MacBook Pro 2012 Retina shuts down when I'm doing graphic work

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Level 1

4 points

MacBook Pro 2012 Retina shuts down when I'm doing graphic work

Hi; I have a new-to-me MacBook Pro 2012 Retina from my IT manager friend; he installed a new battery and reinstalled all new software. When I use the MacBook for browsing, document, or spreadsheets, it works perfectly well. When I do any graphics work, like working on my websites or editing photos in Picmonkey, the laptop will spontaneously shut down, and sometimes restart. This happens in both Firefox and Chrome. When it restarts, it does so to a black screen, but the keyboard lights up. If I press the Enter key, I hear a "boop", but the screen remains dark. I've tried resetting the PRAM and the SMC, which works for a while, but the shutting down still happens. Any ideas as to what I can do to fix this graphics problem?

Posted on Mar 20, 2019 1:11 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 20, 2019 1:24 PM in response to yogagal

Did he take out the heat sink while replacing the battery? It seems more like an overheating problem to me. Could you please check if your MacBook is overheating when you're running graphics applications?

Let me know if that's the case or not.

Thanks

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Answer 2

HAnilsen

Level 2

226 points

Mar 20, 2019 4:37 PM in response to yogagal

Is your Macbook a 15 inch? If that's the case it sounds like a problem with the U8900 which is a chip on the motherboard that supplies power to the GPU. Over time the soldering on the chip will break. To fix that you need to resolder the chip. It's an easy repair with a high success rate, but you need someone who can solder small components.

Apple had an extended warranty program for that issue. Their fix was to put a piece of rubber on the chip so it gets pushed on to the board to make contact, and hope that fixes it.

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Answer 3

Mar 20, 2019 4:50 PM in response to yogagal

the laptop will spontaneously shut down

What exactly is happening at that moment is the key.

If the screen merely goes dark, but the Mac continues to run, or Restarts, that is a different problem from 'unexpectedly powers off'.

Unexpected power off may be due to excessive heating. But is it really off or did it kernel panic?

The others are more likely to be complex problems with the Discrete graphics chip (including, as HAnilsen suggested, its power supply chip).

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MacBook Pro 2012 Retina shuts down when I'm doing graphic work

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