Since a couple of weeks, my MacBook Pro has been experiencing random kernel panics. I believe these kps started after installing Mavericks (although I am not completely sure). I decided to do a complete fresh install of Mavericks, without restoring it using TimeMachine. All went well for a while, until last week, in which I had two KPs again.
The crashes seem completely random and are pretty rare. I think I had a little less than 10 KPs in two months time. So the fact that all went well for a while lately doesn't mean much I think; probably pure coincidence… I have a MacBook Pro late 2010 15 inch, 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 and I run OS X 10.9.1. The kp logs always report about a GPU panic in the beginning.
I have quite some stuff running on my mac, including stuff that interacts pretty directly with the core of the OS. This includes NoSleep (which is practically never running, but I know it installs some kexts which I can imagine being loaded even if the actual NoSleep program itself is not running), Tuxera NTFS, RightZoom, TotalFinder, Parallels 8 and iStat Menus. All run on the latest updates. Maybe I should make the upgrade to Parallels 9, as it is currently my main suspect. I have been running a lot of VMs lately, and it is very well possibly that it had been running every time a kp occured. However, I rather not make the paid upgrade as I am Dutch 😉
Could anyone help analyze the KP logs? I am clueless…
I posted the last two here:
- http://pastebin.com/3CsCHRsg (KP log 24-dec-2013)
- http://pastebin.com/jVmEQsJG (KP log 20-dec-2013)
Best Answer
My mid 2010 15 inch Mac Book Pro is in for a logic board replacement right now for what looks like the same issue. At least the first line of the log you posted is identical to the ones I was having. Apparently a run of nVidia graphics chips used in that vintage of 15 inch MBPs had a "latent defect". The bug can be tickled or not depending on the applications you are running and also the OS revision -- different releases of OS/X use the graphics hardware in different ways. My panics really got bad after upgrading to Mavericks, like yours -- though I had a few, very few and far between (<< 10 in all) before the upgrade.
When you take it in to Apple, be sure that they run what is called the VST test. The Apple stores do NOT run this test routinely even though it only takes a few minutes. Even after telling the Genius who took my machine in that I wanted this test run, and even after the test appearing on the work order, they did not run it until I insisted over the phone (their recommendation was to wipe the disk clean and do a fresh OS install). This was after they had run every other diagnostic on it for two days and pronounced the panics software related. Of course, it failed the VST test, and as I said, is now having the logic board replaced.
BTW this is the TS4088 issue, and although you should be within the 3-year window or just barely out of it, many Apple stores will still pick up the tab for this since it is a known problem.
Good luck.