As happy as I am to have my computer back in good working order (knock on wood), I still wish I understood what exactly happened to it last Wednesday, and how the heck it magically fixed itself en route to the Apple repair center in Houston.
The loud popping noise that precipitated last Wednesday’s apparently catastrophic system failure — which turned out, mysteriously, to be temporary and self-repairing — sure sounded like a short-circuit or something similar, and the computer’s subsequent refusal to power up (regardless of the power adapter being used) was consistent with that diagnosis. But fried motherboards don’t just un-fry themselves, now do they?
Anyway, the lack of answers makes me nervous that the same thing might happen again, so I’m looking for any clues I can find as to what exactly occurred. Apropos of which, there were a couple of weird anomalies that occurred last Wednesday, prior to the “pop” and shutdown. They don’t seem relevant to what ultimately occurred — they seem software-ish, rather than hardware-ish — but who knows? Maybe our resident techno-geeks can construct a theory. Details after the jump.
The first sign of trouble may have been some buggy behavior by the new Safari 3.0 beta. I installed it at 8:38 PM last Wednesday (about 90 minutes after starting up the computer, and a little over three hours before the “pop”), and I soon noticed that certain words on certain websites were not displaying properly in the browser. More specifically, the words were being scrunched together. Check out these screenshots that I took between 10:41 and 11:22 PM last Wednesday:
See how certain words are weirdly compressed? I initially assumed this was simply a Safari 3 bug, and maybe it was; the software is in beta, after all. But if so, it’s a bug that apparently disappeared at the same time my computer magically resurrected itself. When I got the computer back yesterday, I quickly checked — while still at the Apple Store — to see if Safari was still being buggy… and it wasn’t. The scrunched-together text was no longer happening, and it hasn’t happened since. Mind you, this is without any changes to Safari in the interim; it’s not like the repair techs in Houston downloaded an updated version or something. It seems that Safari fixed itself, just like my system as a whole fixed itself. Coincidence?
I wonder if Safari’s bugginess last Wednesday was actually unique to my system, and was an advance warning sign of the trouble to come. Does that even make any sense? What possible connection could exist between buggy browser behavior and an apparent (but, as it turns out, temporary) hardware failure heralded by a loud popping sound?
And it’s not just Safari. I noticed something else odd, too: faulty timestamps on some of the files that I created in the hours prior to the crash.
In addition to installing Safari 3.0 last Wednesday evening, I was also moving a bunch of files and folders from one of my external FireWire drives onto my computer’s freshly wiped internal hard drive. I noticed yesterday that several of those files and folders were listed (only on the destination drive, not the source) as having a “Last Opened” date of December 31, 1969 — which is Mac OS X’s default date meaning, in essence, “the 12th of Never.” But although the dates are wrong, the times appear to correspond with the actual times that I copied the files and folders from the external hard drive onto my computer: for example, my iPhoto Library folder had a timestamp of 12/31/69, 8:38 PM, and my iTunes folder had a timestamp of 12/31/69, 9:22 PM. Likewise, several folders that were newly created when I first booted up the computer shortly after 7:00 PM (and thus initialized the newly reinstalled OS) have timestamps of 12/31/69, 7:06 PM.
The 12/31/69 phenomenon did not recur yesterday, when I once again copied a bunch of files and folders from the same external drive to the same internal drive. For instance, the timestamp on my freshly copied iPhoto Library reads “Yesterday, 6:50 PM.” I’ve done nothing different (that I can think of) from what I did last Wednesday, in terms of copying that identical folder (which is unchanged since last Wednesday) from the FireWire drive to my laptop’s internal drive. But the timestamp is correct this time, whereas it was incorrect that time.
So… was something wrong with the system clock last Wednesday? If so, it didn’t affect all my files, by any means: I have plenty of files and folders that are properly timestamped as being Last Modified and/or Last Opened on 6/13/07. (Alas, my screenshots are inconclusive about what date the GUI clock was displaying, because coincidentally enough, both December 31, 1969 and June 13, 2007 were Wednesdays.) But those few incorrectly datestamped files are strange, no? Could they, too, have been an early warning sign of impending system failure?
Also, let’s not forget the momentary screen flicker that I mentioned previously. To review, I now know of four anomalies/errors that occurred last Wednesday:
• Unexplained buggy behavior by Safari
• Unexplained timestamping errors
• Brief, split-second screen flicker
• Apparently catastrophic system crash, accompanied by loud popping noise
If the first three anomalies were indeed precursors of the computer’s pop-and-die routine, can they tell us anything about what actually happened, why/how the computer fixed itself, and most importantly, whether it’s likely to happen again? Can anyone think of some way to connect these dots? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
P.S. On the other hand, maybe Safari 3.0 is just randomly buggy, and the timing of the compressed-text bug’s disappearance is entirely coincidental. It exhibited another, albeit different, buggy behavior earlier this evening, in how it displayed a particular Google Products (a.k.a. Froogle) page:
Hmm. Of course, that doesn’t explain the 12/31/69 thing. But maybe something else can, and these are all just coincidences. We report, you decipher.
P.P.S. Incidentally, I’ve ruled out at least one theory to explain the mysterious self-repair: as promised, I checked the serial number, and it’s the same as it always was. This is definitely my computer. :)
The Star Trek-based theory (i.e., that a temporal anomaly in the Devron System created a collision between time and anti-time, causing time to run backwards and fix my computer) cannot be definitively ruled out, however. ;)
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Categories: PowerBook Problems
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June 21st, 2007 at 3:36:13 am
I don’t know the internals of the laptops all that well, but most computers have a small battery, bout the size of a AA cut in half, that powers some very basic circuits including the internal clock. As that battery starts to die some weird behaviors such as your clock not being right, etc can occur. I wonder, and i can’t verify this, but i wonder if the battery is what died and that was the poping you heard, and they simply replaced it at some point? I dunno, not sure what to tell ya.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:38:31 am
BTW, just did that same search on my computer using the Safari beta and got the same looking page, so sorry Safari’s bugginess appears to be completely beta related and not a symptom of your nutzoid computer
June 21st, 2007 at 3:50:58 am
i wonder if the battery is what died and that was the poping you heard, and they simply replaced it at some point?
