Mac Problem

[Rosco]

Have a client bring in a 2012 15 macbook pro. It is very slow to boot. He says takes about 5 hours to boot. I tell him probably a bad hard drive, but I won’t know until I look at it. He has everything backed up, so data loss is not a concern.

I put it on the bench and it indeed take hours to boot. Run disk warrior says its unfixable. So bad hard drive. I want to make sure it isn’t the motherboard also. I stick in my usb that has OSX el caption on it. It starts to boot and then randomly reboots at the apple logo screen. I let it try for 15 minutes nothing. It gets stuck at a white screen after the reboot.

I make a usb OSX installer. The apple logo screen bar fills most way then it goes to a white screen indefinitely.

I then try internet recovery the globe loads then again stuck at a white screen.

I put a new hard drive in thinking it might be holding it up. Everything still stuck at white screen. I also have reseated the ram.

Any ideas of what the problem might be? I am not a huge mac person, so any help would be helpful.

 

[Markverhyden]

What version of OS does it have now? What does AHT say?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257

That should have shipped with 10.7 so the Internet recovery is in the firmware. You should be able to just drop in a new drive and boot into recovery mode.

 

[Tech Savvy]

Did you reset NVRAM? Sometimes that can help with strange startup issues.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sapphirescales]

Swap out the RAM, do a PRAM/SMC reset. If it still fails then unplug the HDD cable from the motherboard and try again. The issue could be with the HDD cable itself. Will it boot into Windows? Try a full bootable Windows installation (Windows To Go) or a version of WinPE.

 

[HFultzjr]

Check the hard drive cable.
Burned me a few time, until I found out they can be flaky.

 

[Rosco]

Check the hard drive cable.
Burned me a few time, until I found out they can be flaky.

Can you use any macbook pro cable? Have a couple spares that have bad board but he cable should be fine for testing at least

 

[HFultzjr]

Can you use any macbook pro cable? Have a couple spares that have bad board but he cable should be fine for testing at least

I'm not sure.
They may be specific, I just remember having issues for 2 of these.
I'm not really a Mac person, so maybe someone else will chime in.
Just remember fighting with one for a while until I discovered this.
2nd time I knew what to look for.
Seems like a common issue.

 

[Rosco]

I'm not sure.
They may be specific, I just remember having issues for 2 of these.
I'm not really a Mac person, so maybe someone else will chime in.
Just remember fighting with one for a while until I discovered this.
2nd time I knew what to look for.
Seems like a common issue.

not a huge mac person either but getting more and more of them.

 

[coffee]

If I remember correctly, A slow booting Mac can be caused by the DC in Circuit. On some models the DC IN board is separate from the main board.

 

[Rosco]

Swap out the RAM, do a PRAM/SMC reset. If it still fails then unplug the HDD cable from the motherboard and try again. The issue could be with the HDD cable itself. Will it boot into Windows? Try a full bootable Windows installation (Windows To Go) or a version of WinPE.

I tried Gandalf 10 live dvd and it booted up fine. But a MacOS on a usb doesnt boot.

 

[sapphirescales]

I tried Gandalf 10 live dvd and it booted up fine. But a MacOS on a usb doesnt boot.

Then it's time for a hardware diagnostic. One of the reasons I use Windows To Go is that it's a FULL Windows installation on an external drive (I put it on an external 250GB SSD). This allows me to run full diagnostics from within a full Windows environment without having to install Windows.

https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/

I'd run full diagnostics on the graphics card in Windows, monitor temps, etc. I'd also test the memory. I've had more than one Mac come in with a bad memory slot on the logic board. If you run a memory test with known good memory, then it's likely that there's a problem with one of the slots.

