MacbookPro11,3 (15' Mid-2014 with GeForce GT 750M) random freeze

[humanv09]

At my wit's end and hoping for some help folks.

I have a MacBookPro11,3 that has been a reliable workhorse until a month back when I decided to fall back from Big Sur to Catalina by wiping the disk clean and doing a TimeMachine restore. The machine is not stable anymore, the problem is that all of a sudden the screen will go dark while the keyboard lights stay lit. In about 3 seconds the fans will start to rev up and at around 5 or 5 seconds the machine will power down. Pressing the power button brings the machine back up with no indication of failure.

I've run hardware diagnostics and have also left it with the Apple store who ran extended diagnostics. Except for the battery, which has high cycles, there were no problems found, yet the machine will not stay up. The failure can occur within minutes to hours of power up. I haven't found a pattern yet.

I have wiped the SSD and installed Catalina both from the install USB and from a TimeMachine of the Apple store installed version. I have also installed Big Sur and last night I installed Maverick (the original OS that came with the machine) to see if going through an upgrade would resolve the issue. Maverick fails as well but there the screen freezes and requires a hard power off.

Have reset PRAM multiple times. Reset SMC as well but I get no response following the procedure so it's not clear what is happening there.

The log shows the following (from one of the earlier Catalina installs):

log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' --last 24h
Filtering the log data using "composedMessage CONTAINS "Previous shutdown cause""
Skipping info and debug messages, pass --info and/or --debug to include.
Timestamp Thread Type Activity PID TTL
2022-08-06 16:12:42.684066-0400 0xb5 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128
2022-08-06 16:18:18.683751-0400 0xb5 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128
2022-08-06 16:40:13.743765-0400 0xb5 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128
2022-08-06 18:22:33.683862-0400 0xb5 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128
2022-08-07 06:35:41.696445-0400 0xb5 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128
2022-08-07 11:40:19.690762-0400 0xb5 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128
2022-08-07 13:37:31.722643-0400 0xb5 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -104
2022-08-07 13:52:19.681924-0400 0xb5 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -104
2022-08-07 14:25:11.718230-0400 0xb5 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -104
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Log - Default: 9, Info: 0, Debug: 0, Error: 0, Fault: 0
Activity - Create: 0, Transition: 0, Actions: 0

Note all the -128 errors are the spontaneous shutdown while using the machine. The -104 are when attempting to create a TimeMachine backup.

The problem occurs with standard Catalina/Big Sur/Maveric Os installed and no third-party software.

I've posted on communities.apple but not much joy. EtreCheck report indicated no errors. Multiple Apple Support calls haven't helped.

It is possible the machine has a hardware problem not being reported by diagnostics but what gets me is that it was working just fine until I tried to fall back.

Help!

cheers,

Nitin

 

[Audit13]

Try playing a YouTube video full screen and see if it causes a shutdown.

 

[humanv09]

No, full-screen YouTube appears to be working so far.

 

[Audit13]

I asked about YouTube because I was trying to resolve a similar problem with a friend's mid-2014 15" as well. When I played a YouTube video, it would suddenly power itself off after a few seconds.

The OS version made no difference.

Turns out there is a problem with his CPU in that there was a hardware bug where the CPU voltage would drop below a certain level and shut off. His MacBook had a Samsung SSUAX SSD which I replaced with an SSUBX SSD which draws a bit more power and prevents the CPU voltage from dropping. After the swap which I did over 1 year ago, the MacBook has been perfect since then.

Mid 2014 Retina MBP random shutdowns - MacBook Pro 15" Retina Display Mid 2014

About 5 days ago, I started getting random shutdowns. It isn't really going through a shutdown sequence I don't think, as there is no "dial". The screen goes dark, but there is still a glow to the screen. The keyboard light stays on for maybe 10 seconds, and then the computer turns off. When...

www.ifixit.com

 

[humanv09]

Thank you for that really helpful link! The OP described my issue and the problem makes sense so perhaps that's the issue on my laptop as well.

System Information reports that my SSD is Apple SSD SM1024F, Revision UXM6JA1Q. Don't know if that has the power draw issue as well but a SSD replacement is a much cheaper fix than a new machine.

btw, YouTube has been playing full screen since you asked, no issues so far.

 

[Audit13]

Is the link width x4 or x2?

My friend's MacBook was x2. When I replaced the SSD, it became x4.

Home | Random Shutdown on Macbook Pro

outluch.wixsite.com

 

[humanv09]

x4, my image is identical to yours

On the original problem, I followed the instructions for Big Sur to uninstall the Thuderbolt driver at the link you gave https://outluch.wixsite.com/rmbp-crash and my machine is stable so far. If this solves the problem you will be my new best friend!

I can't begin to tell you how grateful I'm going to be if this works

 

[humanv09]

Final note on this.

The machine has now been stable for around 24 hours, I've installed additional software, copied data and made a TM backup with no issues.

Thanks again,

@Audit13: My original disk is a 1TB so perhaps it was x4 to begin with.