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MBP (Late 2013) Frequently Requires NVRAM Reset and acting weird.

So my Late 2013, 15” Retina Macbook Pro started having an issue where it would not get to the login screen. I’d hear the chime and see the loading bar with the apple logo but the loading bar only loaded till 75% and it would stay stuck there without continuing on.

Sometimes, this is fixed by just resetting my NVRAM/PRAM but it’s not a permanent fix. Once I get it to get to the login screen and get to the desktop, it appears to be working great. Unfortunately, after a little while, the apps I’m using (chrome, safari) freeze. They become unresponsive. In addition to this, here are other symptoms that happen at the same time that safari and chrome freeze:

-The backlight becomes unresponsive

-The laptop doesn’t go into sleep mode if I close the lid, the screen just stays on.

-If I hold the power button, the restart/sleep dialog shows up but clicking either of the buttons doesn’t do anything.

-Things like finder, system preferences work and open just fine.

The only way to get out of this is to hold the power button down until the mac gets a hard shutdown. After this though, I have to reset the NVRAM/PRAM once again for it to load or else it gets stuck on the apple logo loading bar.

I thought this was a GPU issue so I would heat up the GPU with a hot air gun and it would work temporarily. Now I am thinking it might not be the GPU but maybe the SMC chip? I can’t think of the thing that would cause both the SMC functions and safari not to respond. Any thoughts? I reset the SMC numerous times, it doesn’t seem to change anything.

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Just a thought....tried cleaning and reseating your ram?

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@propman There's nothing to clean and reseat here, RAM is soldered to the logic board.

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Ahhh OK thanks for the heads up. guess that suggestion goes right out the window then! LOL

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@propman Yup, after 2012 no Ram modules survived in Macbooks ;)

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Another reason not to purchase Apple related products, imho. Haven't had anything to do with any Apple products since repairing and running Apple II+'s a "few" decades ago now. Appreciate the info though. Have a good one!

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I would second the GPU failure idea in this case, it doesn’t seem Smc related. Download Valley from Unigine and launch it, in case of a failing Gpu your Mac may reboot or turn off within short: https://benchmark.unigine.com/valley

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I've done this with "Heaven" and the GPU works fine when the computer works. It can even play 4k videos on youtube without a sweat.

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@ adam marciniak

That should confirm the Gpu itself is fine. Maybe there's an issue in switching cards at Mux level..try toggling the energy saving preferences so as the Mac always uses the high performance card and see how it goes.

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yeah that works fine :) . I toggle it and it works well. The thing is it acts completely normal sometimes and I can use it but then when I put it into sleep, it sometimes doesn't wake up and requires a hard restart + reset of NVRAM. It's as if it's setting a flag in NVRAM telling it the GPU ain't working or something

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@Adam Marciniak Actually, hold on. I switched it to dedicated only and safari decided to just freeze. It's just beachballing along with any other programs I open.

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@ adam marciniak

If it gives troubles even with high performance locked in, it may not be the Mux either, but maybe an early stage of the GPU failure. One way or the other it seems GPU related, although it's a bit weird it doesn't crash with Heaven. There's not much I can suggest here, troubleshooting Gpu circuitry takes forever as beside the card there are literally hundreds rails/components involved.

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