cMBP 13" still broken after repair

[Blondie :)]

Hello all,

Recently, my 2011 baseline 13" MBP started having issues. If I were to play a game, or do something processor intensive, the computer would freeze. Essentially, the screen froze in a checkerboard pattern, and then the computer would freeze and make consistent beeps every second until I hard shut down the machine.

Sent it in to be repaired by the folks at best buy (I have their warranty) and got it back a month or two ago. On the repair report, the apparent problem was that the CPU/GPU unit was not seated properly onto the logic board. When the machine got warm enough from consistent heavy use, it would freeze as explained above. They also replaced the hard drive and the top case (I dropped it and put a small dent in it).

Last night, I was playing left 4 Dead 2 using steam. Got a little over an hour into gameplay, and the exact some problem occurred again! At this point, I'm wondering if my issue is more due to software issues, since the hardware was just replaced, unless best buy did a terrible job on the hardware repair. However, I have also had problems using Starcraft II (which is a standalone game, not associated with steam on my machine).

If anyone has any suggestions, I would be more than happy to hear them.

Warm Regards

 

[T5BRICK]

Do you have any remaining Apple warranty? 13" MBPs don't have a CPU/GPU that can be unseated, they're soldered on. It sounds like the techs at Best Buy don't know what they're doing.

*edit* When posting from the mobile view from my smart phone, I don't see signatures. According to your signature, you have 8GB of RAM. Pretty sure that isn't stock. Have you tried swapping the original RAM back in to see if the problem persists?

 

[Blondie :)]

Do you have any remaining Apple warranty? 13" MBPs don't have a CPU/GPU that can be unseated, they're soldered on. It sounds like the techs at Best Buy don't know what they're doing.

*edit* When posting from the mobile view from my smart phone, I don't see signatures. According to your signature, you have 8GB of RAM. Pretty sure that isn't stock. Have you tried swapping the original RAM back in to see if the problem persists?

Thank you for the reply. You are correct, my RAM is not stock. I'll swap it back to the original apple RAM and see if that changes anything. As far as for the techs at Best Buy, I kind of have to agree with you at this point. But from what the techs said from the first repair, the CPU/GPU wasn't soldered onto the board correctly the first time. So unless the logic board is faulty again, it might be the RAM or software. I'll post back results after a test.

 

[xxcysxx]

a bad set of rams can caused a system to crash or hang. run memtest86 on the 8gigs you got to check for errors. if you get just one error then get a new set.

 

[Blondie :)]

a bad set of rams can caused a system to crash or hang. run memtest86 on the 8gigs you got to check for errors. if you get just one error then get a new set.

Wish I would have read this a little bit earlier. I installed the old 4GB of RAM I had into my Mac and have been testing it with some gaming. So far so good, no major hang ups and no crashes. I'm going to give it another go, I'll let you all know if I have any issues. If I make it through 2+ hours of gaming, I'm going to blame it on the RAM, as I could never make it through that much before.

 

[thekev]

Thank you for the reply. You are correct, my RAM is not stock. I'll swap it back to the original apple RAM and see if that changes anything. As far as for the techs at Best Buy, I kind of have to agree with you at this point. But from what the techs said from the first repair, the CPU/GPU wasn't soldered onto the board correctly the first time. So unless the logic board is faulty again, it might be the RAM or software. I'll post back results after a test.

Whenever you upgrade ram, the first thing you should do is memtest. You can also try something like Prime95 if you aren't sure what is causing problems, but checking memory should always be done via utilities that can run in single user mode as opposed to on top of the GUI. Run it for 5 cycles or so. It sounds like the problem was bad ram this time. When you get replacement ram, test it right after installation. Typically I'd say to do this when you won't need your machine for at least a few hours. It's just a way of saving yourself potential headaches, as bad ram is one of the most annoying computer headaches of them all.

 

[Blondie :)]

Whenever you upgrade ram, the first thing you should do is memtest. You can also try something like Prime95 if you aren't sure what is causing problems, but checking memory should always be done via utilities that can run in single user mode as opposed to on top of the GUI. Run it for 5 cycles or so. It sounds like the problem was bad ram this time. When you get replacement ram, test it right after installation. Typically I'd say to do this when you won't need your machine for at least a few hours. It's just a way of saving yourself potential headaches, as bad ram is one of the most annoying computer headaches of them all.

I haven't fully verified that it was in fact bad ram yet, but I'm working on that as we speak. But yes, it seems as though having bad ram is a very large headache. Thanks for all of the replies.