Screen turns black when gaming?

relative to gaming there is an incredibly low amount of GPU use in those apps.


My appointment is soon, and we'll see if I get a working machine,
but for the future, I'm dreading when Snow Leopard and openCL start using the GPU's for everything, and people who don't even game start seeing these issues. i'm sure there will be an explosion of people realizing faulty cards after snow leopard starts using them.

another update: after the last smc reset I've played cod4 and wow with mouse plugged without any problem. I then switched to 9400, shutted down my mbp and restarted after 10 min. I've selected again performance mode and started wow. Fans started to get faster at around cpuA 98 celsius and then at approx 2700 rpm and 100 celsius I got the lock up. Mouse is a razor deathadder, drivers are 1.2.
No more tests here until 10.5.6 my mbp is messed up enough, I don't want to fry it 😟
To those who are playing wow and cod4, just try the multisample 1x and no antialiasing options, sometimes I can play with those setting but, as towelie would says, "oh man, I've no idea what's goin' on" :P

I just received my MacBook pro about a week or two ago and noticed this same problem when playing a game. I had to hold down the power button to remedy the problem. I really hope this is just a software issue that can be fixed via a patch though I fear the worste and think this may be a hardware issue in which case Apple is going to have a lot of unhappy customers. I'm not okay with having a 3k dollar brick. If I wasn't going to be able to use the 9600 to it's fullest capacity without problems I would have bought the MacBook and saved myself over 1k. Seriously, an official word from Apple would be nice. I have to see if I'm still within the limits of returning it.

EightKM, can you fill us in on your WoW experience? I'm a wow player and have my new MBP sitting in it's box, unopened, wonder if I'm going to return it or not. what sort of FPS do you get in instances with the firmware upgrade?

got back from my genius appointment.
I wasn't able to re-create the crash (murphy's law, of course)

even in flatout2 demo for OSX which was actually the most consistent crasher (always on the 4th lap)
did fallout3 everything maxed etc
ran fine.
i sat gaming at the g-bar for over an hour. no crashes.

now, im back home, have yet to test it again, but there is the possibility that since it's thermal-lead bumps related, that it sort of 'settled' so to speak, and fixed itself .

we'll see though, and I'll report on my findings tonight (going to play some fallout3)

of course, i HOPE it has 'settled' and fixed itself. the ideal is just to have a working 9600.
im cautious though and hope for it, but dont expect it.


will report soon-

Updated my machine yesterday.
Fans seem to ramp up more while gaming.

I've resorted to put the laptop on a stand at home, so the underside gets better ventilation and so far it seems to be holding up to games like COD4. Bit hard to do this when Lan gaming at a friends place.

I've had 6 mac laptops before this and they have all been relatively good. Love the new case, but a little disappointed as well and feel I should have gone with the Macbook instead.

Just out of curiosity: Does someone actually own/or had a chance to test the new (refreshed / late 2008) MacBook Pro 17 Inch? When all NVidia 9600M GT chips are bad (like some internet sources suggest) then one should be able to re-produce BSODs on the new 17 Inch MBP?!

Sorry for that.
Yes you're right. I just looked it up. The 17 inch still uses 8600 graphics.
Somehow I remembered those models have been 'refreshed' too. So I thought the graphics and chipsets have been updated. Sorry for that.

Still: Maybe someone knows another brand / model with the 9600M GT? I think it would be interesting if they have problems like the black screen during gaming, too?

Ok got the MPB yesterday. The UPS guy was early for once. I was thinking return it or open it up?.. I caved in. I fired up the machine, downloaded updates, and all seems fine so far on day 2. I don't play video games. I plan to use it for photo, video editing, and video streaming. I am also waiting on Windows XP so I can get to use this for work when needed. I will post any problems I encounter.

What I find interesting that here we are on a Mac support page and NOT ONE comment from an official from Apple.

This is obviously an issue that needs to get resolved soon and for those of us with new macbooks with the added BSOD, it is very rude that we have to say something on the forums or read about it on a news site.

Nice communication with your customers 😟

I'm getting a new Macbook Pro for christmas and i wanted to know if anyone is having problems running pro apps such as Final Cut Studio, Adobe CS4, VM Ware Fusion, Parallels, Aperature, or watching Video that is HD editing in HD? Or any problems having alot of apps open at once?

Also I had a graphics problem with my iMac with a ATI Radeon 1600 during 10.5.3 where similar things happened and sometimes graphics intense areas on the screen would be filled with triangles of different color. This was totally fixed in 10.5.4 and i havent in-countered any problems with the graphics sense. So lets hope this is similar to that problem.

I have used the replacement machine all week, all sorts of games, hours and hours, not one crash. Unfortunately this machine had a different hardware failure and when I called they just said they would replace it yet again, and let me keep this machine until the new one arrives so I wouldn't have to go any longer with nothing. I am however extremely concerned that the next replacement will have the BSoD problem, since people buying new machines are still having the issue.
I can definitely verify that this machine I'm using at the moment is rock solid in terms of the 9600M GT. Because of this I am absolutely convinced beyond a doubt that it is simply a matter of bad chips, because nothing changed in my software or setup except a straight up machine swap. Previously, as I've said repeatedly, I could not go 5 minutes without a BSoD without a crash.

Furthermore I have not been able to get the GPU over 80 degrees on this no matter what I throw at it.

It's a whole different machine that works like it's supposed to, at least in regards to the graphics. I have yet to get a machine that works like it's supposed to from top to bottom.

One thing I totally forgot to add, is that with the first machine aside from the BSoD there was also an effect in browsers and large windows where the screen would have sort of a tear or ripple in a line when scrolling. This current machine not only does not fall prey to BSoD but it also does not have that tearing/rippling anomaly.

Updating my situation: Apple rep contacted me before I updated my MBP to the new firmware because they wanted to 'capture' some with the issue to test in their labs. I returned it at a local Apple store for a replacement which already had the firmware update. That night I got the BSoD twice and once the next day. Returned that one for a third which also had the firmware update already ... and experienced the BSoD 3 times in the first night!

I don't want to play this game anymore. The 2nd also made a very high pitched noise that gave me a headache at work. This 3rd one has the LOUDEST trackpad click known to man! I don't to spin the wheel and see what else I get. If I can't get the first one back that didn't get the BSoD very frequently at all I don't know that I want to even have one of these until the issue is fully resolved.

Again, I do LOVE this laptop. The design and features are the best out of all of the ones I've used from Apple. I just can't beta test any more of them.

Hi Guys,

This (BSoD) happened to me a few times since I got the machine in October, once in BF2142 and once in Second Life (I don't do much gaming). I found this thread a couple of days ago and then updated the firmware... no solution. SMC fan control seemed to make some difference but didn't solve it either.

I called apple support today and got through to tier 2 immediately she said she wasn't aware of this issue or this thread but took it very seriously. She mailed me the apple "Capture Data" app and told me to send her the results if an archive and install and then a erase and install didn't help.

Guess what? The archive and install seems to have done it.... I'll keep trying to break it 🙂 but my GPU diode temp on istat is now never higher than 76, it easily shot up to 85 before....

Just wondering if more of you could try this apparent fix... I'm not getting back to my friendly technician yet... I'm really gonna test this since I only got BSoD intermittently, perhaps some of you could try an archive and install?

Cheers,

Rob