About a month or so ago, I clicked on the Google Earth icon on my desktop. My computer froze. No cursor. I had to do a hard reboot. Today I tried to download a video from my camera. The camera was in video mode; and when I plugged it in, it went to still mode. Then the computer froze and I had to do a hard reboot.
First question: Why did my computer freeze?
On restarting, I get a grey screen with the Apple logo and a progress bar. When the progress bar is a little over halfway progressed, I get a grey screen. I have to re-restart at least once before it works and I get to my login screen. This happens when nothing except the power cord is plugged into the computer.
Second question: Why does my computer fail to start?
Could be anything from malware to a corrupted system file to hardware error. I assume you’ve already run Disk First Aid and let it fix anything it has found. Next step is to try this: Use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac - Apple Support (Apple Diagnostics), assuming your machine has it. A 2010 era one might or might not.
A Mac of that age is just on the edge of viability; depending on whether it’s 64-bit or not and can run modern software. I’d miss the 17" screen, too, but frankly, you’re going to be missing it sooner or later anyway, and a newer Mac will make up for it in numerous ways. (And for non-portable use, you can always hook it up to any monitor size you’d like; I use a 12" Macbook when I travel, but at home that thing gets hooked up to a 27" display immediately.
If the hard drive in that machine has not already been replaced, it is living on borrowed time. Annual probability of hard drive failure goes up rapidly after 5 years.
If you are editing or just playing H264 video, the 2010 MacBook Pro did not have a CPU with Quick Sync hardware acceleration. A newer machine would be much faster, especially for 4k material. For 4k HEVC material from an iPhone, I’m not sure a 2010 machine would play that, since HEVC is much more compute-intensive than H264.
There are strong rumors Apple will release a 16-inch MacBook Pro later this year.
I took the MacBook to the shop. They’re going to do a diagnostic, and also upgrade to High Sierra. In the meantime, I’m on the PowerBook G4. It’s problematic, since it does not have the necessary security to allow me to connect to my email. I’ll have to open Safari on my iPhone to get to my email.
The PowerBook has a 15" screen. I guess I can live with it, though I really like the 17" screen. If all else fails, I’ll have to spend three kilobucks I don’t have to get a new computer.
I’d just upgrade the existing HD with an SSD.
That alone will probably fix the issue.
And, it will feel like a much more recent computer.
But, first - confirm that it’s not a video chip issue. These machines had problems with the solder bumps cracking on the video processor, which leads to all kinds of weird crashes and lockups.
The bad GPU affected early 2011 MacBook Pros. So the OP is safe. I know, I have one. I still use it and with a SSD and enough (minimum 8G) of ram it is still good. The GPU is disabled and system runs with Intel on chip graphics. It actually runs Mohave fine, although that needs a set of patches to the OS that is not Apple sourced.
Depends on the exact model number then. An 8.3 model is affected. The designation of “Early 2011” is actually an Apple synonym for the model number, not a build date. These have an AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics processor. These were introduced in late February 2011. You may still have the model before but made in 2011.
They won’t upgrade to Mohave via the standard installer. There is however a way that works - but you might prefer to leave it - you end up with a non-standard installation that isn’t Apple supported. So far mine works great, and I went to it partly to get a good long term solution to the GPU problem.
Yeah, I have a 2011 model as well, with the GPU problem. My solution was to download gfxCardStatus and set the computer to “integrated only,” so it doesn’t use the graphics chip that bugs out.
What the deal with Mojave that helps you around the GPU problem? Is it the same sort of thing?
You can set the efivars so that the machine doesn’t even know it has an AMD GPU at bootup. It boots clean and the system runs perfectly with no on-screen or OS issues. It goes straight to the Intel integrated GPU.
The trick is running this whilst in single user mode:
nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%01%00%00%00
(It is a bit more messy, but this is the jist of it.)
But OS updates that touch the efivars - and some do - overwrite the setting and it goes back to not working. This can wreck the whole update as the bootstrap can stall (you now it has gone wrong as the fans go on full and the screen is still grey has the Apple logo.
Mojave can’t use the AMD GPU at all. So one of the things that was done was to incorporate killing the GPU into the entire setup needed to make Mojave run on this Mac. So far I have had zero problems, when before updates could cause annoying problems. The downside is that I can’t use standard Apple updates, and need to rely on the custom update utility that only applies those updates I need and want. Thus I am reliant on the good graces of people outside of Apple. I’m hoping to get another year or so out of this Mac (I just bought a new battery for it). Other than some worn keycaps, the machine is functioning perfectly. Having it run the latest OS means it integrates better with the rest of my devices. This machine replaced a 17" G4 (the first ever 17") - I have a history of running my machines until they drop. (Heck years ago I made a career out of nurturing multi-million dollar supercomputers well past their retirement - this is child’s play in comparison.)
I just called the shop, and they said it looks like the computer won’t be ready until Monday. I told them I need it for my job, so please have it done today. My options are that they do fix it today and I pick it up, they don’t have it done today and I pick it up, I go to Seattle tomorrow instead of Tuesday and pick it up Tuesday morning, or I get another computer today and have it configured like the old one so I can use it on Monday. Of course the new computers don’t have USB ports, so I’d also have to get an adapter.
I have the computer back. It now has High Sierra, the most up-to-date OS it can handle. They did a ‘basic’ diagnostic, since I have to have the computer Monday. I can bring it in for a more in-depth diagnostic later. The tech shut down and restarted the computer several times. He only got a grey screen once, and it resolved itself while he was looking at something for another customer. I connected to my office from the shop, just to make sure I could.
All too often with laptops the lockup thing is caused by heat.
Hopefully the “tech” cleaned out the vents/fans/etc. of the thing and that will give you a few more years before the damage the extra heat had caused makes the whole thing go plop.
I had that problem. After about five years, it would lock up after an hour’s usage. The repair shop couldn’t duplicate the problem. One dodge I used was to play iTunes with the volume off, which delayed the lock-up. Ultimately I bought a MacBook Air and sold the Pro to someone for $300. We both felt like we came out ahead.
The Apple store must have called yesterday, as I had a VM on my phone this morning. First, the recap:
In July, my 2011 MacBook Pro froze up when I tried to open Google Earth. The only solution was to do a hard reboot. It kept crashing during reboot, until it didn’t. I tried plugging a Nikon DSLR into it, and it froze again. I left Free Cell open when I shut the lid one night, and it was frozen when I opened it in the morning. I’ve been using the computer, but avoiding anything that might cause it to freeze.
Last week I got tired off the ‘nag’ in the upper-right corner, saying that software updates were available. I decided to do an update – but first, I backed up the computer on the external drive. Upon restart, I got a circle-slash on a grey screen. I found out this means, ‘You have a Mac OS, but it’s not compatible with this computer.’ (Thank you, Apple! It’s so nice to nag people to download and install software that doesn’t work. You should come up with a way to determine if the software is compatible before installation. :mad: ) I tried to restore from my fresh backup, but was unsuccessful. The next day, I took the computer and backup drive into the Apple store. It looked like it was restoring from the backup disc when I left. (I wasn’t going to hang out for two hours.) I got a call just before the store closed, saying the restoration didn’t work. I asked them to try again, and it did work.
Monday, they did a quick diagnostic at the counter while I was there. Everything checked out OK. I checked the computer into the shop so that they could do a complete diagnostic on it. And here’s where the VM comes in.
They said that the diagnostic showed nothing wrong, but they suspect a bad graphics processor, which is a ‘known problem’. Unfortunately, my computer is too old and they can’t get the parts for it.
In another thread, there was this post:
I’ll have a look at the link when I have time. My fingers are crossed.