2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads | Hacker News Reader

2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads

macperformanceguide.com

137 pointsingve95 comments

Interesting. In the past, an external mouse (BT or USB) was required in order for a MacBook to operate in "clamshell mode". If no such device were connected, you couldn't get the laptop to turn on. Period. This makes me wonder if there isn't a firmware bug?

EDIT: An additional requirement (forgot): an external display must be attached. I'm doing some testing with my 2011 MacBook Air that is still running Lion.

CORRECTION: My MacBook Air is running Lion, not Snow Leopard. Brain fart!

OMG! How did you manage to install Snow Leopard on Macbook Air 2012!? I'm very curious to know the method.

If you still have the DVD then I guess you can just pop it in your super drive.

Snow Leopard doesn't have the drivers for new hardware.

And MBA's don't have super drives!

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Macbook-Air-Superdrive-MC684ZM/d...

Brain fart. Lion, not Snow Leopard. Time flies!

Seems like a more likely explanation is a hysteresis issue with the hardware lid sensor. It "opens" under vibration and allows the transient key events to be seen by whatever controller (my guess is that all this is preboot, so the CPU firmware isn't invoked) is listening for the wakeup events.

Basically, if the key sensors can be jiggled closed, the lid sensor can be jiggled open. And because these happen for the same reason at the same time, that's not a two-point failure mode; it's something you'd expect to happen.

I think that's probably the most plausible explanation. It makes me wonder what kind of g-forces the laptop is encountering. Most electronics aren't intended for "rugged" environments, and "ruggedized" equipment is a lot more expensive.

Honestly, I think this is a situation where Apple hardware is fragile instead of simply "not ruggedized". Traditionally laptops had hinge locks, for example, but the industry moved away from that because the unlocked hinges were perceived as nicer. Apple has always driven this process more than any other manufacturer. It's probably that they simply got burned here and chose a set of sensor/key/hinge designs that were a little too aggressively "thin".

I did some very detailed testing. I cannot wake my MacBook Air with the keyboard, regardless of condition.

https://gist.github.com/3699744

That's a lot of work!

I had issues with Snow Leopard where it wouldn't actually go to sleep. The screen shut down, but the power led stayed on, and it would drain the battery as if in use. This could be something similar.

Yeah, as I started, ideas kept coming and the test kept expanding. It was a cool exercise though. I feel like doing this kind of thing, while a waste of time, is good practice. It's helpful to go through the motions of detailed testing and reporting on simple little tasks like this, because those skills translate directly to more complex tasks.

This happened to me with my older MacBook Pro. On that model, the magnet next to the latch would loosen, causing the laptop to power up in my bag on the train or bus. I wouldn't notice this until I picked up the bag and noticed that it was very hot.

Well, then just take out the batt.. Oh wait!

Waiting.... LOL

I keep hearing things like this about the Retina MBPro. Dangit I WANT one, but my spidey sense keeps insisting that this is first round, early adopter technology and that I'll be MUCH happier if I hang onto my early 2008 17" MBPro for another few months or maybe a year until the next laptop line bump from Apple.

As the owner of a first-generation MacBook Pro, I heartily concur. Those things had very high failure rates. My extended family owned 3, and all 3 failed within 3-4 years.

I had the first generation MacBook Air, and if I was using it outside, it would shut down the instant sun peeked from behind the clouds.

They later solved this in a firmware update, but still, first-generation Apple products are usually best to be avoided.

There are exceptions, of course. For example, I've heard of no major defects in the 1st gen iPad.

More of a deliberate cost tradeoff than a defect, but the first iPad only included 256MB of RAM, which is woefully inadequate for the number of pixels it has to drive. As a result, it will not get new OS updates starting with iOS 6, and a lot of other software is unhappy on it. It's not bad, but the second version was considerably better.

True, for instance Mobile Safari is very crashy on it. This is of course not unique to just iOS, at least on Transformer Prime a lot of Android applications like GMail tend to crash a lot. So I'd count it more as a defect from a still young platform.

The 2010 iPad is still a great piece of gear and despite not having iOS6, will still run games and apps pretty well.

By 2013, a lot of apps will have migrated to iOS6, and the iPad1 might start to lose some of the platform benefits, but will still be a solid device.

I just replaced my 2008 MBPro with the Retina MBPro, and all I can say is that if you use it for actual work, you need to upgrade ASAP. The difference in performance is HUGE..

If your old MacBook didn't have an SSD, that is probably what most of the difference is.

Or do you mean that the retina screen makes you perform better? :)

I have no idea why anyone would buy a "Retina" MacBook any time in the near future. There are a huge number of popular apps that still don't support it. Lack of Office & VirtualBox support by itself would be a non-starter for me.

Viewing photos, or similar graphics-related work.

