Macbook Pro Mid 2010 Encountered a problem.

[petbro]

Hi,

I've just recently purchased SH Mac and I'm having an occasional complete shutdown problem. Can any tech minded pro help me with what the problem is by the attached file? Do I have a motherboard or software problem?

 

[DeltaMac]

Nothing too obvious in that log that you included.
Your 10 year old laptop, probably the original 320 GB hard drive, the RAM is configured a little strangely, but probably not directly affecting anything. Do you get those shutdowns during boot? Probably a failing hard drive.
Do you get random shutdown at random times, not really anything to do with booting?
Is your MBPro quite warm, or even hot when you get a shutdown? Could be a Good Thing™ to run a utility that will show your temps, such as HWMonitor. smcFanControl allows you to change fan speed, and you can check that the fan is effectively cooling your laptop.

But, going back to the hard drive -- (assuming that there's not another hardware problem going on) a good way to treat your MBPro would be to remove that old hard spinning hard drive, and replace with an SATA solid state drive (SSD). If the hard drive is causing issues, the SSD will take care of those, and leave you with a significantly faster MBPro. There is nothing else to say, except to "try it, you will like it"
(And, while you have the bottom cover open to replace the hard drive, you should check that the fan appears to be clean, and that it can turn freely)

 

[petbro]

Nothing too obvious in that log that you included.
Your 10 year old laptop, probably the original 320 GB hard drive, the RAM is configured a little strangely, but probably not directly affecting anything. Do you get those shutdowns during boot? Probably a failing hard drive.
Do you get random shutdown at random times, not really anything to do with booting?
Is your MBPro quite warm, or even hot when you get a shutdown? Could be a Good Thing™ to run a utility that will show your temps, such as HWMonitor. smcFanControl allows you to change fan speed, and you can check that the fan is effectively cooling your laptop.

But, going back to the hard drive -- (assuming that there's not another hardware problem going on) a good way to treat your MBPro would be to remove that old hard spinning hard drive, and replace with an SATA solid state drive (SSD). If the hard drive is causing issues, the SSD will take care of those, and leave you with a significantly faster MBPro. There is nothing else to say, except to "try it, you will like it"
(And, while you have the bottom cover open to replace the hard drive, you should check that the fan appears to be clean, and that it can turn freely)

Hello DeltaMac,

Thanks for the reply and viewing the log.

I believe it is the RAM. I purchased a 4GB and installed it on Saturday when it arrived and that's when I started having the unexpected shutdown problem. There wasn't any particular point when it would do this. I've therefore reverted back to the original 2 x 2GB RAM. No more problems. Judging by what you said about RAM being strangely configured I guess by this that the RAM should of equal amounts?

I did notice that my MBPro was overheating too and will follow your instructions as above.

I have today ordered a SSD and await its arrival.

After posting the above I wanted to find out how to run a diagnostic test and found a video on youtube how to create a apple hardware test on usb and run it. Both the short and long tests were ok with no problems found. Should I run the test again with the new 4Gb RAM stick installed? I'm interested to know if it will fail the test.

I also installed Windows 7 Pro via Bootcamp. The only problem it's having is 'Display driver stopped responding and has recovered. Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernal Mode Driver, version 327.02 stopped responding and has successfully recovered.' I don't know what to do about this yet.

This is the very first Mac I've bought. Since 98 I've always worked with Windows. Wish I had bought a Mac way before now though.

Do you know how I would find out what disks would have originally come with my model?

Peter
(Macbook Pro 15 Mid 2010 6.2

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes - Macs can be very picky about correct RAM.
If your new RAM is just the one 4GB stick, it may be a mismatch because of a different manufacturer, so...
Try installing the new RAM stick - and remove the 2GB stick. Use your MBPro for a bit, long enough to find out if that works better with just the one 4GB stick. If it works, you just need to buy a second 4GB stick to max out the RAM on a 2010 MBPro.

Your 2010 MBPro standard drive was a 320 GB hard drive. That's the size that you have now, and I expect that it is the original drive.

Windows drivers? I would probably try booting to your Windows system, then open the Device Manager. Click on the Video or Graphics, then go to properties for the Nvidia driver. Then, I would choose to uninstall/delete that Nvidia driver. Your Windows will reboot. Go back into the Device Manager, choose to view changes to the hardware, and check for entries in Graphics/Video that show an exclamation mark. Use the menu to search for new drivers. That should fix it - or you need to simply reinstall the Boot Camp software, which should also get you going (but a 2010 MBPro may be too old for the boot camp software, I don't know for sure. The normal Windows device manager updates will probably do the trick for you. A restart or two, and Windows might be fine (well, as good as Windows can be 😎 )

 

[petbro]

Yes - Macs can be very picky about correct RAM.
If your new RAM is just the one 4GB stick, it may be a mismatch because of a different manufacturer, so...
Try installing the new RAM stick - and remove the 2GB stick. Use your MBPro for a bit, long enough to find out if that works better with just the one 4GB stick. If it works, you just need to buy a second 4GB stick to max out the RAM on a 2010 MBPro.

