

2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads - ingve
http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2012/20120911_1-MacBookPro-wakes-up-on-bumpy-roads.html

======
bradleyland
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!

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

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

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

~~~
encoderer
And MBA's don't have super drives!

~~~
shardling
[http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Macbook-Air-Superdrive-
MC684ZM/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Macbook-Air-Superdrive-
MC684ZM/dp/B0048606UG)

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

~~~
EGreg
Waiting.... LOL

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forthewyn
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.

~~~
w1ntermute
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.

~~~
bzbarsky
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.

~~~
w1ntermute
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.

~~~
bzbarsky
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?

~~~
w1ntermute
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.

~~~
bzbarsky
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.

------
simias
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.

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

~~~
simias
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".

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DanHulton
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?

~~~
rm999
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.

~~~
bradleyland
I use my 2011 Air in clamshell all the time.

~~~
rm999
Ah you are right, my bad.

------
hmottestad
A simple check en EFI should be sufficient.

IF (internal_keyboard_button_pressed && screen_closed) IGNORE

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alkimie
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.

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brudgers
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.

------
xuki
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.

~~~
mcmillion
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?

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evoxed
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.

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

~~~
uptown
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.

~~~
001sky
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.

------
danso
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.

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thegooley
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.

~~~
cstejerean
"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).

~~~
nicpottier
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...](http://www.qandasystem.info/apple/disable-stand-by-
mode-on-retina-macbook-pro/)

~~~
cstejerean
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.

------
blahpro
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.

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

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

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

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

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lysol
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?

~~~
mikebridgman
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.

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

------
dude23
Another first world problem on HN. What's going on with HN?! :-(

~~~
nmridul
And its on the front page .. :-

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dasil003
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.

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

~~~
Groxx
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 :|

~~~
jopt
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.

~~~
cameronh90
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 :(

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adolph
Clearly it needs more control-alt-delete.

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davidpayne11
Ladies and Gentlemen, grab your popcorn. Now, we're going to see the fanboys
defend the heck out of this serious design flaw.

~~~
Groxx
Yup, I'm seeing _lots_ of defending. Nothing but blind fans here.

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sdfjkl
It also doesn't work well under water.

~~~
spauka
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.

