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Macbook Pro 15" Mid2014 2.5 GHz Quad-Core Intel corei7 continuously crashes after upgrade to Big Sur 11.1

The problems started with the OS upgrade. It has gotten so bad, I'm wondering about hardware issues now. I cannot put the computer to sleep in any shape or form. It takes several boot ups to get it to stabilize long enough to actually do some work on it. Once it is stable it can stay on and work fine for very long periods, even over night, but eventually it crashes again. Starts with the rainbow spin, and if I wait a few minutes, screen goes black even though the backlight and keyboard lights are on. I tried multiple first aids on the hard disk including the data sectors (no errors found), multiple resets of NVRAM and SMC, and 2 reinstalls of Big Sur to no avail. I also conducted pretty extensive memory and CPU tests from a bootable USB with no errors found.

All these make me think hardware wise the logic board is the only option remaining. Am correct? Is it possible the hard disk or RAM being the issue despite passing tests error free?

Never opened the computer, but I understand there is a display cable in there. Any possibility a damaged cable, or perhaps the video card (if there is a separate one), can cause craziness like this?

On the software front, is there anything I can do?

I'm thinking about a downgrade to Catalina at this point, although it's going to require quite a bit of effort to get all my stuff back, so want to check all boxes before I take that action.

Apple stores do not have any appointments, so taking it in does not seem to be an option.

Thank in advance.

Posted on Jan 7, 2021 6:48 PM

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Posted on Jan 7, 2021 9:51 PM

Try running First Aid on the whole physical SSD (select the "Apple SSD ...." item which is hidden by default).


It seems you have a lot of half installed or uninstalled apps (depending how you look at it) since there are a lot of items needing cleaned up listed at the end of the report. It may be these items are causing a problem.


Normally I would say make sure all your third party software is completely up to date and compatible with Big Sur (especially Parallels, VirtualBox, and WD software), but I would recommend performing a clean install of macOS by first erasing the whole physical SSD, then only migrating your user account(s). Manually reinstall your third party apps by downloading the most recent installers and making sure they are listed as compatible with Big Sur. If any of these apps are not listed as compatible with Big Sur, then you should not install them at this time. This is probably the fastest & easiest way forward plus by erasing the whole physical SSD you get a good clean APFS file system as well. Here is an Apple article on how to erase the whole physical drive (you need to unhide the physical SSD before you can erase the whole SSD):

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/erase-and-reformat-a-storage-device-dskutl14079/mac


Ideally you would want to test the clean install before migrating from your backup or installing any third party apps just to make sure the laptop is working fine. This way you know if you have an issue that it is a hardware issue. If you get the blinking folder with question mark after the clean install, then most likely the SSD is failing (it would be the most likely part given the symptoms).


Also Apple did have issues with the original Big Sur installer on the 2013 & 2014 MBPros and only just released v11.1 to work with these laptops. Perhaps there are still some compatibility issues with this model laptop.


The report also mentions a "Service Battery" condition which indicates macOS has detected a hardware issue with the battery. I'm surprised the Apple Diagnostic did not report a battery failure. I forget when this laptop becomes "Obsolete" (I think sometime in 2021) so I would recommend contacting an Apple Authorized Service Provider to get a price on replacing your battery and even see if they can replace it (only possible if the laptop is considered "Vintage" and only while parts are still available). The quality of third party Lithium-ion batteries is extremely poor even when purchased from a reputable vendor such as OWC. Keep in mind if the battery develops a power issue it can affect the performance of the laptop by causing the CPUs to run only at 800MHz instead of 2+ GHz making this laptop extremely slow. Of course only have the battery replaced after you determine the cause of the system crashes.


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Jan 7, 2021 9:51 PM in response to maydinLBC

Try running First Aid on the whole physical SSD (select the "Apple SSD ...." item which is hidden by default).


It seems you have a lot of half installed or uninstalled apps (depending how you look at it) since there are a lot of items needing cleaned up listed at the end of the report. It may be these items are causing a problem.