The other big (First world ) "problem" is that once you get used to the retina display, looking at the older display is almost as jarring as looking at a SD transmission after you've gotten used to HD. Both of those were perfectly fine before you got used to the new stuff. What takes me aback is the difference in iTerm/Terminal ( that's where i spend most of time ) between the old and the new.

Of course the non retina apps like firefox, thunderbird, opera show up exceedingly fuzzy. I'd like to continue to use them but they're just hideous and i have to revert to Safari/Chrome

The #1 reason to buy it is if you want a 15" MacBook Pro with an SSD that's larger than 128GB and want to pay as little as possible for it.

At the moment, the 2.3 GHz "Retina" MBP is $2199 with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD (bare-minimum specs)

A "non-retina" 15" MBP with bare-minimum specs (4GB RAM, 2.3 GHz processor) but with the same 256GB SSD is $2299.

At the other end of the spectrum, a 2.7GHz "retina" with 16GB of RAM and the 768GB SSD is $3299. A worse "non-retina" laptop (only 8GB of RAM, since that's all Apple will let you put in those, and only 512GB SSD for the same reason) is $3349.

Oh, and for the non-retina machine I assumed you get the cheaper 1440x900 screen. Of course the "retina" machine can be easily run at 1680x1050 if desired.

If you don't want/need the SSD, the numbers look quite different, of course.

That said, I'm not sure what you think is "unsupported" by Office and VirtualBox. They won't run at 2880x1800, but they'll run no worse than they would on a 1440x900 15" mbp.

I wasn't aware of that price difference. Why is the Retina MBP so much cheaper, despite the more expensive screen?

And when I say unsupported, I mean that they look crappy because they don't have Retina support.

I can't tell you for sure on the price difference.... Maybe not needing the extra stuff like the SSD housing and whatnot matters? Or maybe it's just arbitrary pricing? Or maybe a way to encourage people to buy retina machines? Who knows, outside Apple.

> I mean that they look crappy because they don't have > Retina support.

Well, more precisely they look just like they do a non-retina mbp. Which is worse than Safari or Terminal on the retina mbp, of course, but not any worse than you'd deal with if you got the non-retina machine. Or am I missing something?

Yes, they would look the same as on a non-retina MBP. The point is that when placed right next to the Retina apps, the difference would be jarring/distracting.

That's possible. Assuming you use any retina apps, of course. I'm looking at the apps I'm using right now, and none would actually be making full use of the retina display on a retina mbp.

I guess if/when I ran iPhoto it might look jarring. If I weren't running it full-screen on its own desktop, of course.

All of which is to say that it really depends on individual usage patterns.

Because it's a thin, light 15" Mac laptop with a sharp high-resolution display?

I lugged a 2011 MBP 15 laptop around a lot. Now I lug a 2012 rMBP around, big difference in weight. Plus, I can jack the screen resolution up to 1900x1200 or whatever when I need it.

I was excited about the prospect of a 13" MB Pro Retina. But I'm going to say that not having upgradable memory or SSD is a huge deal killer for me (right now I have a 512 GB SSD that I'm going to throw into my new MB Pro). I can deal with carrying the extra pound around. The Retina screen isn't a big deal to me as I use an external monitor most of the time, and I wasn't really that impressed when I saw it at the Apple Store.

Don’t buy. Not as long as they horrific image retention problem isn’t solved and acknowledged by Apple. (It isn’t.)

What? I'm about to buy, what problem are you speaking of?

After ten minutes or so of displaying the same image (e.g. your browser UI), a faint (but very noticeable, even readable if you had displayed text) afterimage remains on the screen for a few minutes. It's visible on any dark gray background and even just dark backgrounds in general.

This problem frequently shows up with MBPr screens from LG (I'm not aware of any problems with Samsung screens, which is the other supplier). It may take a few days of use until the problems show up and it may also be heat related (so machines that have been running for some time are maybe more likely to exhibit the problem).

I'm at the moment letting Apple replace the second screen, if the problem remains I will withdraw from the contract of sale.

I've had my Retina MBP for a month an a half. Only issues I had were graphical glitches in Lion which were fixed when I upgraded to Mountain Lion.

Sure, some apps don't scale their resolution for the screen yet. Photoshop is the biggest problem for me but isn't a deal breaker since I don't spend that much time in PS.

As for the OP's problem, I've never experienced it. Keep in mind he didn't say it was a retina model. I ride a motorcycle with my laptop on my back every day. It gets bounced around and jostled a lot. I've been on 4 flights with it. I've never had it turn on when closed.

Why does the laptop power on when the lid is closed? That seems like the design flaw to me. And it could probably be fixed with a software update as well.

Still, not very frontpage worthy IMO.

In this case it's a defect, but in general, people operate their Macbook Pros with the lid closed attached to an external monitor.

