Right after updating my Mid2015 MBP (15.4/2.8GHZ/16GB/1TB SSD) to Monterey 12.3 a week after it was released on March 14 2022, it bricked. I understand there are known issues with v12.3 bricking MBPs with M1 chips and SSDs, but didn’t see anything posted about Intel chips with SSDs. It’s out for repair now and I hope to heck it’s just a software or firmware issue and this didn’t mess up my logic board! <br><br> The battery was a year old and functioning fine; the entire computer was (is!) in terrific shape, clean as a baby Mac, all normal. After v12.3, it would not boot, showing the empty red battery icon, without the lightning icon when the adapter was plugged in. I have two functioning Apple 85W adapters, and neither worked, and I couldn’t even tell if the thing had powered down even with a force shutdown. Tried all the “things” (P/VRAM reset, SMC reset, safe boot, recovery mode restart, even target mode start with both a firewire and thunderbolt cable to my at-the-time functioning 2011 MBP) but: Nada. Cleaned ports. Also took the back off to check the battery and connections, but the whole thing was pristine. <br><br>I always save a copy of a full system log right before and right after any update, and just saw that Energy Saver was not “visible,” which must have happened between Monterey 12.2 and 12.3 (don’t know for sure). Given that this appears to be a power issue, I have to wonder if the problem resides in the power management processes or boards. <br><br>As noted, I tried making it a target drive for my very functional L2011 MBP, but nothing worked. Then THAT computer started doing the random shutdown startup dance, and nothing I did could stop it. I knew the battery wasn’t charging, but the adapters worked just fine, thank you. I couldn’t even shut it down by force until I let it just run out of steam. I managed to get it to boot long enough to run Disk Utility First AId, which found NOTHING wrong, and soon after it did the dance again. Now I can’t even boot it long enough for a factory reset. I may see if it’s a battery issue and spring for a new one to see if I can at least get into it to turn it into an external drive. Maybe. <br><br>What the heck is going on with all the gremlins that showed up in my office this last week?? <br><br>One might wonder why I’m using a MacBook Pro as “old” as Mid 2015 to begin with. Well, it’s perfectly fast and does everything I’ve needed it to for all these years! I keep it free of software junk and old crap (no 32-bit detritus or hidden muck) and keep the new battery nicely maintained with periodic full discharges. I can connect three monitors (!), it is zippy as anything I need for all the photography and graphics and video I work with, and most of all, I just cannot afford to replace it right now! <br><br>I began my computer trajectory with IBM Selectrics, then was the only person of my gender in my college Fortran and Cobol classes and in the stinky basements full of VDTs and Assembler language printouts, then got great at DOS, then started my Mac life with Lisa, back when 45KB of disk space was HUGE! (Nobody can believe it these days. Programmers were mighty efficiency machines then!) My Mac Duo still works, along with the portable printer I got with it. My Quadra never once crashed (I ended up selling it when I got my first MacBook Pro). My iridescent green iMac still works great. I now own FOUR MacBook Pros, and they ALL worked just FINE until a week ago! <br><br>I have a Late 2006 MBP 750GB drive; a Late 2011 with 750GB SSD with Big Sur; a mid or late 2013 (I need to dig that one from storage now!); and my tried and true Mid-2015 with Monterey. I’ve kept ALL of these going and going and going with careful love and attention. That an OS Monterey UPDATE (not even a real OS upgrade) should crash a MacBook model I’ve used flawlessly for years, one that by all accounts supports the new system, is baffling and makes me so so sad! <br><br>I’m pretty darn tech savvy (despite my age and gender) and I don’t want to hear from Support that this is gonna cost a half grand that I could be putting toward my dream 2021 14” MacBook Pro with an M1 Max chip, 32-core-GPU, 64GB Unified Memory, and 2TB of SSD! Which I would buy if I could afford it. Which I can’t. <br><br>All this is to say: I Feel Your Pain! Namasté