MacBook Pro Three beeps - RAM Test passed

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MacBook Pro Three beeps - RAM Test passed

Hey,

my MacBook Pro (Early 2011, 2.0 GHz, Mountain Lion 10.8.4, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD + 500 GB HDD) recently began to freeze or power off and then playing three beeps instead of turning on again.

The problems began some weeks ago, as the file system on my SSD (I've switched the Superdrive with my HDD and put in an additional SSD myself) broke and could not be repaired by Disk Utility. So I formatted the partition and reinstalled Mountain Lion. Since then my Mac crashed three times with (logged) Kernel Panics.

In the interim it's running quite stable, but it froze in the past two or three days several times while I was using it (for example playing a YouTube video or a MP4-File saved on my harddrive) and then began to beep three times. I know this should indicate some kind of RAM issue.

The first time the beeping occured, my Mac began to work again after I carried it over to a friend without opening it at all. Then I ran the Apple Hardware Test (short version) and it passed, later I also ran the extended version and it passed as well. The memtest utility also finds no error.

The latest crash was a bit harder. I took out the 8 GB RAM (I've upgraded from original 4 GB) and reinstalled the original "Apple" 4 GB RAM that came with my MacBook - still three beeps. So I took them out and just put in one bar of my RAM (so one of the two 4 GB bars) and it booted just fine. I wanted to rule out a defect of my logic board, so I tried the following combinations of installed RAM:

first bar in the first slot - boots
first bar in the second slot - boots
second bar in the first slot - boots
second bar in the second slot - boots
both bars installed - boots

Another thing that happened recently: I put my Mac to sleep with ~25% battery left, it was then laid to the ground. After I picked it up maybe an hour later it didn't power on when I opened the lid and also didn't when I hit the power button. So i plugged it in and it loaded the saved memory from the SSD - but the display just showed a resolution of about 800 by 600 pixels. It booted to the login screen, I entered my password and then it restarted automatically (still with low resolution), booted with the apple logo, crashed again and booted directly to the recovery partition. I tried to choose the Mountain Lion partition to reboot from, but it wasn't listed (instead I just saw the Bootcamp partition on my HDD). I powered it off and on again, hitting the option key to see all my drives and voilà, all partitions were listed (ML, Bootcamp and Recovery) and the Mac booted successfully to the login screen, where it restored the correct resolution of 1680*1050.

I don't know what to do, since the RAM bars don't seem to be the problem (since they are passing the test, running fine in between and the original RAM also produced three beeps). It seems to be the logic board, but the crashes occur quite random and it's not as if one RAM slot was totally broken. As the problems started with a broken file system, could it also be the SSD (although the SMART-Status is still verified)?

I hope anyone can help me or at least give a useful advice.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Jul 16, 2013 1:55 AM

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Answer 1

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

Jul 16, 2013 3:23 AM in response to Lowista

The best memory test that I know of is Rember from Kelly Computing. I suggest downloading it and run it over night for a sufficient amount of loops. That for me would put to rest that RAM is an issue.

http://www.kelleycomputing.net/Rember/

Ciao.

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Answer 2

Lowista Author

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Jul 16, 2013 4:09 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

I already downloaded Rember and ran it once, I will try it again this night. But as I said: I also tested the two original RAM bars one time and the Mac wouldn't boot.

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Answer 3

Lowista Author

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Jul 17, 2013 12:07 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

Here we go:

I ran Rember this night with 16 loops and my RAM (8 GB installed) passed the test:

Rember Test Results

All tests passed!

Total built-in memory: 8 GB

Available memory: 6188 MB

Requested amount: All MB

Memory allocated for testing: 6188 MB

Loops selected: 16

Loops completed: 16

Total execution time: All tests passed! Execution time: 29744 seconds

I also ran some applications to stress-test my Mac yesterday (Prime95 for the CPU / RAM and GPUTest fot the GPU) and everything worked just fine.

So what now? An issue with the logic board should make itself felt constantly, shouldn't it? So the RAM really was just loose all the time? As much as I hope it would be that way, I doubt that...

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Answer 4

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

Jul 17, 2013 2:57 AM in response to Lowista

Just to make certain, the new RAM that you have installed in your MBP has the following specifications:

204-pin PC3-8500 (1066 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM.

It would be helpful if you could post a kernel panic output for examination.

Look at this comprehensive repair guide:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3353

Start with sections 1, 2, 5 & 7.

Ciao.

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Answer 5

Lowista Author

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Jul 17, 2013 5:03 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

The RAM installed in my Mac is 204-pin PC3-1066 (1066 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM but with CL9-9-9-24 timing (so it should be okay to use. And it was okay for several months...)

I'll try to go through the repair guide - as written before, disk utility states everything is fine.

Currently I'm using my Mac and it's running fine for more than one day now.

