4 ms·
I'm on a maxed out 2013 Macbook Pro and I will fight tooth and nail to keep this laptop functioning for as long as possible. It has a decent keyboard, still po
by tekstar 6y ago
I'm on a maxed out 2013 Macbook Pro and I will fight tooth and nail to keep this laptop functioning for as long as possible. It has a decent keyboard, still powerful processor (2.3 GHz Intel Core i7), 16GB RAM, dual GPU. and MagSafe!!! Beloved MagSafe why on earth did they kill you I will never understand..
I had the Apple store replace the screen and battery about a year ago. The screen was suffering from the anti-reflective coating (1) recall, but I missed the repair program window. In every customer support conversation I had leading up to the repair, they would hint at "consumer protection law". This was a clue that if I then said "CONSUMER PROTECTION LAW" they would be forced to do the recall for free even though it was out of date. They ended up giving me the screen and battery for free.
Apple Store failed to identify and fix one issue that plagued me though, which was spontaneous black screen and poweroffs, especially when running on battery below 80%. It seemed like a power issue, or heat issue. I lived with it for two years, lugging a power brick around whenever I moved spots. With the Apple Stores closed due to covid, I contacted a local third party mac repair person. They said they've seen this before, it's a CPU power issue, and if you run a small script to keep the CPU out of really-low-power state it will stop happening (2). And they were right! So if you're experiencing this annoying problem as well, try this python script:
from time import sleep
import os
while True:
sleep(0.0002)
You may have to tweak the sleep value - higher values will let your CPU relax more but may trigger the power issue. Lower values will increase the CPU load but decrease the chance that the CPU hits this condition.
I've been running this script for 2 weeks now and no freezes. It generates about 6-8% CPU load, so obviously my battery time is suffering, but the alternative (random freezes all day) was so annoying that I'm okay living with this.
1: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/17/apple-extends-free-staingate-repairs/ https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/17/apple-extends-free-stai...
2: https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/9pyort/apple_macbook_pro_sudden_crash_fix_for_models/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/9pyort/apple_macbook_p...
- mik3y 6y agoAwesome tips, thank you! I'm in the exact situation - same MacBook, same goal to keep it running, & same screwup missing the reflective coating recall. I think you might have bought the trusty ole thing a new lease on life, cheers!
- TooKool4This 6y agoThere are 3rd party replacements for USB-C MagSafe connectors if you do ever need to upgrade. Don't know if they get the sweet spot for retention force that the old MagSafe connector did but I have seen some co-workers use it without issue. 1: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=usb-c+magsafe&crid=20NMLJRE2HMRI&sprefix=usb-c+magsafe%2Caps%2C193&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_13 https://www.amazon.com/s?k=usb-c+magsafe&crid=20NMLJRE2HMRI&...
- seddonm1 6y agoHi, Can you elaborate on what was happening to your machine regarding 'which was spontaneous black screen and poweroffs'? My late-2013 Macbook Pro has recently started similar behavior. Somewhat randomly the screen will go black, sit like that for a while, then fans speed up for maybe 10 seconds then it eventually turns off. This whole cycle is something like 20 seconds. Is this similar to what you observed which was fixed in your case by the script?
- tekstar 6y agoYES! This is exactly what I was experiencing. Well, to be exact, there were three or four different failure modes. What you described is one of them. Another was sometimes I close the lid to put it to sleep, and instead the fans would rev to 100% and sit there forever until I held the power button. I have the script running in a terminal window and haven't had a spontaneous poweroff for 2 weeks now.
- 535188B17C93743 6y agoI'm curious if this Thunderbolt driver issue is what you've experienced (when the CPU load gets too low, something weird happens with the electrical system). Here's [1] what's worked for me. 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOSBeta/comments/c6f6e7/catalina_random_shutdown_applethunderboltnhikext/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOSBeta/comments/c6f6e7/catalina_...
- tekstar 6y agoThank you!! I'm trying this now without the CPU busy script, fingers crossed
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoMagSafe2 is what killed my 2013 MBPr. I work in metal fabrication, so the MagSafe2 constantly attracted tiny metal particles that follow me around. I ended up replacing the DC in board, $25 part, then two weeks later it started behaving weird, pulled it apart again and reseated all the cables etc but it completely gave up. Oh well, 7 solid years at AU$2000 end up costing less than $6 a week. I’m now split between a new MacBook Air, or a Lenovo or HP with similar specs and screen resolution. I have some Windows software I’ve paid for, but maybe I just run that in a Windows VM on the Mac..... hmmmm
- bserge 6y agoWelp, C6/C7 are great for battery life and heat management... I wonder if it's a hardware or software problem. Haswell has the VRM integrated on the die, so it's highly unlikely to be the processor itself.
- tekstar 6y agoI read one of the threads linked from that reddit post, I may have had to use archive.org. Someone names a specific power management IC and says they reflowed it. Sounded like a timing issue between CPU and the power management. I mostly use my laptop in sporadic short bursts so battery time is not a huge issue, and the freedom of moving it around without it crashing is huge