2020 MacBook Pro, 13-inch Crashing macOS Monterey - Apple Store Hardware Check Cleared, Crashing in and out of Safemode
So a bit after updating to macOS Monterey I began experiencing crashes. Crash reports afterward would be fairly generic, messages such as "crash due to unexpected restart" or "panic ...". Everything on my computer was fully up to date, so that precludes that as a potential cause.
Eventually, I went ahead and did a clean install of Monterey and restored the rest of my data from a backup. Within a few days, crashes began again. Since to my knowledge, this would preclude a basic OS problem I thought it might be hardware. After visiting an Apple store and having them run a basic hardware check they said everything was OK.
After this, I did a clean install again but didn't restore data from a backup, with the intention of only moving over documents, images, and then manually reinstalling apps. While reinstalling apps I ran into a few weird issues. The computer ran hot with the fan engaged. Checking activity monitor showed corespotlightd and nsurlsession CPU usage spiking. Reinstalled apps were the Microsoft Office Suite, Discord, Chrome, Todoist, and Stardew Valley. Shortly after this, the computer began to lag, and then the screen went black, it showed the Apple logo as if on startup and then returned exactly where it had black screened without closing any apps or requiring me to log in. Previously it had just shut off and required pressing the power button to restart.
After this, I went into safe mode. Some lagginess continued and then crashing occurred here as well. I think at this point the crashes in safe mode did require me to log in and didn't keep my apps open like the first crash after my clean install.
Any ideas on what the issue could be or possibly steps to take to resolve this issue? At the Apple store, they indicated that the options after trying to do a fresh install without restoring any data from a backup would be to send the computer off to a repair center for approximately $600 or buy a new laptop. My best idea at the moment is to revert to the prior operating system with a fresh install. After that it would have to be hardware, I would think?
System Specs
macOS Monterey version 12.1
MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
Processor 2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
Memory 15 GB 3733 MHz LPDDR4x
Graphics Intel Iris Plus Graphics 1536 MB
MacBook Pro (2020 and later)
