Which hardware failure is this?

[LEOMODE]

Bought a used june 2012 RMPB. But the mac had 2 issues. 1) it had image retention (lg screen) and 2) during normal mac osx usage it kept frozing and restarting says it will restart in 10sec or something. And at one time when it rebooted it gave me 3 beeps.

So I took it to an apple service center (i'm in korea and there is no official apple shop. Just apple certified retail service center)and told them those symptoms. The guy said 3 beeps is ram issue so will have to exchange the entire mb since ram is soldered.

When I got it back it had another lg screen but no retention so I said ok. But after 30min of usage or so it kept freezing again. Then after me trying to recover and install a fresh os it just froze so I couldnt do anything.

I took it again and they apologized and said they will take a look and fix it.

a few days later they told me this time it was ssd that went wrong and they said they replaced the ssd.

but after taking it home its freezing again and now giving me the attached screenshot. Image distortion.

what could be the actual issue here? Did anyone have the same issue?

Tldr: this whole freezing and rebooting issue could this be a motherboard issue or ssd or graphic card?

 

[LEOMODE]

I uploaded the pic from android device but somehow image got flipped upside down. Sorry for that

I just hope they exchange everything including battery and keyboard caps lol

 

[xiwong]

Bought a used june 2012 RMPB. But the mac had 2 issues. 1) it had image retention (lg screen) and 2) during normal mac osx usage it kept frozing and restarting says it will restart in 10sec or something. And at one time when it rebooted it gave me 3 beeps.

So I took it to an apple service center (i'm in korea and there is no official apple shop. Just apple certified retail service center)and told them those symptoms. The guy said 3 beeps is ram issue so will have to exchange the entire mb since ram is soldered.

When I got it back it had another lg screen but no retention so I said ok. But after 30min of usage or so it kept freezing again. Then after me trying to recover and install a fresh os it just froze so I couldnt do anything.

I took it again and they apologized and said they will take a look and fix it.

a few days later they told me this time it was ssd that went wrong and they said they replaced the ssd.

but after taking it home its freezing again and now giving me the attached screenshot. Image distortion.

what could be the actual issue here? Did anyone have the same issue?

Tldr: this whole freezing and rebooting issue could this be a motherboard issue or ssd or graphic card?

Judging by the graphical glitches that include multiple scaled boxes instead of just all black and white boxes, it may be that your GPU is ready to go. There is a rash of 2011 AMD failures right now and even though yours is Nvidia, it is certainly possible. In fact, my GT650m just failed a few days ago and I am out of warranty.

I would try some new install media first to make sure it isn't that.

 

[simon48]

Judging by the graphical glitches that include multiple scaled boxes instead of just all black and white boxes, it may be that your GPU is ready to go. There is a rash of 2011 AMD failures right now and even though yours is Nvidia, it is certainly possible. In fact, my GT650m just failed a few days ago and I am out of warranty.

I would try some new install media first to make sure it isn't that.

No, 3 beeps is usually bad RAM, Apple's beep guide.

Remember on start up the computer is most likely going to using iGPU as nothing would need the dGPU yet and the iGPU shares the main RAM so that's where you could be getting the graphical glitches from.

 

[LEOMODE]

No, 3 beeps is usually bad RAM, Apple's beep guide.

Remember on start up the computer is most likely going to using iGPU as nothing would need the dGPU yet and the iGPU shares the main RAM so that's where you could be getting the graphical glitches from.

Man they said they replaced the entire board...I hope they're not lying then...

 

[simon48]

Man they said they replaced the entire board...I hope they're not lying then...

The RAM is soldered to the logic board. If the RAM dies you need to replace the whole logic board, they're not lying, they did the right thing.

I was remarking about what was your failure, but the part you need to replace would remain the same Whether it was your RAM, GPU etc.

 

[xiwong]

No, 3 beeps is usually bad RAM, Apple's beep guide.

Remember on start up the computer is most likely going to using iGPU as nothing would need the dGPU yet and the iGPU shares the main RAM so that's where you could be getting the graphical glitches from.

Oops, totally missed the 3 beeps part in the OP's post...

 

[bobcan]

YES, as mentioned above, the '3 Beeps' (followed by an evenly spaced 'silence' and Repeat, in continuation) is pretty much certainly a RAM issue.. Sorry to say!!

 

[ColdCase]

So it looks like the mother board they installed is defective. Can happen once in awhile.

 

[LEOMODE]

The RAM is soldered to the logic board. If the RAM dies you need to replace the whole logic board, they're not lying, they did the right thing.

I was remarking about what was your failure, but the part you need to replace would remain the same Whether it was your RAM, GPU etc.

So if they did replace the board they gave me another same symptom defective board. Too good to be true...too ironic dont u think...sad

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So it looks like the mother board they installed is defective. Can happen once in awhile.

Yea but funny that they gave me the exact same problem motherboard. I think they are lying!