Makes sense, but I doubt many of them operate the built-in keyboard with the lid closed :). Ignoring the keyboard input in this case would be a cheap "fix".

Yes, but most crucially, they don't turn it on with the lid closed.

Open the lid, turn it on, closes the lid.

Should be fun to try to power an older MB with the lid closed to see what happens.

If the laptop gets too hot in a bag, it can cause fire, so it's a potentially life-threatening bug.

No, no it can't. The battery will drain, but not much else. The temperatures you'd see wouldn't even be likely to reduce the lifetimes of components.

This is inconvenient and annoying, but not life threatening. Stop being alarmist.

Fire chiefs issue warning that overheating laptops can cause fires

http://www.harrogate-news.co.uk/2012/02/24/fire-chiefs-issue...

Laptop fire blamed for Vancouver death

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/08...

Laptop overheats, starts fire that destroys west St. Louis County home

http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Firefighters-battling-blaze-a...

Israel Police: Fatal fire in family home likely caused by overheated laptop

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-police-fatal-fir...

etc...

Lithium ion batteries do overheat and burst into flames. However, it's generally due to faulty charge controllers pumping too much current through the cells. It won't be caused by having the laptop power on in a backpack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixIOEPnsgbI

Hm, this might explain why my 2011 Air is occasionally on and hot when I pull it out of my laptop bag, too.

I only started noticing it after the Mountain Lion upgrade, so I figured it was more likely something to do with their crazy new sleep mode, but hey, perhaps it's a combination of factors?

I don't think the Air can fully turn on in clamshell mode, unlike the pro. This is (I believe) because the air uses its body as a heat sink.

I use my 2011 Air in clamshell all the time.

Ah you are right, my bad.

The Air has a fan that is hidden in the hinge, and it is unobstructed even when the lid is closed. So this is probably not the case.

A simple check en EFI should be sufficient.

IF (internal_keyboard_button_pressed && screen_closed) IGNORE

I've got a early 2009 17" MBP just extensively serviced by Apple (new logic board, display, etc.), and I've noticed that when closed and I pick it up and put it down on a table, the apple logo glows for a moment and goes out. I'm convinced that this has something to do with the built in Sudden Motion Sensor that wakes up the computer. It seems to have started with Lion on my particular MBP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_Motion_Sensor

I suspect that the author of that blog may be seeing the same thing and it has nothing to do with keyboard problems.

If accurate this is the sort of thing that field testing should reveal. However, because the Apple community has made a fetish over the most minor hardware releases and an industry has sprung up around stealth photos, Apple has given themselves little opportunity to uncover this sort of basic design flaw. In some way, it appears to be the same sort of issue that was discovered with the iPhone 4 antenna after its release.

These sorts of functional failure may indicate a weakness in Apple's design process and one which Apple may have trouble addressing without changing the relationship between marketing strategy and product development.

OP might have a faulty unit. I never experience this with my Macbook Air, which has similar design of the power key as the new Macbook Pro.

If the laptop is powered on and the screen gets closed, the laptop should sleep, unless an external monitor and keyboard is connected to it.

I've had a few applications (Evernote being one of them from time to time) that prevents my rMBP from sleeping. Maybe there's something related?

This is exactly what started happening to my '07 MacBook Pro after years of solid use. The parts started getting a little looser, the whole body is slightly bowed (it still closes though), etc. Jostling it a little in its bag is sometimes enough to put it into a wakened fright, and whether or not the fans kick in he's gonna be a pretty hot piece of metal by the time it's out of the bag. Since it started happening I just make sure to shut down before carrying.

How on earth is a key being pressed on a closed laptop? Bumpy road or not.

The inertia of the keycaps is probably sufficient if the force required to press the key is very low.

The keys and screen are extremely close to one another when the laptop is closed. With any compression of the device, it's possible the screen could press the power button. On my 2011 MBP I use a thin fabric pad made by RadTech to prevent any screen damage from this incidental contact, and also to prevent oil from keys from contacting the screen while my device is closed.

Does this not work on the new MBPs? I use this too when travelling overland, lest you get abrasive marks on your screen over time. Its a great, simple preventive maintenance trick. That would suck. I would also hate to have turbulence on a flight set this of, and then have your battery dead when you unpack.

Sometimes, when I open my MBP retina, I can see the outline of the keys on the screen and have to wipe the screen off. So my guess is that they are actually touching when closed.

My quick glance of the headline was that the MBP used the kinetic motion to recharge its battery...I'd accept a glued in battery for that feature.

I haven't seen this particular issue, but I have had a whole bunch of strange, likely firmware-related issues on my Retina.

For instance, sometimes the screen just won't shut off when trying to put it to sleep - Closing the lid and the screen/logo stay lit up indefinitely. Chrome and the integrated graphics card really don't play well together - it's caused an OS reboot 10's of times in the past month. Mostly, waking the computer from sleep takes a fraction of a second but sometimes it takes ~20 seconds to show the screen.

