New MacBook Airs Experiencing Logic Board Issues?

Over the weekend, Cult of Mac noted that there appears to be a rising number of complaints from users of the new MacBook Air regarding kernel panics, video distortion and other issues that could be related to defective logic boards.

Apple Discussion forum user, DanRyb, basically stated that his 11-inch model would randomly display "weird colors in vertical lines" extending across the entire screen and the machine would freeze. He was forced to power cycle the computer in order to recover.

Another forum user, Hobokendippy, reported that his 13-inch model had crashed three times twice with a blank screen and once with the screen distortion reported by DanRyb.

One user has posted a video to YouTube showing a display issue with the new 11-inch MacBook Air.


In addition to the video distortion, Cult of Mac staff have reported several kernel panics experienced on both the 11-inch and 13-inch models, although the extent of the problem is not yet known.

Macworld chimes in today with its own report on the issue, offering a firsthand experience with similar issues:

Sadly, I can personally confirm these issues: Just two days after unboxing my 11-inch Air - the base model with 4GB of RAM - the notebook randomly cut to a gray screen during Screen Sharing and only a reboot could cure it. In the ensuing days, I've seen my Air's screen turn a variety of colors: gray again, tan, gray-black, and - on Monday - blue! (Let's everyone get their Blue Screen of Death jokes out of the way now, please.)

As I was working on something different in every instance, it was hard to say exactly what triggered the crashes, though Screen Sharing has been the culprit at least twice. Neither a PRAM nor SMC reset did much to help.

While the issues do not yet appear to be affecting all MacBook Air machines and some number of defective units is to be expected, the growing number of complaints suggests that the new machines may be experiencing a higher-than-normal rate of failure. Apple did issue a software update addressing graphics issues on the new MacBook Air just as it was released, but several users have reported experiencing these graphics-related problems even after applying the update.