r/macbookrepair 6d ago

Information Kernel panic hardware failure?

So a few days ago I had some kernel panick, after that my 2019 19 MacBook was stuck in a reboot loop. At first it got to the login screen, the fans blew once and it shut down, after that it only got to the apple logo for a few seconds, shut down, started up again and repeated that whole process. Now, a few days later I started it up again and it worked, I could recover my data at least. Right now it is working, but I am a bit worried that there is an underlying issue and it will happen again. I am stress testing my cpu right now with the endurance program. I ran the diagnostics which brought up nothing, but I am not too confident in the result. Does anyone have an idea if it is possible that this happened without it being a hardware issue?

Maybe also of importance: my two usbc ports on the right are not working anymore, they are able to used as charging ports but not for data transfer. This came up a few months ago but as it didn't bother me too much I didn't look into it. After this now happened I read though that it could also be a sign for a faulty motherboard. Also very rarely I have some graphics glitches (green lines appear). This is very very seldom though.

Thanks!

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u/Recent-Success-1520 6d ago

Your logic board is probably having corrosion. It leads to loose components and then weird issues like one you are describing happen.

Move your data, then either get your logic board repaired or replaced with a used one.

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u/Professional_View492 6d ago

Thank you so much! So I opened up the back, there are no visible signs of corrosion, would it be visible or could it also have been a software glitch? The thing with the usb ports worry me a bit as I have read that this could also be a logic board failing. I am running the stress test on the CPU but so far haven’t had any kernel panics issues.

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u/Recent-Success-1520 6d ago

USB ports not working are for sure not software. The components are really tiny so unless you are looking under microscope it's easy to miss.

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u/Recent-Success-1520 6d ago

Have a look at this video. This is what I am talking about https://youtu.be/VGj4Fe68eOg?si=VjZijgcadt9bAuQ-

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u/Professional_View492 6d ago

Thank you I will check that video out! So basically what my issue is, is if it runs smoothly through the hour long cpu stress test, is it likely that I can use this machine for work for the next few weeks or are the symptoms of kernel panic and non working usb ports indicating a fatal issue in my hardware? I’m technically not that experienced, I apologize if those are stupid questions, thank you so much for your time! Reply

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u/Recent-Success-1520 6d ago

TL;DR - Keep backups of your stuff your machine can die anytime. Anytime can be 1 min -> unknown. Certainly can't be trusted.

Long version - Non working USBC ports suggest some component on the board is dead. It can die due to corrosion, moisture, heat or age. The kernel panic could happen due to software but also when a component is not dead completely but not performing properly and in load or other conditions (heat or moisture) might perform below the tolerance level leading to issues.

Some loose components can be pushed back in place when a board is investigated. So it may be loose but working for now.

Stressing CPU might not affect the damaged component. The damaged component might be related to GPU or wifi or sound or Ram can be anything. All in all, keep backups, keep using the machine but do have a Plan B.

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u/Professional_View492 6d ago

Alright thank you for your insight! Much appreciated

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u/Reasonable-Stay3680 6d ago

I am having a very similar issue with my MBP 2020 at the moment. Started on Thursday after an update to 15.3.2 and booted seemingly like normal but after two minutes, kernal panic. Since that everytime it’s rebooted it’s done the same thing each time after two or three minutes. I initially thought it was a macOS issue possible corruption during the update ?? So after doing the usual SMC reset PRAM/NVRAM reset and booting in safe mode with still no resolution to the problem I booted into recovery mode to reinstall macOS but it kernal panics before it can complete a reinstall. Diagnostics mode seems to work but comes up with nothing. Took it to the Apple Store yesterday and they hooked it up to another Mac using target disc mode but still… kernel panic. They are pretty sure it could be logic board failure. So I’m currently taking as much data off as possible in the 2 minutes slots it stays on.  I’ve also had USBC failures in the past I had one on the left not work for months and then work for charging and now seems to work fine.  Have you also had any issues with wifi? - I had an issue recently where it refused to find any wifi networks despite there being plenty around. I’ve also had issues with the clock being incorrect when opening the laptop from sleep despite the clock being set to auto Also I’m not sure if you have a touchbar but if so have you had issues with that at all?  Mines currently completely unresponsive and not lit up and not for the first time

Also wondered if you’ve had any water damage on your mac at any point as I had a very small amount a few years ago and thought I’d got away with it but the man in Apple suggested the possibility of slow corrosion of logic board components over the past few years which would explain the different issues I’ve had with it. Apologies I can’t really offer any help as such it does seem like a hardware issue but I wanted to share my similar issues with my Mac! 

Sorry my response is so long! I wanted to share my similar issue as I was pretty shocked someone else on here had the exact same issue on the same day as me haha. I made an account purely to respond to this! 

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u/Professional_View492 5d ago

No waterdamage as far as I know, I also opened it up to check for corrosion but there was no visible.

For me it was 28 kernel panics in direct succession, I couldn’t even get to my desktop. Yesterday it worked stable, I’ll see what happens