Random Shutdown on Macbook Pro (15" mid 2014)

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.

I have exactly the same problem and could not permanently solve that. Currently, I connect my MacBook Pro with a Thunderbolt Ethernet cable (no matter whether I connect to the ethernet), and it can solve the problem. But this will cost more battery power.

I think this is a logic board issue and it is due to the design of this model. Apple did not pay attention to that until there are lots of people encounter this and report to them.

it didnt fix the problem.

btw someone called me back from apple after my mail.

She just told me sorry ser blalabla your computer isn't under guarantee anymore, there is no issue known by apple with the macbook pro mid 2014...

If your Macbook keeps shutting down on his own, for a few seconds backlight display and keyboards on, not in safe mode or in Windows or when installing OS X, not when connected to an external monitor, then we are in the same situation and reapplying thermal paste will solve the problem. I am sure. And it is easy and you can do it on your own.

It is not really risky and in one hour it is done.

I have exactly the same case as you. But I am a bit curious about the reason why replacing the thermal paste could solve the problem.

I use the thermal monitor to check the temperature of CPU before, but I think the temperature is normal before it crashed.

My temperatures were normal too, before reapplying thermal paste.

When i got off the heatsink, i saw, thath only about 50 % off the cpu surfsce was covered with thermal paste.

I see with an intel tool, that the cpu clock varies very fast with peaks in milliseconds to turbo boost 3,2 Ghz. Heat will increase extremely fast. Without enough thermal paste, the cpu cannot be cooled as fast as needed. So for few milliseconds, cpu or gpu overheats und the system shuts down for emergency.

After reapplying thermal paste, the problems are totally gone. When stressing the cpu, the fans will increase speed much later and less fast

Thanks for your reply. I will try your solution sometime.

But I still have one problem in my mind. That is when I plug in the Thunderbolt Ethernet cable, everything goes pretty fine, and the similar thing happens if I plug in the HDMI cable. Probably there are really some problem with my logic board...

:-(

Yes, astonishing and strange. Maybe, when connected to an external display or ethernet, the thermal limit is a little bit higher for emergency shutdown because the MacBook needs more power for it. Before i reapplyed thermal paste, i used a hdmi dummy plug which prevented the shutdown. Or in windows, perhaps as well with higher thermal limit.

But this will cause in the long run a cpu damage, i would assume.

Having the same problem here, CANNOT BELIEVE apple have ignored this and are forcing users to shell out 500 quid to replace the logic board. So far, from reading forums I've heard of the following fixes, please add below if any other fixes are available

- Plug in a dummy Ethernet or a Hdmi plug

- Something about Thermal Paste

Disgusting how the fix costs half of what was spent on the bloody laptop! Shame on Apple.

As I was writing a reply my MBP Mid 2014 15 Inches randomly crashed... again. 8 times this morning. We have two of those in our house, bought at different times and different places and they both do exactly the same. Went to the "genius" bar, tried all the tricks below. Same thing. The geniuses idea was to replace the mother board. Yeah right. As in buy a new computer. Less then 3 years old! And I am not alone. This problem is on all those 2014 MPB. The most expensive MBP of the line in that year. Apple needs to acknowledge there was a defect and start doing something for us. This is ridiculous and they have the means to fix it or at least give us some discount on a replacement. Worst part is I really like this laptop, now it is going to be a brick and I am out $6K (for two of them). What do we need to have Apple take notice? I spend so much money with that company... it ***** so much I am starting to think about dropping everything from them.

I have been looking into this problem from a month now.

The only partial fix was to have a external monitor plugged in or a monitor emulation adapter (hdmi headless ghost)

until I saw that my desktop scaling was not on default. I put it back on default and It fixed it.

I will update here if problem happens again.

Trust me, it ain’t going away. We had our Mac checked thoroughly, every test was done by the so call geniuses. Nothing showed up. All they could say was, change the logic board. On a 3 year old computer, that means buy a new one. Apple needs to fess up and do something. This is a legitimate default that needs a recall.

I use Macs Fan Control to base both fan speeds on GPU temp and it seems to delay shut down a lot working on a table or surface but on lap or fabric it shuts down as fast. Temperature of GPU peeks very fast.

Here is a little summary of what I tried so far:

-Apple authorized service' deep diagnostic does not show anything wrong with hardware

-Applying new thermal paste does not fix issue

-Reinstalling OS does not fix issue

-Having my thunderbolt ethernet plugged in does not fix issue

-Issue not related to scale or resolution of screen

-Plugged in to power supply or on battery power does not change anything

-Reducing transparency effects in desktop does not do anything

Workarounds for now:

Having external HDMI monitor plugged in prevents issue

Having HDMI dummy plug (headless ghost) plugged in prevents issue

Booting in safe mode prevents issue

I am calling Apple now. Maybe Apple Canada is a little more comprehensive.

I will give update later.

Hello guys. I found temp solution. It can sound like scam, i bought patch at real mac mods site. You can google it. I decided that i can take risk to lose 2.5 bucks to try to resolve my issue. It worked. Take a look at youtube video from them. There are explanation from author in comments.

Btw. There are lot of us. Lets do something!? I would like to change my macbook to newer one, but how can i sell this buggy one?! It is frustrating. Maybe we should make some noise?! Like website, hackernews, any other media?

Thanks nicjazz for following up on this. I saw the plug-in but was also worried it was a scam. Not about the money, more about wilfully loading an unverified app. The other thing is I would imagine that Apple would have also come up with that fix if it was that simple. The point with Apple right now is that they are simply ignoring the issue, and it is not going away. Again thanks so much for your work and clear outlay of what is happening. I'll keep pounding at the door, see if anyone even answers. Let me know what you find out:-) Thanks.