Mac automatically shut down

I own a black macbook with 2gb of ram and something unexpected happened yesterday.
I was simply browsing a website on firefox and the bottom of the macbook became very warm very quickly. It suddenly posted a gray box telling me to shut down the laptop now by pressing the power button. I don't know why it happened because i went to the same website today and nothing was wrong.
I primarily use this laptop for Live audio work and need it when I go out for a gig. Now that this happened, I'm a lot more worried because I can't have this happen in the middle of a gig.
I'm sure this has happened to some of you, what can I do to prevent this?

 

Your MacBook crashed, unfortunately. It can't really be prevented, it just happens (although very rare). I wouldn't worry about it, though. Crashing happens even more often on Windows.

Did you install new software lately? Sometimes software can screw up some internal files and cause a crash.

 

actually i did
i just did the software update, and last week I finally put in ms office.
Other than that not much else. It seemed like it was a heat problem because the computer became very hot quickly.
I understand it happens, but I have to prevent it. Its nerve racking to think this will happen when I am using it in a live setting.
If I reformat will these problems disappear? (also, is there a set number of times you can reformat?)
Or should I throw in more ram?

 

Reformat as in reinstall Mac OS X? No, there's no limit of times you can reinstall. If its a piece of software installed incorrectly causing the problem, reinstalling OS X will fix it.

You can also try repairing Permissions. Spotlight Disk Utility and repair Permissions. That may help.

 

I'm assuming that it was a kernel lock, and that just like with Linux when the kernel locks you lost power management and the CPU ran at max speed without any c states. If that is the case, the crash caused the heat, the heat didn't cause the crash. I don't know much about the OS X kernel yet, but it's possible the fan even stopped working if the BIOS doesn't take over properly.

 

does this mean that this will happen again? These kernel locks?
i wan't to take all preventive measures from having this mac crash.
I just got it in february, and if there is a problem, I believe I can switch it for a new one.

 

Don't worry, Jay07. It doesn't happen often, and its most likely not an internal problem (do you ask for a replacement notebook every time Windows crashes?).

If it continues to happen reinstall OS X. That will fix any problem that is software related.

I actually had a case similar to yours' Jay. I installed SMCFanControl, and I kept getting Kernel Panics (when the gray box shows up and tells you to Restart the computer). I reinstalled OS X and I haven't had any since.

 

Thanks for the info
only reason I'm worried is that I dj exclusively with my mb and when it crashed, I can just imagine it crashing during a gig and the after effects of that.
If the problem occurs again, I'll let you all know, and I'll probably reinstall the osx. thanks again

 

Relax Jay. It only crashed once, that happens. If it continues to happen then you can start worrying, but until then just consider it a freak accident.