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I have a late 2013 15' MacBook Pro I've had since it was new.

Starting about two weeks ago it randomly shut down without any notice. It has since shut down multiple times. Sometimes 5 minutes will go by and sometimes it will be multiple hours. The screen goes black and when I turn it back on there are zero notifications about it shutting down improperly or having a critical issue. It happens while using an external HDMI display or not, power adapter plugged in and not.

I have tried:

  • SMC reset
  • PRAM Reset
  • Diagnostic mode boot up

I recently tried booting up to Windows 10 through boot camp and it hasn't powered off once, which is odd.

I've read around the net and a number of posts on this site, I don't see any solid solutions yet and I haven't brought it into Apple or an authorized repair center.

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3 Answers 3

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try booting into safe mode and test out the machine and see if it powers off. To boot into safe mode, hold down the Shift key when you power it on. Test it and see if it happens again. If not, it could be a third-party application or extension.

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Have you updated to macOS Mojave? I had this same issue on my 2012 15" MacBook Pro and nothing I tried fixed it but since I installed Mojave it hasn't happened anymore. Maybe Apple knew about it and the only way to fix it was in the operating system. I didn't actually try taking it to an Apple store though, so maybe there was a different fix for it.

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My suggestion is to take it to an Apple Store or Apple Authorised Service Provider as soon as possible because the machine is borderline vintage and when Apple announces that it is vintage then it will no longer be serviceable at all by any Apple service provider.

Although you've run AHT (Apple Hardware Test) there is also ASD (Apple Support Diagnostics) which are much more in-depth. Running this is something Apple service provider can do easily and may provide more information.

Something you'll also find they'll do at an Apple service provider, especially at an Apple Store is boot the computer from a KG (Known Good) hard drive with macOS installed. Which can be left to run for a period of time to preclude any operating system issues with a simulated load.

You could do this yourself if you'd prefer to first, by installing macOS onto an external hard drive or USB stick (I can give instructions if needed for this, just ask). If you don't have a spare drive where you could do this you could instead take a backup of your data and reinstalling the operating system, if this doesn't resolve the issue it only leaves a hardware issue.

One final though, have you noticed if this issue happens while on battery only, or also when on power adapter, if the former (battery only) it could be that the battery is failing and unable to sustain peak power, and a replacement battery could resolve the issue. However this issue will normally show up in the System Information app which you can access by:

  1. Open the Apple menu
  2. Hold Alt and click System Information
  3. Navigate to power on the left side
  4. Look for the section "Health Information"
  5. Check the cycle count is less than 1000
  6. Check the "condition" says "normal"
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    I've just read that you are not having this issue in Windows, in that case you need to take a backup and reinstall macOS, it may be possible to figure out why it's rebooting but it isn't worth the time spent over a reinstall of the operating system.
    – unknowndomain
    Commented Aug 13, 2018 at 21:19

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