That’s possible, though it would require accepting Dane’s theory that “someone fixed it and forgot to not[e] the fix.” According to the paperwork I have, the only thing they did was replace the top case. And the internal notes (which I had read to me several times when I called AppleCare to try and provide them with the information they requested) made no mention of replacing any battery. But hey, it’s possible.
As for the Safari thing, I assume you’re referring to the Froogle search for the 802.11 camera? I was never suggesting that that buggy behavior was a symptom of my computer’s weirdness — it was the other bugginess, the scrunched-text business that mysteriously fixed itself at the same time that my computer’s hardware mysteriously fixed itself, that I was thinking might be related. I actually offered the Froogle thing to contradict myself, which you have now bolstered. :)
June 21st, 2007 at 3:57:46 am
All the alleged computer geeks who got the diagnosis wrong, please turn in your “I’m A Computer Geek” badge now.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:13:49 am
Dane’s theory makes the most sense to me, even if the evidence for it is slim. Given the hoops you had to jump through with customer service, etc. I would guess that something got fixed and/or replaced and not documented. Someone could have started working on it, fixed something, only to have someone else look at it and conclude that everything was fine except the casing you wanted replaced.
In addition to the temporal anomaly theory, I would also advise you to consider a spatial anomaly. The computer you now have may be your own, but not necessarily from this particular universe. A parallel temporal strain may have crossed over the same spatial domain as our universe and somehow replaced your broken laptop with the one you now have. This phenomenon is known to produce an audible “pop” within the frequency range of human hearing.
Also, this might be one of those times in which you back away slowly from the computer and just accept its newfound functional goodness.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:20:30 am
This is like a really bizarre and ULTRA geeky episode of CSI… and while I’m partial to the Star Trek theory, I’m going to offer the “sometimes weird *&%$ just happens” theory as an alternate.
My iPod loves to do weird stuff and then heal itself so I’ve learned to accept it and not tempt fate by asking questions to which the universe (or Apple technicians) does not want to provide answers. But that’s just me. I know you won’t rest until you’ve figured this out.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:46:18 am
I blame Steve Jobs for an evil global conspiracy. Fire Mike Brey!
June 21st, 2007 at 11:00:09 am
I kind of like David’s battery theory, it is the type of thing someone might replace just because they have the hood up–and could make a big difference… It is also the type of thing that could conceivably become unseated and then get re-seated when you put the case back on–and not get noted because you think it came loose when you took the case apart. I’m not certain how that could make a popping noise though. I suppose it is possible the the popping noise is an unrelated issue, but that seems unlikely (though my power supply has made some popping noises in the past to no ill effect.) Ultimately, I try not to ask too many questions about computer hardware–though I have found that if you really want to test whether there is a problem some place with your computer–do a clean install on a freshly formated drive from a original disk. I’ve found that that taxes the system fairly well in basically all aspects except graphics and that if something goes then it is an easily demonstrated fault and obviously a fault Apples stuff–It also tends to be a repeatable failure. This is how I proved to Apple that my mother board was hosed. (Well actually I think it ended up being the DVD drive and the mother board that were the problem.) And if all that goes well, don’t worry about it.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:15:45 am
Yes, I think Mike Brey certainly had something to do with this, and I agree he should be fired. That should have been the pop you heard, even in Tenn. Seriously, I have installed all kinds of OS’s over the years, and various programs. Sometimes, there is a crash that approaches the kind of system failure that you experienced, even to the extent of appearing to hear a pop. I believe many of these crashes are related to video driver or video card incompatibilities with the program or system being used. Other times, memory is the problem. I am currently having a problem in bootcamp with Vista, whenever Vista upgrades itself. Since you have had weird experiences with Safari 3, which, going to the same web sites I don’t have, there must be something incompatible in the video driver or video setting that you are using on the powerbook. Why or how that would subsequently cure itself, I can’t say, but, sometimes software will cause a computer to use different hardware settings, like IRQ settings or memory addresses, when the software otherwise has a problem or causes one itself. In the old days with windows, we’d talk a lot about IRQ settings and memory addresses to exclude to avoid crashes or freezes. I don’t know if that is what has happened here, but, something equivalent may have gone on between OSX and the video drivers to cure what was a major crash. I recognize my explanation doesn’t account for the total shutdown and failure to reboot that you have experienced. In addition to all sorts of quantum/alternative universe theories, I wonder if the Apple people did some kind of soft repair equivalent to holding down the power button for a long time. I forget what that is called,something like an SMC ??? reset??? Otherwise, make sure you have a good external drive and frequently do back ups. Good luck!
Mike Tichon
June 21st, 2007 at 12:59:11 pm
I read/heard a quote once years ago, and it’s been correct almost 100% of the time. That quote is: “Computer problems that go away all by themselves come back again all by theirselves.”
Good luck though!
June 21st, 2007 at 1:05:43 pm
They reversed the polarity.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:44:20 pm
They reversed the polarity.
Just so long as they don’t cross the streams, NEVER cross the streams.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:34:03 pm
It’s OK if you’re trying to destroy Gozer the Traveler though.