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Level 1

24 points

Intel Macbook Pro - freezing and 3 beeps

Hi,

I've had some issues this week where my laptop freezes and emits 3 beeps. I noticed my laptop didn't sleep properly on my commute into work (unlike myself!) and when I took it out of the bag, the fans were running and it was pretty hot. The problems seemed to have started after that (perhaps not the same day, maybe the day after).

Having search I can see others have had this problem. I'm aware of this thread:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1547

So I have no good banks (like most of the UK...)?

Well, I replaced the RAM yesterday with compatible Crucial memory and the problem hasn't gone away. In fact, today it's got worse. I've had to force restart my laptop about 12 times today because of the beeps. So Apple's beeps says the problem is RAM related. But it can't be that if I've replaced it, surely?

I've tried resetting PRAM, running diskutility to repair permissions etc. All the usual things you'd want to rule out.

With Apple's upcoming 'event' I can't yet book a genius appointment. It's out of warranty now anyway, but I guess this is my only option?

Any thoughts/suggestions gratefully received.

Thanks,

Posted on Sep 6, 2013 9:46 AM

23 replies

SteveHarvey Author

Level 1

24 points

Sep 6, 2013 1:59 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

Thanks - I'll leave it running for a while now and see if it happens again. Safe boot will be something I'll try next. I have to rule as much out as possible - even if I do end up in a genius bar next week at least I have a full report of everything I've done.

rtabor44 that's pretty much the approach I'm taking now, running the system with just one RAM module installed. Will report back here when I have something to share!

SteveHarvey Author

Level 1

24 points

Sep 8, 2013 2:29 AM in response to SteveHarvey

Just an update for you - I tried running with one bank of the new 8GB RAM in slot 1 - it still froze after a while (beeps etc). I then swapped that same RAM into slot 0. So far, it's been over 24 hours and it hasn't frozen.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

bestofall

Level 2

181 points

Sep 9, 2013 9:03 AM in response to SteveHarvey

How is it looking so far?

SteveHarvey Author

Level 1

24 points

Sep 9, 2013 9:05 AM in response to bestofall

Thanks for asking.

I'm on day 2 now and no freezing/beeps to record. Likely I therefore have something wrong with one of the RAM slots. That's a logic board issue, I guess. But if it operates fine on one, I'll stick with that for now (fortunately when I bought the new RAM, I upgraded to more memory so I'm still at 8GB).

bestofall

Level 2

181 points

Sep 9, 2013 11:53 AM in response to SteveHarvey

Sounds like the time it overheated burned out one of the slots, unless you want to pay out the butt for a new MLB its worth running with one until then.

SteveHarvey Author

Level 1

24 points

Sep 9, 2013 12:10 PM in response to bestofall

Yep, looks that way. It's running as normal now. It's coming up to 3 years old soon, so I wont be looking to spend big on this machine.

I suppose it's a bit like kidneys. You can run on one, right. ;-)

If there's any updates, I'll post here. Otherwise thanks to you and everyone who contributed here.

Mar 3, 2014 11:45 AM in response to SteveHarvey

I know this is an old post, but thought I'd chime in with a similar issue I've been having and the fix I recently found.

I've been dealing with this same freezing/3 beep issue myself for a couple weeks after upgrading my early 2011 MacBook Pro with 16 GB of OWC RAM. I'm running OSX 10.6.8, with an OWC 6G SSD in the main bay, and an OWC 3G SSD in the optical bay. The problem also has happened on the stock 4 GB of RAM that came with the machine. After a trip to the Apple Store and seemingly every remedy imaginable from reseating the ram chips to zapping the pram and smc, I was about to give up hope.

Then, I found a post at the end of a different Apple discussion thread where someone gave a link to this google forum page, below, and couldn't believe what I was reading. It seems that there are a lot of people on 10.6.8 (and possibly other osx versions) who have experienced the freeze and three beep problem because of an apparent conflict with Google Drive. As I was reading the page, it occurred to me that a good amount of the freezes happened right after bootup, when Google drive and my other menu bar applications were loading. Although a trip to the Apple Store for a GB appointment did not lead directly to me discovering the solution, when I was there, my genius noted that the ram was for some reason being taxed more than it should as she was playing around in my user os. This confused her, and now looking back, that over taxation could really only be software related, and seems to implicate this issue with Google drive even more, which was then running in the background.

I've disabled Google drive from launching into the menubar after boot up, and this finally seems to have resolved what has been an extremely frustrating process for me.

Here's the link:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/drive/NVy9cxgkL_g

Jun 12, 2014 4:07 PM in response to dringofett

@dringofettyou were RIGHT ON with that link! Three beeps and freezing AFTER booting and being on for a while could only be SOFTWARE (or most likely).

Beeps and failure on POST (startup) means bad RAM....

My situation was different:

My client's 2012 MBP running 10.6.8 Snow Leopard had Google Drive and Dropbox and Google Drive 1.15 was the culprit. I reverted Drive to 1.13 version (amazingly still in Applications folder as "Google Drive.app.backup" - so I trashed the existing and removed the ".backup" extension) and VOILA.... No more beeps and freezing.

If your beeps/freeze happens after ou boot up and Google Drive is syncing - read the post at that link!

Intel Macbook Pro - freezing and 3 beeps