Hello. I have an old macbook pro (late 2013) which is running the latest version of Catalina, and recently it started crashing (kind of) randomly - the screen goes black or freeze if I connected an external monitor, the fans goes full blast for a few seconds, and then it goes off. It can happen when I'm browsing internet, playing game or just staring at my desktop background. After it crashes when I try to reboot it will crash again very soon, and my 3rd and further attempt will likely crash during the boot progress bar. If I let it cool for a few hours, the next boot would work and I can use it for a few hours or with bad luck minutes before next crash happens
At first I think it's due to overheating. I thought maybe the factory thermal paste aged too much, so I got a new thermal paste and applied it, But to my surprise the symptom continued. I tried a different and nicer thermal paste (with it after system boot the CPU temp is around 50℃), and it didn't work either.
Another strange thing is I installed TG Pro to check temperature readings, and I kept it open when I used my MBP. When crashes happened nothing seemed to be overheating as reported by TG Pro. Some cores of the CPU can be around 80℃ or 90℃, but crashes happened when they were around 70℃ too. The discrete GPU was around 50℃ or 60℃.
I've tried resetting SMC, NVRAM and they didn't work. I've tried Apple Diagnostics and it found nothing (but if I run it after a crash it crashes in middle of the process too). Bootcamp windows crashes too. So the only thing I know is it's a hardware issue, and it's probably caused by something overheating, but as TG Pro's temp numbers are all in normal range I can't really figure out what is wrong. I'm really scratching my head now.
Previously I had to delete AppleThunderboltNHI.kext because it was causing similar random crashes (I confirmed that file is removed), and I also replaced the battery about 3 month ago (coconutBattery reports good state). Not sure if they are related.
Any ideas? Thanks!
At first I think it's due to overheating. I thought maybe the factory thermal paste aged too much, so I got a new thermal paste and applied it, But to my surprise the symptom continued. I tried a different and nicer thermal paste (with it after system boot the CPU temp is around 50℃), and it didn't work either.
Another strange thing is I installed TG Pro to check temperature readings, and I kept it open when I used my MBP. When crashes happened nothing seemed to be overheating as reported by TG Pro. Some cores of the CPU can be around 80℃ or 90℃, but crashes happened when they were around 70℃ too. The discrete GPU was around 50℃ or 60℃.
I've tried resetting SMC, NVRAM and they didn't work. I've tried Apple Diagnostics and it found nothing (but if I run it after a crash it crashes in middle of the process too). Bootcamp windows crashes too. So the only thing I know is it's a hardware issue, and it's probably caused by something overheating, but as TG Pro's temp numbers are all in normal range I can't really figure out what is wrong. I'm really scratching my head now.
Previously I had to delete AppleThunderboltNHI.kext because it was causing similar random crashes (I confirmed that file is removed), and I also replaced the battery about 3 month ago (coconutBattery reports good state). Not sure if they are related.
Any ideas? Thanks!
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