macbook Random reboot and forgot the time Macbook just randomly switched itself off, and when I switched it back on again it had forgotten the time (as in, it had set itself to 0000 1st Jan 2001)



...and had a moan about some applications with alerts of this format...



When I opened the time/date presferences... the automatic 'get time from central server' kicked in. But I wanted to know if these two symptoms pointed to a specific problem that someone can recognise...

MacBook has these specs...



Edit next day macBook wouldn't charge. Visited Apple Store, power supply was prononced DOA  (turns out it wasn't an offical power supply it was a cheap knock off).  Problem hasn't reoccured since - will come back in a week and let you know if that has fixed it (which would be odd, but on the other hand the power supply starting to flake out could have a bunch of downstream issues - it has been plugged in every time there has been a problem)
Time to swing the voodoo chicken.

Things to try, in increasing order of intrusiveness:

1) PRAM reset: Reboot machine, holding Command+Option+P+R. Machine will begin to boot, and then automatically reboot itself. Let this cycle continue for 2-3 reboots, then let go and let the machine boot normally. Yeah, I know.

2) SMC reset (the more likely one): http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

It's entirely possible that the SMC itself is malfunctioning, which would require a logic board replacement. From your description, I think it's unlikely that this is a software-related issue.