Ok This just happened to me.

My setup is:

Macbook
24″ Cinema Display

I have the macbook closed, and use the 24″ display. Only trouble is both of them get very warm and Apple products are pants at cooling. So I have extra fan software, but it still wasn’t enough in this instance.

The macbooks, although you can use as intended, closed, with the cinema display as your primary display cannot get heat out very well due to the poor design of where the exhaust is. It’s right infront of the screen. So when its close, the air can’t escape. Anyway today it overheated, alot, because the heat from the cinema display went onto the macbook, they both got hot and bam it crashed mid-conversation on iChat. I had to hold down the power button to get it to turn off.

Once I restarted, my clock was 2001, and the time was midnight. At this point I was irritated, but also had a feeling that wouldn’t be a good thing. So I restarted after setting things back, and it wouldn’t remember the clock, nor the WIFI password or google talk ichat password either. So I set them, and restarted again. Still no Joy.

So here is the FIX

I found out through a suggestion from Bill (at Wuup). That I should try to reset the PRAM because it does a lot of stuff. It was a complete guess and turned out the right one, because it worked.

Here is how to do it:

Resetting the PRAM and NVRAM

Shut down the computer.

1. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
2. Turn on the computer.
3. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
4. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
5. Release the keys.

It solved it, and my Mac is back and running. I’ll be making sure I keep it much cooler, and open at all times now…

Cheers,

Alan