 

[Rosco]

Then it's time for a hardware diagnostic. One of the reasons I use Windows To Go is that it's a FULL Windows installation on an external drive (I put it on an external 250GB SSD). This allows me to run full diagnostics from within a full Windows environment without having to install Windows.

https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/

I'd run full diagnostics on the graphics card in Windows, monitor temps, etc. I'd also test the memory. I've had more than one Mac come in with a bad memory slot on the logic board. If you run a memory test with known good memory, then it's likely that there's a problem with one of the slots.

THis works on the mac. But the mac os i run off the same usb didnt work. Strange.

 

[Markverhyden]

THis works on the mac. But the mac os i run off the same usb didnt work. Strange.

Yes. But I sincerely doubt it loaded all the appropriate drivers. Kind of like running Windoze in Safe Mode and saying the hardware is just fine just because it runs in safe mode.

I agree above with the HD cable being a issue as well, had that a couple of times. Try removing the cable and drive and see if it will boot OS X from a stick.

Also try installing W10 directly and add the Bootcamp Driver support. Officially you need to do it from the machine in question to get the correct package. But you can download some packages or just use the PCI/VEN method to find drivers. Now that I think about it I I do have a 2012 13" MBP. I'll download the Boot Camp file and send you a link.

 

[sapphirescales]

Yes. But I sincerely doubt it loaded all the appropriate drivers. Kind of like running Windoze in Safe Mode and saying the hardware is just fine just because it runs in safe mode.

If he booted with the full install of Windows 2 Go, then Windows Update should have grabbed the appropriate drivers. My bet's on an improperly created/corrupt Mac OS USB installer.

 

[pcpete]

THis works on the mac. But the mac os i run off the same usb didnt work. Strange.

It could be a firmware issue. 10.11 may or may not boot on a computer with old firmware 10.7

 

[Rosco]

If he booted with the full install of Windows 2 Go, then Windows Update should have grabbed the appropriate drivers. My bet's on an improperly created/corrupt Mac OS USB installer.

I have tryied 2 other usb installers. Plus launched each one from my mac. This was my thought also. Why would a live windows load but not an MacOS.

I have also completely disconnected the hard drive cable. Still no boot. Very frustrating. Could it be a bad board. Ehen i got it into windows yesterday said the cpu temp was 63C. Its a little high but not crazy.

 

[sapphirescales]

I have tryied 2 other usb installers. Plus launched each one from my mac. This was my thought also. Why would a live windows load but not an MacOS.

I have also completely disconnected the hard drive cable. Still no boot. Very frustrating. Could it be a bad board. Ehen i got it into windows yesterday said the cpu temp was 63C. Its a little high but not crazy.

I would try an internet recovery to reinstall the original version of Mac OS and upgrade it from there. Some Mac's have problems with newer installers. It was mentioned by @pcpete that outdated firmware can cause this issue, but that's not true. If you boot an older Mac with older firmware with a newer Mac OS installation USB, it will automatically update the firmware after copying the installation files to the hard drive/SSD. I just did one last night. The computer beeps and makes a bunch of weird sounds like the world is going to end while the screen is blank. That's the firmware updating. Scared the crap out of me the first time this happened to me. I thought my clients computer was melting in my hands. LOL.

 

[Rosco]

I would try an internet recovery to reinstall the original version of Mac OS and upgrade it from there. Some Mac's have problems with newer installers. It was mentioned by @pcpete that outdated firmware can cause this issue, but that's not true. If you boot an older Mac with older firmware with a newer Mac OS installation USB, it will automatically update the firmware after copying the installation files to the hard drive/SSD. I just did one last night. The computer beeps and makes a bunch of weird sounds like the world is going to end while the screen is blank. That's the firmware updating. Scared the crap out of me the first time this happened to me. I thought my clients computer was melting in my hands. LOL.

The same thing happens with internet recovery. I white screen. Diskwarrior dvd is the only mac thing that has booted.

 

[pcpete]

Did you run apple diagnostics? It may give you a clue

 

[Rosco]

Did you run apple diagnostics? It may give you a clue

Says no problem ran the extended test twice