Macbook Pro 7,1 forcing restarts

[SSpiro]

My mother's macbook pro (7,1) has been forcing me to shut it down a few times over last 2 days. A gray curtain comes down and there is a message telling me to close down and restart by using the power button.

I am thinking it may either be overheating (fan makes a lot of noise quite often lately) or the hard drive - but really unsure what the problem could be.

Any thoughts?

 

[Mindinversion]

Compressed air. Pram reset. Download and run Onyx for Mac.

 

[Sanpete]

For heat, take the back off and clean out dust and debris. You can go further and redo thermal paste if you want, but just removing dust will often make the difference.

Have you run the hardware check?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257

 

[SSpiro]

Thanks guys, checking all these now.

 

[SSpiro]

Sorry for delay.. Onyx actually helped it run perfectly for a week and then went back to the overheating.

Did the hardware test, came back fine.

I need to open her up and try that route. Will be a few weeks, however, before I'll see it again.

Will keep thread updated. Thanks guys.