macbook pro freezing

Question

Level 1

11 points

macbook pro freezing

I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro, which I love dearly and do not want to render a brick. (Yes, she is vintage, but so am I, and unlike me, she's had a hard drive replacement and RAM upgrade, so she's not ALL that old.) A few weeks ago, it started freezing up, pretty much every single time I use it. It doesn't seem to be related to any particular app, and I've tried everything I know to try, so I'm hoping someone here might have an idea for a next step.

Things I have done so far:

Updated operating system. This was a bit of a challenge, because it was on 10.13.1 and wouldn't update via the app store or downloaded update. I ended up having to do a recovery mode startup and re-install from there, but it worked, and I'm running 10.13.6 now. If anything, the freezing problem seems to have gotten worse after updating.
Checked Activity monitor. Memory pressure is low and stable, and no single app seems to be hogging CPU. The top user at crashes has been mostly kernel_task and/or my browser (firefox or chrome).
Ran System Utility check, which identified no problems.
Ran Apple Hardware Test (boot + D), both limited and extended testing, both of which showed no trouble.
Ran Etre-check (report below), which also identified no major issues.

She's like a movie character psycho, who knows exactly what to say to the prison shrink to convince him that she's totally fine, but we all know she isn't, because she's having homicidal breaks, oh, several times a day.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for considering my story!

Etre-Check Report

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.13

Posted on Jan 6, 2020 12:41 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

BDAqua

Level 10

244,793 points

Jan 6, 2020 4:19 PM in response to BrantleeSR

Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode?

Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.

EtreCheck is a simple little app to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac.

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report...

https://pastebin.com/

Or use the paperclip at the bottom of a Reply to attach the full report here. :)

Reply

Answer 2

dot.com

Level 4

2,455 points

Jan 6, 2020 2:29 PM in response to BrantleeSR

Well, try disabling the Avast anti-virus software -- never heard anything good about anti-virus software on a Mac system, but that's an issue that plenty of people will debate till the end-of-time. Not sure how best to disable it just to test how the change will affect your problem, so maybe you know or others can comment on.

Another thing to try is a safe boot and then reboot (hold down shift during power on for a safe boot).

Another thing to try is a second account and see if the problem goes away. If it does, it might be a corrupt plist preference file, and this test will confirm or refute this.

Even a SMC reset might be a thing to try -- use Google or your favorite search engine to find out how.

Another idea has to do with seeing if the problem is temperature related, i.e. CPU core temperatures. iStat or Fanny or other utilities can give you this sort of information -- see https://www.fannywidget.com or https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/

You might try talking to a hardware tech type to see about putting some new goo between CPU and heatsink. That stuff doesn't last forever, and it's been about 9 years since it was new, so maybe a talk with your favorite Mac hardware service shop to see if that is something that might help?

Good luck...

Reply

Answer 3

BrantleeSR Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 7, 2020 4:49 AM in response to BrantleeSR

Thanks!

I had already tried the SMC reset and safe boot restart before the other things I listed, but I haven't tried the second account. I just uninstalled the Avast, so I'll give it a day and see if that does it, and then figure out how to do the second account thing. I haven't noticed correlation of crashes with fan spikes, but that bjango monitor looks pretty useful, all around, too!

I really appreciate the tips ... I'll report back on how they work!

:)

Edited to add: I hit the "post" button on this reply, and my computer froze. I guess it wasn't the Avast! Now to try the second account ...

Reply

Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

244,793 points

Jan 7, 2020 8:23 AM in response to BrantleeSR

No idea how I missed the report!?

Have you trashed these files & restarted...

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-***@***-SharedServices.Agent.plist

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.ARM.***.plist

Reply

Answer 5

BrantleeSR Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 7, 2020 10:01 AM in response to BDAqua

I haven't tried that... what should I expect if I delete those?

At the moment, I'm running on a newly-created user profile, as dot.com suggested above, to just test out the idea that it's a plist issue. It was super sluggish starting back up in the new profile, but I'll have to take it around the block a few times to know if it's also still crashing. I'm not above deleting expendable things that could be obvious problems, though!

I also installed both of the widgets for temperature monitoring. They're giving slightly different reads, but so far mostly in the 100-110F range. I'm keeping an eye out for spikes there.

Reply

Answer 6

BrantleeSR Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 7, 2020 11:41 AM in response to BrantleeSR

Update: running on a different user profile definitely did not solve the issue; just froze again. CPU temperature had crept up to the 130s (F), but had come back down to 124, where it was when it froze up. Was running about 120 when it came back around, and is down to about 112 again a few minutes in.

Reply

Answer 7

BrantleeSR Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 7, 2020 4:52 AM in response to BrantleeSR

Sorry... I should specify, this reply was to @dot.com. When my computer froze again, it lost its place in the queue, and my login timed out. Oops.

Reply

Answer 8

BrantleeSR Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 7, 2020 4:54 AM in response to BDAqua

Thanks, BDAqua,

I already tried all of those steps, and the full EtreCheck report is in the original post.

Reply

Answer 9

BDAqua

Level 10

244,793 points

Jan 7, 2020 11:53 AM in response to BrantleeSR

Well, they're doing nothing but wasting resources, not our problem overall if it didn't work looging out of this user & into a new one... but they still need to go.

Reply

macbook pro freezing

Similar questions