New MacBook Air issues

[Lauren82]

I am new to Mac and I bought an Air in December. I've not had issues with it until this week.

2 nights ago I closed the lid when I went to sleep and when I came back in the morning, it wouldn't re-boot! I tried pressing the power button, hitting some keys (it normally just wakes up), plugged in the charger and hit some more keys. It wasn't until I unplugged the charger and held the power button down for about 10 seconds that it actually came back to life. A msg on the screen told me that I'd shut it down because of a problem. I didn't perform a shutdown at all and it wasn't in the middle of an update when I closed it.

I've also noticed the battery life has significantly diminished this week, going from about 5 hours down to only about 2.5. Is that normal this early on?

ALSO, when I have the charger plugged in, is the light supposed to be orange or green? I've noticed it goes green for a few seconds, then switches to orange and isn't green again until it's fully charged. When the charger is plugged in, the screen doesn't brighten up anymore - this stopped happening this week. Why?

Could I perhaps have a faulty charger? I've tried it in multiple power outlets and get the same result.

Help appreicated!

 

[KPOM]

Your system had what's known as a kernel panic. Essentially it's a system crash, like a Windows "blue screen of death." It can be caused by a software issue, or a hardware issue. Do you remember what programs you were running? Virtualization software like Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion can sometimes cause panics. If they recur, you can try taking it to a Genius Bar, or we can offer some other tips, such as running some hardware diagnostics.

The charger is orange when it is charging and green when it is fully charged. That's normal activity.

How much do you use the battery vs. a/c power? The battery should hold up well for about 1000 full charge cycles, which usually takes a few years to go through. Battery life can be affected by the software you are running. In particular Flash video can dramatically reduce battery life.

 

[Lauren82]

Interesting. I'm very familiar with the blue screen of death on a PC

Im fairly sure I had a couple of safari and finder windows open, as well as itunes, skype, utorrent, mail and ical.

What do you think the deal is with the charger and the fact that the screen stays dim even when i have it plugged in?

 

[Lauren82]

I only plug the charger in when the battery is down to 10-15 minutes remaining.

 

[KPOM]

Try rebooting the system and holding down the D key. It will run some diagnostics. That way you can see if any hardware faults caused the panic.

You might also want to open the panic report and let us know the contents. In the searchlight (at the upper right corner) search for .panic files and see if you see something with today's date on it. If so, open it up and you'll see a lot of text. That might help a Genius Bar figure out if software caused your crash.

 

[Apple Expert]

If you get the gray screen of death, would you have to buy a new ssd for the air? I had a iMac have that issue which involved buying a new hard drive for it.

 

[KPOM]

I only plug the charger in when the battery is down to 10-15 minutes remaining.

Click on the Apple menu, go to "About this Mac" and then select "Power." You'll see how many battery cycles you have gone through. That said, up to 700 and you really shouldn't notice any difference in battery life. Skype and iTunes videos will drain a battery, however, since graphics can be complex to process.

 

[simeezee]

What you described happened to me also. Apple released a software update back in December to fix the problem. But it still happens to me on my 11inch MBA base model. Maybe you can try that update and see if it fix the problem for you.

 

[ejisfun]

In regards to that your screen doesn't brighten up when you plug it in, there's actually an option in energy saver for that. Go under battery and make sure "slightly dim the display when using this power source" is checked.

 

[GGJstudios]

I only plug the charger in when the battery is down to 10-15 minutes remaining.

You don't need to do that. You don't have to drain the battery so much or run on battery at all, if you have AC power available. Just make sure you don't run on AC power all the time. Run on battery for several hours every few days.

This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​