Help me.

"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
04/04/2019 at 14:31 • Filed to: None

My computer is acting like a dick.

I have a late 2013 MacBookPro, and it usually works like a charm. But I’ve had constant electrical issues with the computer. It went through one drive, and a display.

I attributed this to a shitty KBB repair at an Apple Store, but they didn’t want to do anything about it because the KBB repair had already cost them 1400 dollars.

I had to go with the computer guy at my father’s office, who was very nice and got me a new hard drive for very little. The display too.

In the end, it works well. The only issue I’ve had was today. The computer starts, but keeps freezing. EVERYTHING even the keyboard and the mouse. It would restart a few seconds later.

In order to diagnose this, I opened the activity monitor, but there wasn’t any process asking for too much CPU or memory. I then thought it was a hardware issue; and my keyboard and mouse weren’t being detected.

So, I got a clock on display that showed seconds, and it froze too: so it wasn’t only hardware.

So, to finally conclude on the hardware suggestion; I opened up the windows partition; and it’s working flawlessly. So It’s not a hardware issue; it seems like something in Mac OS decided it didn’t want to work at all. Any ideas?

DISCUSSION (17)

Aremmes > Spanfeller is a twat
04/04/2019 at 14:46

Don’t discount hardware issues yet. Different OSes use CPU, memory, and I/O in different ways. You’ve already replaced the display and HDD; have you tested the memory to make sure it’s not failing as well? I’d run something like memtest86, but I don’t know if that would boot on a Mac nor do I know a Mac equivalent.

Honeybunchesofgoats > Spanfeller is a twat
04/04/2019 at 14:48

Have you tried booting in Safe Mode? In OSX, booting in Safe Mode clears all of the caches, so at least that would help you eliminate that as an issue.

EngineerWithTools > Spanfeller is a twat
04/04/2019 at 14:51

When you say it restarts, do you mean reboot after freezing, or just unfreezes and starts working again?

If you have a discreet GPU, check the power settings allowing the GPU to be disabled when on battery. Work on battery... any different?

Have you done the normal Mac stuff like zapping the parameter ram?

Although my first unfortunate thought is a hardware issue, I think the fact that it runs ok under windows disproves that. My next thought is something amiss with the Finder, and it’s killing and restarting some process.

Anyway, good luck!

CalzoneGolem > Spanfeller is a twat
04/04/2019 at 14:51

I’d look at the RAM . Much like bad grounds in a car bad RAM causes weird shit to happen.

Future Heap Owner > Spanfeller is a twat
04/04/2019 at 14:54

The initial ritual for weird Mac problems is clearing the PRAM/NVRAM and resetting the SMC.

I would also go back to see if anything shows up in the system log around the time that the freezing/restart happens. You can view that with /Applications/Utilities/Console.app

Ash78, voting early and often > Spanfeller is a twat
04/04/2019 at 15:02

In the sub-$500 laptop world I inhabit, this is “time for a new computer”

However, for MBP money, I would thrown 10 PCs worth of cash after the problem first. Then buy a new computer :)

Sorry. I genuinely hope it works out, but 5 years is like two decades in “laptop years” (especially if it gets moved around a lot)

Spanfeller is a twat > EngineerWithTools
04/04/2019 at 15:03

It literally restarts.

I have two GPUs; the intel one and an Nvidia unit; I have it set up so that it always uses the Nvidia unit

Spanfeller is a twat > Aremmes
04/04/2019 at 15:03

Both OS’ detect all my hardware

Nibby > Spanfeller is a twat
04/04/2019 at 15:04

Kinja'd!!!

Spanfeller is a twat > CalzoneGolem
04/04/2019 at 15:13

I think it’s still an electrical/cooling issue. I’m going to dust it and check if it lives

Spanfeller is a twat > Ash78, voting early and often
04/04/2019 at 15:14

Well, lets hope book royalties cover a new one

Aremmes > Spanfeller is a twat
04/04/2019 at 15:32

That’s not my point. I’m not surprised that Windows would detect all of the hardware in your Mac. It’s just going to use it differently by virtue of having a different OS kernel, drivers, binary interfaces, architectures, etc. The NT and XNU kernels will certainly not use memory the same way, the they’ll arrange page tables however it suits them. T he timing of commands to storage devices will not be the same. CPU registers will not be set identically. And the commands sent to the GPU will be as different as night and day.

Way back when, I came upon a computer that ran MS-DOS and Windows 3.11 just fine, but if booted into Windows 95 it’d hang solid after a random number of minutes. The computer was specced adequately for Windows 95 and all of the drivers were up to date, so it wasn’t a matter of compatibility. It turned out that the computer had a bad DIMM, and after replacing that it had no further problems.

Similar problems happened with other OSes. It was common to find machines that would run Windows without problems, but had weird crashes with OS/2, which was notoriously finicky about hardware. Sometimes it’d be something as mundane as a sound card not inserted fully into its slot.

7:07 > Future Heap Owner
04/04/2019 at 15:36

Came here to suggest the same steps. Check the console for anything useful. Kernel panics will be documented there

facw > Spanfeller is a twat
04/04/2019 at 15:37

I don’t know enough about OS X to troubleshoot that, but it does sound like it’s not a hardware problem if Windows works. If you can’t find anything else, You may just have to have a go at reinstalling OS X. On another machine I’d say just swap in another drive an install there for testing, but it looks like it’s enough of a pain that you’d want to avoid that.

You can of course stress test things under Windows or with something standalone like Memtest86, but if it works normally, under W indows I wouldn’t expect it to fail (especially instantly) under OS X.

Spanfeller is a twat > Aremmes
04/04/2019 at 16:14

I could run the troubleshooting app you mention on windows

Spanfeller is a twat > 7:07
04/04/2019 at 19:18

I started up in safe mode and it’s stable thus far.... I also dusted the thing and carried out a visual inspection of the board. I also connected it to a power source. Maybe it was a cache

Spanfeller is a twat > Aremmes
04/04/2019 at 19:30

I ran troubleshooting; no hardware problems.