I have a macbok pro late 2008 , running the latest OS apple will allow – el capitan.
I have 2 sticks of 2GB RAM. This is above the original specs but due to a firmware upgrade some years ago, it now works with 4GB of RAM
My mbp reboots no more than twice a day, usually averaging once a day or day and half.
I had a lemon of a battery before that swelled like crazy and bent the flimsy alumimum cover. I now have a replacement battery.
My theory is that the problem is down to one of 3 things but these are just theories I'm not mac expert. So I'm here to find out what likely is the real cause…
- contacts for the battery shorting out occasionally
- faulty battery
- RAM problems, unfortunately I never had any success before on any other computer with ram testers so i don't think running one is going to help here. They even say so on the internet, they can prove defective ram if they spot it, but if not – maybe it's defective, maybe not. That said swapping out the ram and testing each stick would mean I would need to run a week on each stick. Because it is basically guaranteed to fail in a week but a couple of days of uptime in inconclusive. I count uptime to include sleep mode.
Which brings me my "smoking gun" question… I believe this will pinpoint the problem once someone knowledgeable about macs and hardware reads this.
The reboot problem will occur even when in sleep mode. Or hibernating mode. Ok not sure about actual sleep but when you choose sleep and go to hibernating – i.e. it has to restore from disk later. Sometimes coming out of it will restore state, sometimes it will do a fresh bootup.
And of course it can reboot at any time during normal operation. Reboot might be too strong a word, i think it just turns off.
So what does that indicate? would that be ram problem or a battery problem?
Best Answer
Troubleshooting is often a process of elimination, so patience is often required. There's quite a few things you could do to try and narrow things down, because even from the info you've provided the cause could be RAM, your battery, or something else altogether.
For example, if it works fine in Safe Mode then it's more likely to be some sort of software issue/conflict.
To start with I'd do a NVRAM and SMC reset (in that order) as there's really no harm in trying that first. Before following the steps below, ensure you have no external hardware connected and that you're using the built-in keyboard.
Reset the NVRAM
Reset the NVRAM on your MBP as follows:
Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).
Reset the SMC
To reset the SMC on your model MBP, follow these steps:
After resetting both the NVRAM and SMC, use your computer to determine if the issue still persists. If it does, I'd test your hardware as with Apple Hardware Test.
Run Apple Hardware Test
Your model MBP uses Apple Hardware Test. To use this, follow these steps:
Note 1: that the extended test will take some time. Take a note of the results and report back.
Note 2: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.
If your MBP passes all hardware tests, then I'd try using it in Safe Mode.
Boot into Safe Mode
Follow these steps to boot your MBP into Safe Mode:
If you find that your MBP works fine while in Safe Mode, but not when booted normally, then let me know and I'll explain the process of identifying the culprit (it's likely to be a login item, corrupted font, or kernel extension).