2014 Macbook Pro Retina turns off randomly

Was that through Apple or did you go to a third party repair source? I bought mine used.

I will never do that again, I might never buy another Apple again after they flatly said they cant find a problem the first time I brought it in. It was pretty pathetic when they upgraded the OS and sent me home like that would fix it...

I’m experiencing the same issue with a Macbook Pro Retina 15” Mid 2014 OS X Sierra.

System powers off randomly, sometimes when hot other times when idle. Sometimes it just powers straight off other times screen flickers goes dark, fans kick in for about 5 seconds before powering off. Sometimes screen goes dark, fans come on full & doesn’t power off forcing manual shutdown. Problem is intermittent happening several times a day. It can happen when closing a window, clicking on a tool bar or typing into safari address bar or whist watching a video or during & after a cpu intensive task, it is totally random.

The system is however stable in safe mode and so far have not experienced this issue booted into recovery or at login screen. Other issues include, background startup image missing at login, corruption error on SSD from disk utility in safe mode which it is unable to fix. Disk utility shows everything is ok when booted into recovery, single or user mode. Hardware test ok, temperature & cpu ok. I have tried resetting the smc, nvram, wiping the hd & re-installing os x & turned off any unnecessary extensions & features but still the problem persists. Any solution to this problem other than forking out for a new machine would be appreciated!

This is an ifixit and so far all is good. I replaced the thermal grease on the cpu & heatsink. The old grease had leaked away from the cpu leaving bare contact with the heatsink. This probably caused the computer to randomly power off as its now working great.

Thanks, Tim. I also think it might be a problem with the heatsink. When my computer was shutting down randomly without any warning a few months ago, I found out that the heatsink is not correctly attached to the logic board. Also, even after fixing it, this computer began to shut down again after a month. I will post the result after replacing the thermal grease on my MBP.

I've been having similar issues over the past 3 months with my 15" MBP 2014. At first it was just irritating and eventually it prevented me from working on it all together. Tried all of the usual fixes, SMC, PRAM etc. finally came to the conclusion that it was the logic board, ordered some tools online and the finally arrived last week. I removed the logic board and baked it at 180'C to fix any possible micro fractures on the logic board. Afterward, I replaced the theremal paste between the processor and the heat sink and thoroughly dusted my laptop.

Switched it on and it performed the hardware test and it ran beautifully, managed to do some video editing and encoding all without a problem. Over the weekend everything went well, until this evening. In the space of 10min, my mac's crashed four times. I've done the SMC and PRAM fixes again to no avail. I am so disappointed.

My MBP is 2014 mid retina 15''. It frequently turned off. Changing the thermal grease didn't work. However, I found out that it doesn't turn off with Windows that I installed by the bootcamp. I think it might be a problem with the OSX.

I have been dealing with the same problem and have tried all the fixes listed here (except running windows, I bought a Mac... Id like to work on a Mac).

My MBP mid 2014 retina 15" was bought in the U.S. The issue is definitely related to Sierra, as that's when it started. I have done tons of research, and see a lot of people with the same thing. No definitive answers though.

My trouble shooting has included:

- Full clean install of OS and not putting any documents or software on. Still crashes.

- Replacement of fans by apple and assurance they are functioning properly. Still crashes.

- Cleaning out system and replacing cpu/gpu thermal paste. Still crashes.

- I have tons of temperature statistics, but am unable to define any pattern.

Let me know if there is something else that can be done. Or any info from apple.

Any info is helpful! Thanks!

My daughters 2011 MBP also randomly switches off as if an invisible finger presses the button usually soon after it boots. It wont boot at all just pressing the power switch, you have to reset the smc every time and it then might run for a few seconds or long enough to boot, log in then just to see a message “ are you sure you want to power down ?”

Oddly enough I managed to boot into the original O/S Cd and use the check hardware (insert cd + boot while holding down D key). I ran the extended test twice and it said everything was fine. I then restarted it and the same problems started all over again.

I’m hoping its just a flakey switch and not something at board level but the switch itself looks and feels physically fine.

If anyone else has had this occur and could mention how they fixed it that would be great.

Thanks.

Succedeva anche a me. Alla apple non mi hanno saputo dire nulla. Dopo una settimana di monitoraggio, lettura e interpretazione Log, ho visto sempre presente il Daemon di GooleUpdate nei leak memory. Ho disinstallato Chrome completamente (tramite Clean My Mac - ma qualunque altro programma di disinstallazione completa dovrebbe andare bene) Riavviato il Mac e il problema si è risolto. Ho sostituito Chrome con Opera (stesso motore web) e usato le estensioni di Chrome su Opera. A distanza di 10gg mai uno shutdown!

I am having the exact same problem on my mid 2014 MBP 15" Retina. It's been happening pretty much daily for the last 3 months. I can't find any pattern. Thought about replacing the battery. $200 vs. $2000, but after reading all the similar problems it seems like that won't do anything. My battery app shows that I have a healthy battery whatever that means.

I had the same Issue with the same machine.

In the end (I tried almost everything you can think of) I solved the problem by reapplying new thermal paste (Arctic Silver 5).

The shutdowns are caused by too much heat (emergency shut down) because of a bad thermal paste. Mine covered only about 50% of the CPU´s surface.

In fact, the temperatures showing in the temperature tools were not higher than normal, but reapplying thermal paste helped completely.

It´s easy in this model.

There are some youtube videos showing, how to to.

Ifixit is good for it too.

Having same problem with MacBook Pro retina Late 2013. Randomly shuts off with increasing frequency. Reapplying new thermal paste makes some sense to me because, if I am understanding correctly, the problem can be visibly observed when opening the computer. Would Apple agree to doing the paste procedure even if they disagreed with the diagnosis/solution? Any idea what it would cost, since the repair is beyond my skill level.

Jarrad,

I don´t know, what Apple would do. The thermal paste only covering half of the cpu can't be seen unless the heatsink will be put off. The whole procedure with removing the old paste und reapplying new will last about 1 hour or less. What will Apple calculate for one hour? Maybe 200$? Perhaps you can find a repair shop doing it for 100$ or less. I don't think, a repair shop does it worse than an apple technician.

My MacBook Pro 15 mid 2014 runs still fine after reapplying thermal paste.

The random shutdowns started happening on my mid-2014 macbook Pro Retina in Dec 2017. If I restarted the machine, it would last about 5 minutes before shutting down. I found I could prevent a shutdown by having an external monitor plugged into my MacBook. Not practical long term of course...

I think there is a CPU low voltage condition that might be resulting in the processor and the machine shutting down. This app worked for me to correct the problem: NoCrashMBP from RealMacMods.com

https://realmacmods.com/product/macbook-pro-nocrash-utility/

It was $10 at the time I purchased it. No shutdowns since I loaded the app. I have made it a login item so that it runs every time I start up the macbook.

Cheers,

B B

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)
Computer turns off when it's not charging. Happens with any level of battery, coconutBattery says my battery is healthy. Display become black with backlight on, after couple of seconds I hear noise of fans. Have to force reboot by holding power button.

Started couple of month ago. I'm alway on the latest OS X.