Your 2010 MBPro standard drive was a 320 GB hard drive. That's the size that you have now, and I expect that it is the original drive.

Windows drivers? I would probably try booting to your Windows system, then open the Device Manager. Click on the Video or Graphics, then go to properties for the Nvidia driver. Then, I would choose to uninstall/delete that Nvidia driver. Your Windows will reboot. Go back into the Device Manager, choose to view changes to the hardware, and check for entries in Graphics/Video that show an exclamation mark. Use the menu to search for new drivers. That should fix it - or you need to simply reinstall the Boot Camp software, which should also get you going (but a 2010 MBPro may be too old for the boot camp software, I don't know for sure. The normal Windows device manager updates will probably do the trick for you. A restart or two, and Windows might be fine (well, as good as Windows can be 😎 )

I shall certainly try installing Win 7 without Bootcamp when SSD comes.

My Ram is 2 x 2GB. Reverted back from 1 x 2GB & 1 x 4GB. Different manufacturers. With Bootcamp I noticed you can't download drivers for Windows. I'll see how to disable this.

Bootcamp uses BC4 for 2010 Mac. Strange cos it's for a 32bit and not what mine is 64Bit.

Will let you know how I get on nstalling once the SSD comes.

Cheers, DeltaMac

Peter

 

[saudor]

Is this a 15" 2010 with the GT330M by any chance? that log shows a GPU panic and 2010 were absolutely notorious for failing. Basically, the cap used in the GT330M is out of spec and when power goes up, it hiccups and cant handle the power

If this is indeed the 2010 15", you need to run this tool which will lead to slightly reduced GPU performance but you wont see the kernel panic as often:

GitHub - fabioiop/MBP-2010-GPU-Panic-fix: MBP 2010 GPU Panic fix to MacBook Pro 15" mid 2010

MBP 2010 GPU Panic fix to MacBook Pro 15" mid 2010 - fabioiop/MBP-2010-GPU-Panic-fix

github.com

I had this issue with my 2010 and got apple to fix the board in 2015. Anyways the underlying issue was never fixed on the logic board so i ran the tool and it remained OK

also note that this tool will not work in windows or if you plug in an external monitor

 

[petbro]

Is this a 15" 2010 with the GT330M by any chance? that log shows a GPU panic and 2010 were absolutely notorious for failing. Basically, the cap used in the GT330M is out of spec and when power goes up, it hiccups and cant handle the power

If this is indeed the 2010 15", you need to run this tool which will lead to slightly reduced GPU performance but you wont see the kernel panic as often:

GitHub - fabioiop/MBP-2010-GPU-Panic-fix: MBP 2010 GPU Panic fix to MacBook Pro 15" mid 2010

MBP 2010 GPU Panic fix to MacBook Pro 15" mid 2010 - fabioiop/MBP-2010-GPU-Panic-fix

github.com

I had this issue with my 2010 and got apple to fix the board in 2015. Anyways the underlying issue was never fixed on the logic board so i ran the tool and it remained OK

also note that this tool will not work in windows or if you plug in an external monitor

My problem lies with windows 7 installed with bootcamp 5. NIVDIA driver crashing intermittently. Been through the posts and it seems there's never been an answer.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I believe it is the RAM. I purchased a 4GB and installed it on Saturday when it arrived and that's when I started having the unexpected shutdown problem. There wasn't any particular point when it would do this. I've therefore reverted back to the original 2 x 2GB RAM. No more problems. Judging by what you said about RAM being strangely configured I guess by this that the RAM should of equal amounts?"

Well, there's your problem.

Either stick with the original 4gb of "Factory RAM"
or
Get another 4gb DIMM (like the first), install that, and see how it does
or
Return the 4gb DIMM you have, and buy TWO new 4gb DIMMs from somewhere else, then install them.

 

[saudor]

My problem lies with windows 7 installed with bootcamp 5. NIVDIA driver crashing intermittently. Been through the posts and it seems there's never been an answer.

The log that you posted in OP shows it's the classic nvidia issue. and further down i see macbookpro6,2 so it is indeed the 2010. This is a very famous issue. You need to either run that app or change the capacitor. or return it to the place you bought it since you've been scammed.

This issue happens regardless of the issue. In macOS it's a kernel panic. In Windows, the driver will "crash"


See: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/gpu-kernel-panic-in-mid-2010-whats-the-best-fix.1890097/

to replicate and confirm this issue, run a gpu benchmark like cinebench to see if you get a kernel panic