2010 MacBook Pro random crashes CPU failure?

I have a 2010 Mc book pro that has been randomly crashing - started crashing at boot time and now happening anytime. Discovered the SSD was failing and finally became corrupt and then unreadable (failed).

Replaced the SSD (840 EVo) it with a new 960mEvo and initially used a Sierra time machine back up all directories checked & optimised with Disk Warrior and also ran virus checker with no issues.

No apparent causes for the crash which can occur anytime - even without apps running.

I tried doing a clean install of Sierra but it failed “ unable to install on this computer”.
Fixed the MacBook time issue which can cause install issues using terminal and again tried a clean install of Sierra with the same result.

Suggestions welcome!

Two things.

1. Whenever you replace an SSD replace the SATA cable.

2. Samsung EVO's do not play nice with Macs because of backwards incompatability between 6Gb/ps and 3Gb/ps speeds. Have a read of this thread from ifixit.com, the one down a fair way by 'Dan' with the lobster icon on this problem:-


https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/252412/Problems+with+Samsung+850+EVO+SSD

Thanks for the suggestion - I will replace the cable as suggested by one author. This Mac had worked fine for the previous 3 years with the Samsung 512 840 so I don’t think there is a compatibility issue. The logs show the same error each time the MacBook crashes - CPU register error.

The logs show the same error each time the MacBook crashes - CPU register error.

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That's your machine telling you that you have data corruption. Sure sounds like an incompatibility issue. Try swapping out that SATA cable first to see if that makes a difference.

chscag said:

That's your machine telling you that you have data corruption. Sure sounds like an incompatibility issue. Try swapping out that SATA cable first to see if that makes a difference.

Click to expand...

Hi everyone after many hours (no days) I finally traced the problem to a faulty Samsung RAM module.
I discovered the fault by running Memtest from the terminal.
The crashes were not related to the SSD Disk Drive cable.

Good news! It is 8 years old though so make sure you have a reliable backup. It cant last forever.

It can last forever, it won’t work forever, .