2010 MBP 15" crashes because of OS X update

[jonnysods]

Hey guys, my MacBook Pro was running High Sierra 10.13.4. Hard drive was a little slow, so I upgraded to an SSD. Thing was running majestically for a couple of weeks. Realized I needed to update to 10.13.6, during the update I got a grey screen with the progress bar for like 15 minutes.

Then the screen went blank, and nothing happened. Restarted, same deal.

Did a time machine restore, then went to update, same thing.

Can't figure it out! Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Fishrrman]

I know this doesn't help but...
... Sometimes it's just better to use older versions of the OS with older hardware...

 

[jonnysods]

I think you're right. May be time to peel back to Sierra.

 

[Audit13]

Could be a bad sata hard drive cable.

 

[jonnysods]

Would that manifest itself only during a software update? The thing runs perfectly apart from when I try to do a software update on it. Shuts down, boots up etc. So weird!

 

[Audit13]

SSDs are much less tolerant of faulty cables than a mechanical drive.

If possible and as a test, clone the current installation to a mechanical drive and then try to update.

I doubt it's related but the mid-2010 15" MBP has a know issue with a capacitor when switching from Intel graphics to nVidia graphics.

 

[Zwhaler]

I doubt it's related but the mid-2010 15" MBP has a know issue with a capacitor when switching from Intel graphics to nVidia graphics.

This happened to me. They replaced the logic board and it hasn't had a catastrophic failure since. The symptom would manifest by the screen going black (and stay black) randomly and the sleep light on the case would be flashing like it was asleep, except that I didn't put it to sleep. Go to system preferences, energy saver, and turn automatic graphics switching off. That will reduce the likelihood that this problem will arise. It doesn't immediately appear that the problem OP is having is due to this glitch, but I'm just posting this because it's relevant to the 2010 MBP (I'm posting from mine now!).

 

[Audit13]

This happened to me. They replaced the logic board and it hasn't had a catastrophic failure since. The symptom would manifest by the screen going black (and stay black) randomly and the sleep light on the case would be flashing like it was asleep, except that I didn't put it to sleep. Go to system preferences, energy saver, and turn automatic graphics switching off. That will reduce the likelihood that this problem will arise. It doesn't immediately appear that the problem OP is having is due to this glitch, but I'm just posting this because it's relevant to the 2010 MBP (I'm posting from mine now!).

Best solution, which I had done, is to replace the faulty capacitor. Once replaced, I have never had the kernel panic reappear.

A good software solution is here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...for-kernel-panic-of-macbook-pro-2010.2044304/

 

[jonnysods]

This happened to me. They replaced the logic board and it hasn't had a catastrophic failure since. The symptom would manifest by the screen going black (and stay black) randomly and the sleep light on the case would be flashing like it was asleep, except that I didn't put it to sleep. Go to system preferences, energy saver, and turn automatic graphics switching off. That will reduce the likelihood that this problem will arise. It doesn't immediately appear that the problem OP is having is due to this glitch, but I'm just posting this because it's relevant to the 2010 MBP (I'm posting from mine now!).

Wow this is good to know thank you!!