Macbook Pro woes - ideas on what the problem is?

[Stephanie]

My mostly trusty Santa Rosa MBP is having issues. It will boot up completely, let me log in, etc. and then spontaneously restarts or shuts down. When I restart it, it chimes and then the sleep light flashes 3 times, pauses, and then flashes 3 times again.

Cannot figure out what is going on. I've zapped PRAM and done the SMC reset. I attempted to boot into safe mode, but it spontaneously restarted. I attempted to boot from my snow leopard install disc, but it spontaneously restarted.

The logic board was replaced approx 2 yrs ago due to the NVIDIA issue. I had the optical drive replaced last month by Apple.

Any thoughts as to what it could be? The only thing I found online is that the light flashing 3 times could indicate RAM issues. Perhaps they didn't do a great job putting the RAM back in when they worked on my MBP a month ago? It HAD been working perfectly until today.

If I had the money, I'd just go get a new MBP and sell this one...but I was hoping this computer would last me a couple more years.

[IronMac]

Is it overheating? Can you check the temperature?

[Stephanie]

I let it cool down completely, and it still did the spontaneous restarting thing.

[testcase]

The 3 ~ 3 flash is telling you something. I don't remember exactly what though. Have you checked Apple Support pages yet?

[Stephanie]

testcase wrote:
The 3 ~ 3 flash is telling you something. I don't remember exactly what though. Have you checked Apple Support pages yet?

I've done a bunch of google searches which included Apple support pages. No luck though.

[rob banzai]

If you have more than one stick of RAM remove one and boot. If you still can't boot put that one back in and remove the other one.

[space-time]

rob banzai wrote:
If you have more than one stick of RAM remove one and boot. If you still can't boot put that one back in and remove the other one.

Excellent advice; classic troubleshooting technique.

in rare cases could also be a bad SLOT. So try all four combinations, Stick 1 in Slot A, 1B, 2A and 2B. Keep a log of what happens, if this is the problem you should be able to tell whether it's a bad stick or a bad slot.

YMMV

[C(-)ris]

Sounds like a ram issue. Try and remove one or both and try a different set. Or the logic board.

[Stephanie]

It's the same RAM I've had in it for years, but I suppose it could spontaneously go bad. I'm hoping it's not the logic board since my Applecare's expired

[cyclemax]

Sounds like RAM issues. See this Apple Support Article.

Applesupport