A1398 MacBook Pro 820-00163 in boot loop

[sekidata]

I have a 820-00163 that chimes and starts up half-way, then kernel panics and restarts. Same for external and internal drives. Passes the Apple Hardware Test. I replaced the EFI chip (U6100) with no change.

I'm not the first work on this board; looks like the area near the SMC has had work done. Could this be an SMC issue?

 

[2informaticos]

Could be Discrete GPU problem.
Try starting in safe mode.

 

[sekidata]

Both Safe Mode and Recovery stall near the end of the startup process.

 

[piernov]

ME region cleaned properly when swapping SPI ROM?

 

[sekidata]

I transplanted (soldered) the EFI chip from a working identical model, no programming done. This has usually worked in the past, but did not improve anything on this board.

 

[piernov]

This cannot work on anything starting from 1st gen Core i, you need to clean ME region when transferring from another board.

 

[2informaticos]

You have 4 months on the forum.
Didn't read any post about ME region yet???

 

[sekidata]

I'm relatively new and not set up for any kind of reprogramming. My approach to getting rid of the occasional EFI lock has been to swap EFI chips (new or transplanted). Will certainly read up on the details of the SPI ROM, thank you.

 

[2informaticos]

I suppose you don't have Medusa programmer, so upload somewhere original file.

 

[sekidata]

I installed a brand-new SPI ROM with guaranteed clean ME region. But the same issue persists: half-way startup, then kernel panic. Verbose mode shows this screen just before restarting.

 

[2informaticos]

Where did you get that chip?
Who programmed it?

Could be RAM issue, or GPU.

 

[sekidata]

A chip supplier off eBay (advancednetwork) I have used before. Have installed ~10 brand-new EFI chips from them in MacBook Pros with 100% success rate.

Any way to test if it's the GPU?

 

[2informaticos]

Why do not you reflsh the SPI yourself with 100% clean ME???