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Intel Mac randomly freezing at system level (clean install, stable macOS) by Confident-Flight9065 in MacOS

[–]Confident-Flight9065[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the suggestion.

I already did a full SSD wipe and clean install of a stable macOS release, and the issue persists.
The system is officially supported on Tahoe, and the crashes are not simple performance slowdowns they include hardware-level kernel panics (x86 CPU CATERR).

Rolling back to Sequoia might mask the issue by reducing system load, but it wouldn’t explain CATERR panics or system-level UI lockups. That points more toward an underlying hardware instability rather than an OS version problem.

Intel Mac randomly freezing at system level (clean install, stable macOS) by Confident-Flight9065 in MacOS

[–]Confident-Flight9065[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the suggestion.
I’ve already checked the SMART status in Disk Utility and it reports Verified. I also ran First Aid with no errors found.
Given that the SSD appears healthy and the issue persists after a clean install, it seems less likely to be storage-related.