Lockup Problems MBP

[sfinnerty]

So as part of being a new faculty member at my college I got to select from a small list of pc/mac computers for my personal use. The mac laptop listed was the entry level 13” model, so imagine my surprise when the base 15” macbook pro (2012) showed up on my desk. There is one problem though, the machine locks up. No kernel panic or anything, just a hard lock that only a reboot will recover from. The lockups were happening 3 to 5 minutes after the computer started up and in many cases occurred even before I logged in. So I sent it back to the CTS department thinking the image was bad in some way. Got it back 3 days later and it seemed better although I hadn’t gotten around to doing much with it. Noticed today that it is still locking up, one of the downsides to our CTS department is that they will not give you the administrative password, so anytime you want to update or install something you have to put in a request. Makes me crazy. Regardless I figured the locking up was caused by some nonsense that they had installed as part of the image they used. So today I blew it away and loaded a fresh shiny clean copy of mountain lion. Even with nothing installed other than the base OS it is still locking up. Which seems to point to a hardware problem. Any thoughts? Since it was purchased by the university I don’t imagine that I can bring it to an Apple Store for Applecare. I really don’t want to have to deal with the CTS department either unless I have to as I expect to get grief for trying to do their job for them. Again, any thoughts would be appreciated.