Over Christmas week, I took the MacBook Pro Retina in for repair. Apple diagnostics tracked down my “graphics problem” error to a “memory problem.” I sent the machine off the Monday before Christmas, and I got it back on Christmas Eve.  I was most impressed with this speed, and the reported repair was “logic board” replacement, which should have addressed any and every issue imaginable for the error message I was receiving.

Yesterday afternoon, my machine locked up again.  I had to force shut down, and when I rebooted, I got the same “graphics problem” error I’d gotten before.  Not only that, but my machine was very hot — a problem I hadn’t noticed before. I made note of the error (copied it verbatim), and I’ll return to the Apple Store next time I’m in San Antonio.  As for the heating problem, I removed the bottom half of my Hard Candy case as well as my keyboard mat (used to keep the keyboard clean).  The keyboard is still getting warm, but it’s not as hot as is was yesterday. I’ve been using this case for a year, and I haven’t noticed any heating issues until yesterday.  The machine has nice ventilation ports in the back, and they were not blocked by the Hard Candy case. The keyboard mat could have been helping to retain heat, since the space around the keys would be a logical place for heat to escape (again, I’ve used this mat for a year and never noticed overheating before).

Finally, I just purchased and installed “System Monitor” ($4.99 in the App Store) which will track, among other things, CPU temperature and fan speeds in my Menu Bar. My CPU is running between 107 and 109 degrees F at the moment, and I suspect that’s pretty normal. I can’t hear my fans run, but from the charts, I can see my right fan is running nearly constantly, and my left almost as much.  Again, I think this is probably fairly normal as well. But this is at CPU usage averaging between 3-5%.  I’ll be interested to see how this varies with usage.