I would guess that all of these are related to the integrated Intel graphics chip firmware/drivers being not quite baked.

BUT - in spite of all of that, this is without question the best laptop I've ever owned. It's also the first laptop where I haven't wanted or needed to use my iMac anymore. It really is finally a true "desktop replacement" that is totally portable. And I could never go back.

"Mostly, waking the computer from sleep takes a fraction of a second but sometimes it takes ~20 seconds to show the screen."

I've seen this as well, and it feels related to whether the computer is suspended to RAM (sleep) or suspended to disk (hibernate).

Sounds plausible to me. I suppose it doesn't matter how fast the SSD is... it has to restore (up to) 16GB from disk to memory before it's ready.

This is a new setting for the rMBP that hibernates to disk after something ridiculous like two hours. It drove me absolutely batshit, but thankfully you can change it to something more reasonable via a simple pmset command. (I brought mine up to 24 hours before writing to disk)

It is especially bad because the behavior is a frozen cursor while it reads the RAM image off disk. SSD's are fast but on the 16Gb model it still takes 15-20 seconds and feels eternally broken. My old MBP had a progress bar at least, not sure how they messed it up.

In any case, fix it yourself here: http://www.qandasystem.info/apple/disable-stand-by-mode-on-r...

Thanks for the pointer. From looking at that on my rMBP I see standbydelay set to 4200 seconds. Increasing it to 2 hours might actually work fairly well for me, as I'm not usually away from the computer for longer than that during the day.

I also have a problem with slow shutdowns. Sometimes it takes 30 seconds to shut the machine down. Much less time to boot.

Hey mate, unfortunately you don't have contact info in your profile. Could you please contact me with the info in mine about a possible opportunity for the two of us?

This is undoubtedly a design flaw, although one solution (albeit extremely inelegant) could be to remove the power button key from the keyboard. If the Retina Display models are anything like their predecessors, they keys should be fairly easy to remove.

I think it shouldn't wake up when the lid is closed. Am I missing a point?

Seriously? Sounds like you have a faulty unit. No amount of jostling will turn on a closed Macbook Pro retina.

Could this possibly be a result of the "Power Nap" feature rather than some jiggling keys?

By default, Power Nap only turns on limited features when plugged in to a power source.

One data point doesn't mean it's a design flaw. Most people aren't going to take their MBP offroading, so why should they make compromises just to serve this small, but now vocal minority?

Offroading isn't the only source of bumps - turbulence while flying, public transportation, strapped to a motorcycle on backroads...

I think the point is that when the computer is powered off and the lid is closed, there is absolutely no reason it should ever power on by itself.

...unless there’s an external screen and keyboard connected.

My Dell Studio 17 won't. The power button is on the side on the hinge of the lid, and it will not power on if the lid is closed.

Except to perform the "Power Nap" tasks in Mountain Lion. Maybe there's a connection?

I think for just about any activity you can name besides checking email, most people aren't going to do it. Yet I'm sure that almost everyone with an MBP does something besides email with it. You can't design for the average use case when an average user doesn't exist.

Maybe I'm overstating the variability in MBP users, but I hope you get my point.

Why would they have to make compromises? Both possible solutions for this problem doesn't require any compromises at all...

Another first world problem on HN. What's going on with HN?! :-(

And its on the front page .. :-

You take your MBP with you when you go mountain biking? Have you ever taken a look around at the amount of broken glass at trailheads? Leave it at home bro.

I've had mine wake up and sleep when closed when a magnet passed by.

Yeah, those are fun. Putting another Mac on top of it can also flip that magnetic switch, and I've had my laptop go to sleep because I had something magnetic near it :|

I get this a lot with my since discontinued MBP 17". Placing my iPhone on the empty space beside the trackpad will black the laptop out. Never knew it was to do with magnets.

Yeah, happens to me occasionally when I'm shuffling around gadgets with a mid-2011 15" MBP. It's rather annoying when it happens, but it still beats having clips that often snap off on the pre-magnetic laptops. If only I could solve the other problems with my laptop... such as when I put it to sleep, the fans spin up for about 60 seconds before it actually goes to sleep, and since upgrading to 10.8, my battery life is around 3hrs and it's very flaky on certain WiFi connections. I do get the impression Apple's software quality in particular is going down :(

Clearly it needs more control-alt-delete.

Ladies and Gentlemen, grab your popcorn. Now, we're going to see the fanboys defend the heck out of this serious design flaw.

Hmm, really? Looks like consensus is a design flaw is a design flaw.

Yup, I'm seeing lots of defending. Nothing but blind fans here.

It also doesn't work well under water.

The difference here is that I might reasonably be expected to be taking my laptop with me on road trips which could get bumpy. I.E. this is not that much of an extreme case.

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