charger. The test that always failed was with charger disconnected. Computer not used fore hours. Then rebooting several times. It would always end up not starting or freezing.

Remedy: Logic board was replaced under warranty. For my air it was 661-6634 MLB, 2.0GHZ, DC, IVB, 8GB, 13MBA

I googled this board and found these good associated links:

http://russell.heistuman.com/2011/05/09/...

http://www.powerbookmedic.com/parts/661-...

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Otto - Baking boards is not the best thing. In fact I've had to replace a few boards because someone did it and messed the board up in the process. Just like a doctor does we first try to use the least harmful methods first. As well as use precision heating when trying to correct a cold solder joint by locating the likely bad components first. To put it more bluntly: We don't use pocket knifes to do brain surgery if we can help it.

da

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Erik sarà eternamente grato.
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