Macbook pro 15-inch, Late 2008, crashes when not connected to power, help?

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Macbook pro 15-inch, Late 2008, crashes when not connected to power, help?

Anybody else experiences the same?

What happened:

1. Updated to OSX Lion.

2. Now everytime I'm not connecting it to the power adapter, sooner or later the screen flickers and it crashes or freezes straight away.

3. It's usually caused when I'm using the browser to open a flash site, which is probably heavy on graphic processing.

4. Or watching a video on quicktime or youtube, even when it's not using a flash player on youtube.

5. Or working on a graphic heavy processing apps like Photoshop.

It's updated with latest software updates.

But still the same.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Apr 29, 2012 11:33 PM

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Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

141,150 points

Apr 30, 2012 12:08 AM in response to Manatama

Years ago there were a lot of problems like yours that were related to bad batteries.

Try an SMC reset, always a good idea with anything related to power.

Apple Hardware Test is next - could be faulty memory but power should not be a factor.

Other than that I'm afraid it's a job for the Genius Bar.

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Answer 2

Manatama Author

Level 1

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Jul 6, 2012 8:15 AM in response to John Galt

I've tried the SMC reset and it didn't work.

I found out that my 2 years old battery kinda died.

So I bought another one, SMC reset it again and testing it now.

Currently when I have the battery on, the fan is just working so hard.

While if I don't have the battery on, it's running silently.

I guess the power management is a bit off.

I'm trying to do Apple Hardware Test, but since I've upgraded to Lion, this function doesn't work.

Tried with the CD as well, but I think my CD slot is busted, it doesn't seem to read properly.

Any idea on how I can get AHT other than the installation CD?

Thanks for your help btw!

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Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

141,150 points

Jul 6, 2012 11:12 PM in response to Manatama

You ought to be able to invoke Apple Hardware Test by holding the D key while starting your computer. This should load AHT from your recovery partition that was created when you upgraded to Lion.

If that does not work, hold Option D instead. That will attempt to load an Internet based version of AHT.

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Answer 4

Jul 6, 2012 11:23 PM in response to John Galt

John,

Option-D has been the only thing working for me. Tried the D twice with no results, while the two times I've used Option-D, it's worked.

And I have no idea as to why.

Clinton

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

141,150 points

Jul 7, 2012 7:54 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

That means the disk based copy of AHT was not installed on the recovery partition. I don't know if this was intentional on Apple's part or not.

You can install AHT from your original system installation disc by extracting it with Pacifist. Find your original system installation DVD which may have been Leopard or Snow Leopard. The disc will have "AHT version xxx" printed on it.

On that disc find the CPUHelpFiles package and extract the file called CPU_AHT. Pacifist will install it in the location /System/Library/CoreServices/

Pacifist is shareware - download it here http://www.charlessoft.com/

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