MBPro 15 - Crashes Often Unless External Monitor

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Level 1

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MBPro 15 - Crashes Often Unless External Monitor

Whenever my macbook pro is hooked up to an external 32" monitor at work everything works fine. I usually do all my work on the big monitor and leave the macbook plugged in, off to the side, with the lid open and screen on ( i just dont make much use of the screen real estate). Computer barely ever crashes in this mode

When I try to use the macbook on its own, plugged in or battery, with no external monitor hooked up - it freezes and crashes constantly. This seems to have gotten much more frequent lately. Any idea what could cause this?

Here is my model

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

2.3 GHz Intel Core i7

High Sierra 10.13.4

Posted on Apr 18, 2018 11:36 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Cunnla

Level 6

8,257 points

Apr 19, 2018 2:18 AM in response to aguth4383

Hi,

Have you tried any of the following?

Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support

How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support

Also, start up in Recovery mode -- holding down Command and R keys -- and use its Disk Utility to run First Aid on your startup disk.

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Answer 2

Cunnla

Level 6

8,257 points

May 4, 2018 8:29 PM in response to aguth4383

It could be something to do with the Mac's Sleep function, according to various Web posts on this topic.

Do you have any sleep schedule set in System Prefs / Energy Saver? If so, disable it.

Might be worth trying an NVRAM reset as well. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

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Answer 3

Cunnla

Level 6

8,257 points

May 6, 2018 7:16 PM in response to aguth4383

Take a look at this Apple article on isolating issues. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203161

You can check to see if it might be a hardware issue. How to use Apple Diagnostics on your Mac - Apple Support

And there is also the chance that doing a factory reset of the OS would fix it. https://www.lifewire.com/perform-a-clean-install-of-mac-os-sierra-4057209

You can set it up as a new Mac and see if the issue recurs. If it does not you can reinstall software gradually to check if any of it is causing the problem. Make sure to have a Time Machine backup or a clone of your hard disk so that you can get back all your present setup.

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Answer 4

aguth4383 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 4, 2018 7:54 PM in response to Cunnla

Thanks for the response. I've tried the Safe and Recovery Modes and no error appears to be found.

Resetting the SMC actually did appear to help for a few days, but the issue is still persistent now. Computer always works fine when hooked up to an external monitor, but consistently freezes when running without one.

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Answer 5

aguth4383 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 9, 2018 3:06 PM in response to Cunnla

I've tried all of the mentioned solutions and the problem still persists. Wouldn't there be some type of log the computer keeps that could identify what is causing this problem? It's essentially making the laptop unusable when it's not plugged in to a monitor. It's a very expensive item to be experiencing this type of failure without resolution

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Answer 6

aguth4383 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 10, 2018 11:09 PM in response to aguth4383

Even with all non-apple apps removed, and the system with a fresh ios install, the problem still persists. Almost every 30-60 minutes. I think this is a hardware problem that apple just doesnt want to help diagnose. Is there really no way to just look at a log and see what's going on? If the solution is buying a new computer I don't think it will be an apple this time around.

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Answer 7

aguth4383 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 6, 2018 4:57 PM in response to Cunnla

Thanks. I'm not seeing any sleep schedule set.

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MBPro 15 - Crashes Often Unless External Monitor

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