Retina Macbook Pro 13" suddenly freezes upon restart

[mayuka]

Hi,

My Retina Macbook Pro 13" suddenly freezes upon restart or reboot. I first noticed it a couple of days ago. Normally, I only reboot my rMBP when updating or carrying my backpack. Upon reboot, it takes much much longer than usual (normal: 5 seconds, now: 2 minutes) until the Apple logo appears. It takes another 2 minutes getting to the login screen, where the touchpad cursor and the keyboard are extremely sluggish (1 keystroke takes 20 seconds to appear). I have Filevault enabled, so I'm unable to login at this point because the rMBP is so slow. I already tried SMC reset, PRAM reset, starting in Safe Mode and Apple Diagnostics, which also take much longer than usual. Once, AD threw an error (VDC001 which means SD card reader failure), but every time I try it now it exits without errors.

What fixes my startup freezes for now is leaving the rMBP off for about 2 minutes having the power cable disconnected. The Apple Service told me that they can only do something if AD returns an error code.

What do you think? Have you experienced similar issues? Could this be an early symptom of logic board failure or some kind of power converter issue? I'm only 3 weeks within warranty now. So, I'm thinking about extending the warranty with Apple Care. However, I'm puzzled and unsure what to do.

 

[MrAverigeUser]

1) Regarding the weak reliability of apple products, especially the MBP line, i recommend strongly to take the very expensive apple care option. Sadly, this is necessarily so.

2) make videos of the inacceptable booting process to have proven the failure you are referring to - important for further discussion with apple.

3) at the moment and more if you buy the apple care option - this is not Your problem, it is apple's proböem,
They simply can't deny an important performance problem. If they are not capable to solve the real-existing problem they simply have to give you an pther machine.

4) make sure that there is still sufficient free space on your SSD.
5) not every not-properly working RAM is correctly diagnosed. There are special test apps to test RAM more profoundly.
6) could also be a beginning, not always reproducable problem of the disk-cable... But in your MBP the SSD is already soldered, isn't it? If yes, this possible and well-known problem of the 2008-2012 MBPs can be excluded...

Keep on with charging apple with your problem - and NOT the other way round!

Good luck!

 

[JohnDS]

As the previous poster suggested, make sure you have at least 15% free space on your drive.

If that is not the problem, try booting into then Recovery Partition by booting while holding down Command-r, the run Repair Disk from Disk Utility.

Also, unless you are running El Capitan or have an SSD drive, when you are in Disk Utility make a not of the S.M.A.R.T. status of your drive. If it is anything but "verified", your drive is failing.

 

[mayuka]

My SSD (512 GB) has about 40% free space. Thus, that shouldn't be a problem. However, I enabled FileVault. Do you know of any problems with that? S.M.A.R.T. is verified. All USB ports, Thunderbolt and SD card slots work fine.

What I have noticed is that when I plug in a USB drive while my rMBP is shut down completely, the USB drive gets power for a short time (about 1 sec). I've read that this may be an indication of a power converter failure (although for an older model). What do you think?

I've made an appointment with a technician tomorrow. Nearby there is no Apple Retail Store. As a result I have to rely on "Premium Apple Resellers". Do you have any suggestions or experience with regard to those Apple-certified 3rd-party technicians?

 

[MrAverigeUser]

You can run both free apps to get more information about possible hardware or software problems.
Make a backup ( if not alteady done) and then run the two apps.

1) etrecheck
2) onyX

 

[Gordio]

Hi all. I have same problem. And I think it come with Firmware update. Have same symptoms, have same Diagnostic Tools Error Code. (still have it) And Try resset SMC, NVRAM too.
What I find:
• sluggish in EFI, after loading OS - all fine;
• VDC001 code in Diagnostic Tool (SD Card's work fine);
• Connected USB devices work fine (Mouse) (Bluetooth Magic Keyboard work withou sluggish only with USB);
• Reinstalling OS don't help (with dd if=/dev/zero if=/dev/disk0 and recreating partitions)

Video with booting and keyboard sluggish:

Also I shot this in one of my reboots to Recovery:

 

[mayuka]

I bought my MBP to the nearest Premium Apple Reseller. They fixed the problem by replacing both the left and right IO board. It was repaired under warranty. No problems since.

 

[Gordio]

But I bought my MBP12,1 in not official store. And don't have warranty "card". Official Repair say "We can't repair this Mac because you don't have warranty and MPB still on apple Service Coverage". And I don't know what to do... :-(

upd:
I can't update it with money, because it in official warranty. :-(

 

[mayuka]

Unfortunately, I guess you are out of luck then...

You could try to open the backside panel and disconnect the IO board with the SD card and see if that helps. Instructions are on iFixit and maybe you can find a replacement IO board if that's really the cause. There's also an official Macbook Pro Repair thread here on Macrumors.

 

[emil1234]

I bought my MBP to the nearest Premium Apple Reseller. They fixed the problem by replacing both the left and right IO board. It was repaired under warranty. No problems since.

some 2015 macbook pro owner reporting the slow/unresponding issue has gone since updated to the newest macos 10.12.4beta8. It is clearly a driver issue and apple has finally addressing that on their latest update.

 

[Gordio]

some 2015 macbook pro owner reporting the slow/unresponding issue has gone since updated to the newest macos 10.12.4beta8. It is clearly a driver issue and apple has finally addressing that on their latest update.

Yep. You right. After update problem is gone. And Apple Diagnostic stoped showing problem with SD Card Reader. It's a little strange for me, but after update to 10.12.4 Beta (16E192b) problem with EFI is gone.