Normally I would say make sure all your third party software is completely up to date and compatible with Big Sur (especially Parallels, VirtualBox, and WD software), but I would recommend performing a clean install of macOS by first erasing the whole physical SSD, then only migrating your user account(s). Manually reinstall your third party apps by downloading the most recent installers and making sure they are listed as compatible with Big Sur. If any of these apps are not listed as compatible with Big Sur, then you should not install them at this time. This is probably the fastest & easiest way forward plus by erasing the whole physical SSD you get a good clean APFS file system as well. Here is an Apple article on how to erase the whole physical drive (you need to unhide the physical SSD before you can erase the whole SSD):

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/erase-and-reformat-a-storage-device-dskutl14079/mac


Ideally you would want to test the clean install before migrating from your backup or installing any third party apps just to make sure the laptop is working fine. This way you know if you have an issue that it is a hardware issue. If you get the blinking folder with question mark after the clean install, then most likely the SSD is failing (it would be the most likely part given the symptoms).


Also Apple did have issues with the original Big Sur installer on the 2013 & 2014 MBPros and only just released v11.1 to work with these laptops. Perhaps there are still some compatibility issues with this model laptop.


The report also mentions a "Service Battery" condition which indicates macOS has detected a hardware issue with the battery. I'm surprised the Apple Diagnostic did not report a battery failure. I forget when this laptop becomes "Obsolete" (I think sometime in 2021) so I would recommend contacting an Apple Authorized Service Provider to get a price on replacing your battery and even see if they can replace it (only possible if the laptop is considered "Vintage" and only while parts are still available). The quality of third party Lithium-ion batteries is extremely poor even when purchased from a reputable vendor such as OWC. Keep in mind if the battery develops a power issue it can affect the performance of the laptop by causing the CPUs to run only at 800MHz instead of 2+ GHz making this laptop extremely slow. Of course only have the battery replaced after you determine the cause of the system crashes.


Jan 7, 2021 7:24 PM in response to maydinLBC

Are you running the latest version of Big Sur which is version 11.1 with all the security patches installed?


When running First Aid you should run it on the hidden Container. To see the Container click on "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices". Even if First Aid reports everything as "Ok" click on "Show Details" to look for any unfixed errors. If you find any unfixed errors (or even warnings) will require erasing the whole physical drive before restoring from a backup or clone.


When you reinstalled Big Sur did you perform a clean install by first erasing the whole physical drive? And did you test the system before restoring/migrating from a backup and before installing third party apps?


Run the Apple Diagnostics.


To look for possible software issues run EtreCheck and post the report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper.

Jan 7, 2021 9:17 PM in response to HWTech

Thanks for responding.


I ran the first aid on the containers. I do not see any issues. One oddity I forgot to mention in the original post is, after every first aid I conducted, the restart failed without even being able to log in. Often, I got the folder with the question mark. This last time, I typed my password, then the screen went black and I heard the start up chime again and had to enter password once more to actually log in.


I did not erase the entire drive before installing Big Sur. So, it was not a clean install. Therefore I did not need to restore/migrate any apps. One of the things that happened is, my old time machine disk got corrupted after installing Big Sur (11.0 originally). I got a new external and managed to create a new time machine after upgrading to 11.1


I should be up to date on all security patches. Just checked and autoupdate thinks my OS is unto date.


Forgot to mention I also ran diagnostics over the internet. No issues reported.


Another thing I forgot to mention is my battery is in bad shape MacBook tells me. It is the original one. I can still get 1-2 hours on it depending on what I'm doing, although most of the time it is plugged in.


I did the EtreCheck. Hopefully, it is a safe software. Here is the report

Jan 8, 2021 11:58 AM in response to HWTech

Those third party apps are apps I tired to delete recently. They say to put the app in the thrash to uninstall, but that doesn't always deliver a clean uninstall apparently. I also tried to delete the VM partition on the SSD, using the disk utility more than a year ago. Anyhow, a clean install idea makes sense and I will try that today.


My big mistake was to upgrade to 11.0. The problems started when I did that. I realize now I should not have done it on a mid2014 machine, but I don't understand why Apple pushes it through autoupdates when they know it is not compatible with my hardware. 11.1 came out within a couple of week. I upgraded immediately hoping it would solve the problems, but they are actually worse now, meaning I'm crashing more frequently. That's why I started to suspect hardware failure, something dying slowly. I wonder if upgrading to incompatible OS might have triggered the hardware failure.


Your point about the battery is interesting. Does a worn out battery impact th performance even when the MacBook is plugged in?

Macbook Pro 15" Mid2014 2.5 GHz Quad-Core Intel corei7 continuously crashes after upgrade to Big Sur 11.1

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