Here are the three kernel panic reports:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9rxora3nzdqhe4z/panic1.txt

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t2di6c6viudsnnd/panic2.txt

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yxvi97881d02pfg/panic3.txt

Best Regards

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Answer 6

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

Jul 17, 2013 8:43 AM in response to Lowista

I gave you some incorrect information and you failed to challenge me which means we are both guilty. 😀 The correct RAM specifications for an early 2011 MBP are : 204-pin PC-10600 (1333 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM. The Kernel panic reports confirm that you indeed have the correct RAM installed there fore that should eliminate that as a possibility for your issues.

Kernel panics are usually attributable to incompatible hardware or third part software and drivers. A safe boot should let you know that the basic Apple system is working correctly. Then the fun begins. You will have to uninstall all third party software and disconnect any peripherals. Then you add then one at a time and hopefully find the culprit.

I note that you are using Windows and a speculative guess is that there may be some corruption there. Windows, Parallels, Bootcamp et al.is alien territory for me. If need be, I will call in the cavalry for assistance.

Ciao.

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Answer 7

Lowista Author

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Jul 17, 2013 2:13 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

I do not understand why I should boot into safe mode, as there is currently no error occurring (and as I don't know how to reproduce it). So how could the safe mode help me finding the issue, as my system works right now with everything running?

Yes, I use both Bootcamp and Parallels, but I used them for nearly two years now (with changing hardware). The system as described in the first post worked great for about 4 months - the errors occurred only in the past two to three weeks.

What irritates me is that there is nothing like a kernel panic report for the last failures of the system, which resulted in the "Three beeps of death" - this should point to a hardware failure, shouldn't it (as the system didn't have time to generate an error report before it shut down)?

Best Regards

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Answer 8

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

Jul 17, 2013 3:15 PM in response to Lowista

Should the problem(s) re-occur, then boot in to safe mode as a forensic procedure to find the problem. If the system is working properly, use it as you always have. Sorry for the apparent confusion.

Ciao.

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Answer 9

Jul 23, 2013 4:55 PM in response to Lowista

I would like to give you few pointers that may give you some relief. First, your problems sound almost identical to mine. The timeline is almost identical as well. After following the advice from the Apple Support Tech, we finally arrived at the conclusion that it is a hardware problem with my late model MacBook Pro 2011. The Apple support tech asked me to take it in for service. Since I had over 10 hours before my appointment, I did some additional diagnostic and made some discoveries. I will outline my steps below to show how I arrived at my conclusion.

Problem: MacBook beeps 3 times and freezes, BSD dump on screen or frezzes and restarts with appropriate fail message.

Apple: Use original 8gig Apple ram, Boot into Diagnostic utility and restore 10.7 OS, restore backup from time machine.

Solution: Everything worked fine, no more crashes. Restored TimeMachine backup using Diagnostic utility.

Problem: Booted fine, after 15 minutes, went into recursive white screen of death, as I like to call it.

Apple: Sounds like a hardware issue, scheduled Apple Store visit.

Solution: Removed SSHD (seagate hybrid) and reinstalled MacBook HD. Updated to current OS, 10.8.4, did not restore any of TimeMachine backups. Running CPU, ram, HD stress tests for several hours without a crash or freeze.

Called Apple support and cancelled my Apple store visit and determined to allow more stress tests to run over night and also testing the SSHD outside using SeaTools for any problems with the drive. So far none after 4 hours of testing.

Conclusion: During the past several months as Apple has been updating the OS, I belive the applications and utilities that are running on my machine may be causing the crashes of the MacBook pro. My suggestion is to Make a backup if you do not do this daily. Restore OS from Diagnostic utility and update OS. Do not install any third party utilities that alter OS or enhance the OS operations. Reinstall your programs from scratch. Use migrations utility to restore only the data associated with your programs. I believe that you will avoid restoring any programs that might cause your crashes. I also suggest you run a day or two without restoring anything just to confirm your MacBook is operating well. I will keep you posted after I finish in two days as to the outcome. But I am certain it is not a hardware issue at this point.

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Answer 10

Lowista Author

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Jul 24, 2013 5:01 AM in response to SirHeaven

During the last week my Mac crashed again and wouldn't start again (3 beeps). By this time I think it might be some kind of loose connection, as it booted to the login screen (and crashed then again) after I turned it off, flipped it over two times and turned it on. Now I'm using only half of my upgraded RAM (so only one 4 GB module) and my Mac runs fine (although it's a bit slower).

@SirHeaven: I reinstalled Mountain Lion "from scratch" and didn't restore any settings or programs (just copied some single files from older backups), as most of my data is saved on my HDD or in different cloud services.

Best Regards

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Answer 11

Jul 24, 2013 7:10 AM in response to Lowista

My late 2011 MBpro is faulty too: fast peripherals (SSDs or hybrid HDs) into the CD-.ROM'S bay don't work.

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Answer 12

Oct 29, 2013 4:18 PM in response to SirHeaven

Thanks for posting this!

It sounds just like what my Macbook is doing too.

The strange / confusing part is that it (mine also) works fine on either RAM slot with just 1 RAM chip, but crashes in the same way, with both chips in (4GB x 2). So only using one slot works fine.

I'll run Rember this eve.

I installed Mavericks on a separate harddrive, and will boot from that and see if it still crashes with both slots in.

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