I have a 17″ MacBook Pro that is about 7-8 years old. When I try to use it, after a couple of minutes it crashes and reboots with the nasty multi-lingual message. I thought it was some software causing its brain to explode, but I erased the HD and reinstalled the OS and no change.

I’m wondering if it’s had its chips (hahaha) or if it’s worth a trip to the Apple Store “Genius Bar”? Will they be able to diagnose the problem, or just open the back and replace various expensive bits (that they charge me for) until it works again (or doesn’t)? Would it be any better to take it to an independent Mac-fixing man?

#WhatWouldSTWDo

My mid-2012 MBP is still – touchwood – chugging away happily albeit with a SSD and a lot of RAM. The only ongoing issue I’ve had is with the ribbon cable for the HD which fails over time and means the HD shows up as faulty when in fact the issue is the cable. Which is a long-winded way of saying that there’s no intrinsic reason why an old-ish MacBook won’t work.

Personally I’d get someone independent to look at it. I’m guessing you’ve done the ‘obvious’ stuff like SMC reset etc?

Personally I’d get someone independent to look at it. I’m guessing you’ve done the ‘obvious’ stuff like SMC reset etc?

Yeah I did that “pressing some keys while starting up” thing, Also PRAM, Whatever that is 🙂

There’s a hardware diagnostic mode you can get it to boot into – might give some more information.

I’d take it to an Apple Store and the genius bar if close-by. It should be free and they’ll be able to plug it into some diagnostics and (hopefully) identify the problem.

It could be memory causing that. I may have some old memory from about that vintage at the back of a shelf you could have for postage if that’s the problem.

i took mine to the genius bar, they are happy to plug it and hopefully tell you the problem but they won’t offer to fix it. i know machines of that age had an issue with the graphics card, mine melted twice. i used a guy called BGA Repairs who was excellent, most shops won’t do repairs in-house so usually better to go direct