My MacBook Pro keeps restarting randomly in the middle of use... help!

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Level 1

0 points

My MacBook Pro keeps restarting randomly in the middle of use... help!

EEEKKK!!!

In the last week or so, my computer has been randomly acting up:

It has restarted over a dozen times when I pressed the "esc" button to exit from full-screen viewing while I watch video.

It has gone to the sign in [initial purpley wave] screen when I was in the middle of simply typing a document.

It has rebooted on it's own when I tried to use any application I use regularly- such as Photobooth, etc.

And just now, I had to manually press the on-off button to get the computer started because my mouse was frozen.

Sounds like there is a ghost in the ol' machine !!!

What to do?

I found many conflicting [and confusing] suggestions on help forums already. I do weekly backups, and just did one earler today, and emptied my cache.

In efforts to get to the bottom of this issue, any help is appreciated!

THANK YOU in advance,

Violet

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Apr 21, 2012 9:40 AM

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Answer 1

--A--C--

Level 2

308 points

Apr 21, 2012 11:21 AM in response to VioletH

first thing I would check is the S.M.A.R.T. status of your boot disk.

Go to Disk Utility, select your boot disk, and at the bottom of this window you should see:

S.M.A.R.T. status: verified

if it's something else, like "about to fail" then the Hard Disk is reaching the end of its life.

If the status is verified I'd verify and repair disk permissions (also in disk utility). See if that helps.

good luck

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Answer 2

ds store

Level 7

30,715 points

Apr 21, 2012 11:40 AM in response to VioletH

I don't know what it causing your issue but I can recommend some things that likely will fix it hopefully.

Start with each of these fixes in this order until your problem is resolved, we can't fix hardware issues.

Easy steps

1. Backup your Users file folders off the machine to a external storage drive and disconnect all drives.

2. Software Update fully under the Apple Menu, disconnect from the Internet. Test.

3. SMC Reset

4. PRAM reset

5. Shift key boot and restart normally (this is Safe mode and disables and fixes things, remember this to use later)

6: Disk Utility > Repair Permissions from the Utility folder

7: Disk Utility > Repair Disk hold c booted from the 10.6 installer disk or (command r boot) from Lion Recovery HD

7.5 Hardware Test

8: Reset User's Permissions

9 Run the OnyX cache cleaning routine, and Verify > plist for any corrupt ones and make a note of them for removal, and a reboot.

10: Check your Console log files for anything "kernel protection failure" or alerts.

11: Check all your installed third party software, including any third party system preference panes, menu items etc for updates. Unistall or Reinstall all third party software again.

12: Create a new User and log into that, same problems? Used the same files? Not a file issue?

Not Easy

If your problem doesn't exist in the seocond User account then the issue is localized the first User account,

Likely a bad Library file (that's not a .plist). The User account will have to be recreated method.

13. Reinstall Just OS X method (doesn't touch users or most programs)

Hard

14: Zero Erase and Fresh install OS X and everything method. (everything erased, the drive bad sectors mapped off, everything new except files)

Harder

15: Replace the hard drive if allowed for your machine, resintall the OS and everything.

You can read how to do all these things here

 Cheat sheet to help diagnose and fix your Mac

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