I have a Macbook Pro, randomly started running into issues when logging in after start up. Occasionally will get the desktop to load but shortly thereafter the OS crashes leading to a screen with multiple colored lines which sometimes resolve after varying amounts of time. Following the crash and after re-boot/log-in the screen will go to all white.
After many of these crash sequences I booted into Recovery Mode and did a complete wipe of the harddrive with a fresh install of macOS (Sierra). I created a new user profile and logged in. All seemed well with normal use but after about 15 minutes of function as usual it went back to the same crashing sequence and white screen after log in.
Suspecting a hardware problem, I ran AHT (apple hardware test) and cycled 4 times with the Extended Testing which read "No trouble found." for each cycle. Subsequent to this and suspecting a hard drive issues that is simply not being picked up by the AHT I booted again into Recovery mode to try running first aid on my hard drive and noticed that it is registering and being completely used with no free space (after a complete wipe and reinstall of macOS…it should be essentially empty).
I figure the complete wipe and re-install of mac OS would have solved any software related trouble that could be leading to this issue. That being said, I'm leaning toward one of three potential hardware issues being the source of my woes: hard drive, logic board or RAM. Right now the hard drive is my top suspicion but the clean cycles of AHT is confusing me.
Any ideas on where I can go from here to try and narrow down the source of the problem before I go trying to get any of the hardware replaced?
Best Answer
Many condolences. The 15" MBPs from 2011/2012 had a very high frequency of hardware failures on the logic board, specifically the onboard graphics. From recollection, it was a manufacturing fault that was not suspected by Apple's hardware designers until large numbers of them started to fail in the wild, leading to a class-action suit against Apple, which was kept very quiet. AFAIK, there is no economically sound way of fixing this issue.