Bill LT S.
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: El Capitan Freezing on Boot and Randomly Crashing

I have a early 2011 Macbook Pro (8,2) with 16GB of RAM with a Samsung 840 EVO SSD and I am running OS X 10.11.1. I have never had any problems with this machine prior to El Capitan. In short, I believe that others are having  a similar problem: El Capitan consistently freezes while booting displaying one of the following behaviors:

 

1. Progress bar will get about half way, and then the screen goes white and doesn't load.

2. Progress bar will get about half way, and then I get a garbled (graphics) bar across the screen, and then it goes to a white and doesn't load.

3. Progress bar will get about half way, then the screen goes blue and doesn't load (sometimes it will shut down after about 30 seconds to a minute).

4. Progress bar gets about half way and screen freezes.

 

Additionally, the machine will crash randomly either halting, or going to a blue screen (after which I have to begin the reboot process).

 

After multiple PRAM (Command Option P R) resets the machine will eventually boot (it sometimes takes 30 or more minutes), but there doesn't seem to be a reason why it eventually boots (I can't detect any kind of pattern).

 

These problems initially began when I upgraded to El Capitan. Finally, I gave up and did a complete, clean, reinstall of the OS. After a few days, they began occurring again. The only 3rd party software I have installed is ClipWrap, Tor, Office 2016, Trim Enabler (I've disabled), and Quicken 2015. I have looked for any offending kexts (as mentioned in the various fora), but don't seem to have any of them.

 

If anyone can help, I would really appreciate it. When El Capitan is running properly, it's fantastic...but these crashes are driving me crazy.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Nov 29, 2015 11:12 AM

by Linc Davis,Apple recommended
Linc Davis Linc Davis
Level 10 (208,000 points)
Applications
A:

According to Apple's specifications, that model can use at most 8 GB of memory, but you've installed 16 GB. The results are unpredictable. I know that the aftermarket RAM vendor says that the configuration will work. If you accept that assurance, please ask the vendor for help with any problems you have. Otherwise, reinstall the original memory, or new memory that meets the official specifications.

Posted on Nov 29, 2015 1:05 PM

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Bill LT S.

Q: El Capitan Freezing on Boot and Randomly Crashing

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  • by Beth Ernst,

    Beth Ernst Beth Ernst Jan 25, 2016 1:33 PM in response to Bill LT S.
    Level 1 (49 points)
    Jan 25, 2016 1:33 PM in response to Bill LT S.

    Hi Bill, sorry to take so long to post back.After reinstalling the OS last week,I also installed the Temperature Gauge app to monitor heat coming from the system. This computer has always run a little hot in my opinion. (Much hotter than my old White MacBook ever did even when the processor was really ramped up.) Up until last week I had a Speck case on it, but I've removed it to see if it was interfering with cooling too. Haven't seen any warnings of overheating, but haven't really had a chance to do anything too intensive yet. I tried testing the low battery issue and just played some music CDs to run the battery down and each time it would reboot fine after shutting down due to lack of power. I will try the OS X 10.11.3 upgrade this week when I get a few free minutes and see how that goes. I reinstalled Office on Friday, but haven't actually used it yet and I need to reinstall the Adobe Creative Suite. So nothing I am doing on it would be using the discrete graphics card at this point. I did look up how to tell when it is in use so that I can watch to see what apps utilize it and if there is any correlation there. This is not my main computer, it is mostly used for testing of new applications and OS upgrades, so I'm mainly working with it when I don't have other projects going on here at work, though I do need to be getting up and running reliably so I can move forward with some other tests.  I have 3 other MacBook Pros I need to upgrade to El Capitan at some point, but I'm leary of doing so at this point. Since I was having video issues prior to El Capitan I can't say for sure if it was the software or the computer. On my previous El Capitan install I had done a clean install of the OS, but then when I started up for the first time I chose the option to restore from a Time Machine back up and pulled my old apps, etc. over from my last Time Machine backup so it could be by doing that I brought over something from my old install that was causing problems? I guess only time will tell. Will keep you posted.  Let me know how the El Capitan on your factory drive goes.

  • by Beth Ernst,

    Beth Ernst Beth Ernst Feb 1, 2016 1:39 PM in response to Bill LT S.
    Level 1 (49 points)
    Feb 1, 2016 1:39 PM in response to Bill LT S.

    Thought I'd share an update. So I took the laptop home over the weekend and I worked in Excel for quite a while on two different occasions and no problems. No overheating, video problems, etc. so thought I was good. Today at work I thought I'd go on and install the Adobe Creative Suite and see how things went when something more processor intensive was used. Started the Adobe installation and it seemed to be hanging in the middle of the install, so after waiting a bit, I finally force quit the installer. I was trying to install under my regular user account and thought maybe Adobe required it to be installed under an admin account, so I tried switching over to my administrator account, I got the login screen and typed in my password, but then it started like it was going to log into the account, but just froze. I shut the computer down and restarted it. It got about halfway through the startup progress bar and then it rebooted itself. The second reboot came up to the blue/gray screen as before. So I shut down and tried a Safe boot and nothing. I did notice when it was trying to install the Adobe package that the Temperature Guage app I'd installed was showing the temp at 122 degrees and the left back corner of the laptop was pretty hot again. Looks like I'm right back where I started. So not very happy at this point. Rotechflightsafety gave me the name of someone at Apple and I'm going to try to get with them to see if they can be of any help. So here we go.. Bill hope you are having better luck with your reinstall.

  • by Beth Ernst,

    Beth Ernst Beth Ernst Apr 5, 2016 6:10 AM in response to Beth Ernst
    Level 1 (49 points)
    Apr 5, 2016 6:10 AM in response to Beth Ernst

    Wanted to follow up on the saga with my MBP. I wasn't able to get it in to the Apple Store before the end of February. I had contacted one of the folks recommended by rotechflightsafety and they couldn't help over the phone and told me I would have to make another trip to the Genius bar. We don't get in that way very often, so I didn't get there till last Wednesday. They ran several diagnostics at the Genius Bar while I was there, all of which it passed. They offered to keep it for a couple days to run some more tests and it passed those as well, however on Thursday they notified me that they wanted to send it out to their depot to have them take a look. It was returned to the Apple store by Saturday with a new logic board. Picked it up last night and noticed the symptom listed on the repair summary is REP MBP 2011 Graphics. I'll be working with it this week and see how it goes. Hopefully this will take care of the problem. Anyway, wanted to thank everyone for their help and suggestions while trying to get this resolved! Will post back if any problems arise in the near future. Thanks again Bill and rotechflightsafety!

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