Chosen Solution
So my Late 2013, 15” Retina Macbook Pro started having an issue where it would not get to the login screen. I’d hear the chime and see the loading bar with the apple logo but the loading bar only loaded till 75% and it would stay stuck there without continuing on. Sometimes, this is fixed by just resetting my NVRAM/PRAM but it’s not a permanent fix. Once I get it to get to the login screen and get to the desktop, it appears to be working great. Unfortunately, after a little while, the apps I’m using (chrome, safari) freeze. They become unresponsive. In addition to this, here are other symptoms that happen at the same time that safari and chrome freeze: -The backlight becomes unresponsive -The laptop doesn’t go into sleep mode if I close the lid, the screen just stays on. -If I hold the power button, the restart/sleep dialog shows up but clicking either of the buttons doesn’t do anything. -Things like finder, system preferences work and open just fine. The only way to get out of this is to hold the power button down until the mac gets a hard shutdown. After this though, I have to reset the NVRAM/PRAM once again for it to load or else it gets stuck on the apple logo loading bar. I thought this was a GPU issue so I would heat up the GPU with a hot air gun and it would work temporarily. Now I am thinking it might not be the GPU but maybe the SMC chip? I can’t think of the thing that would cause both the SMC functions and safari not to respond. Any thoughts? I reset the SMC numerous times, it doesn’t seem to change anything.
I would second the GPU failure idea in this case, it doesn’t seem Smc related. Download Valley from Unigine and launch it, in case of a failing Gpu your Mac may reboot or turn off within short: https://benchmark.unigine.com/valley
