Screen turns black when gaming?

I sent a link to this thread plus several of the recent links concerning this issue to the Geniuses at our local Apple store. I was hoping that something had officially percolated down to them.

All I was told was that they would be really interested in taking a look at my notebook and would like to hang on to it for a while and perhaps elevate it to engineering.

Unless they are willing to provide a replacement while they test I have no interest (I didn't ask and I didn't get the impression that they would). At this point I am feeling less inclined to simply hand it over while I am out one MBP.

I am quite disappointed that there has not been any official word on what might be going on.

I am very disappointed as well. I have money burning a hole in my pocket that is set aside for a new work computer for me. I really want a MacBook Pro, but this issue and the lack or a response from Apple is keeping my from buying. Come on Apple, this is costing you business.

Much like Nvidia, I guess Apple doesn't realize that the backlash of staying silent and trying to sweep this under the rug is going to be far worse than being honest and keeping customers that paid close to $3k for their product informed.

They may already be working on a fix, but it might take some time, so instead of silence how about giving us a choice on whether we want to wait for the fix or not?

What they are doing to us now is really unfair and shows me that they really don't care what happens to their product once they take my money.

I've been experiencing the black screen since right around halloween and my laptop is currently in repair for the second time, but I guess they expect me to sit around for 2+ months and not question anything.

Might as well throw my info into the mix. On a 2.8Ghz / 7200 drive machine, seeing the black screen only in XP SP3 so far (newest nVidia drivers installed, 10.5.6, newest firmware/smc updates) after playing Warhammer for a bit, and only consistently in large-scale player vs. player battles. Graphics settings weren't maxed, and was getting around 30-40fps at 1440x900 before the black screen. Lowering all the settings to minimum and changing the rez to 1024x768 seemed to stop the issue, but haven't fully verified that. Definitely seems like a heat issue. Machine will be up past 80c, scalding to the touch before it goes down. Making me super paranoid about running it any more.

My fans do spin up, albeit sometimes they just seem to come up too late. Wondering if they're just not keeping up with the temp spikes from the GPU. Bummed either way, those things run l-o-u-d at full tilt, loud enough that I'm thinking of writing this machine off as a gaming rig.

Anyway, installed the Flat Out 2 demo on the OS X side today, but haven't seen any issues running that. Temp gets to about the mid 70s and the fans get to about 4.5k.

Chiming in again.

I was one of the guys Apple called and asked to switch out my laptop. I posted in this thread a few pages up.

The new MBP was working fine for a couple of weeks. I thought I was in the clear, but I've had three BSOD in the past two days. All in Warhammer Online, incidentally.

These BSODs are a little different. My screen goes black and the sound continues like "normal," but then I get the "Warhammer Online has suffered an error, do you wish to send a report in to Microsoft?" window!

The resolution is 640x480 and the colors are muddy...just like I used to get when I'd mess up my video drivers in my old Windows machines.

I can alt-tab and see my menu bar, though the desktop is black. I can't get to any other settings. As soon as I click "Send Report" or "Don't Send" the system goes dead and I have to hold in the power button.

If this continues, I'm getting a refund. Period.

I talked to a rep today and he said that unless I could get it to crash in MacOS, I might have a hard time with the techs if they can't replicate the problem. He suggested finding a demo or game that would stress the 9600M GT enough to see if it would crack.

Any suggestions besides demos?

I am 6 days into the replacement laptop (Macbook Pro unibody OSX) and I am getting BSOD while playing WOW 50-75% of the time after about 20-40 minutes... The "w" key is getting so HOT it is actually uncomfortable to use... I was in HIPO mode with game graphics one down from the highest setting. This one was built week 45 (I think)...

Temps are 72-85 C, fans ramp up to close to 6K but don't seem to be able to make a diff...

I am also getting the panic reports in the console referring to the "NVIDIA: VRAM; 0" again too....

This is obviously a MAJOR systemic issue that presently has no fix.... really hope it gets acknowledged soon. I am not even sure it is worth me going back for LapTop #3 at this point.... maybe I will wait a few weeks and if they do not acknowledge the problem I will get a refund.

I waited sooooo long for this thing and saved money for even longer..... man I am not happy...

Call of Duty 4, World of Warcraft seem to be the most common games that people are having problems with. They are both recent enough games (World of Warcraft underwent graphics updates in the newest expansion) to push the 9600M GT to the BlSOD.

I personally don't have those games, but I am experiencing the same problem with Team Fortress 2 using CrossOver Games.

I have a open case number with AppleCare. An AppleCare rep had me run the data capture program and send that file to them. He said it was being elevated to the engineering department and they would get back to me with an update. So, I'm waiting on that.

Also, there also this: http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/12/26/nvidia.urging.new.material/

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"NVIDIA is urging notebook manufacturers to buy into a new generation of graphics hardware to avoid a chronic failure problem with the earlier hardware's material, a memo obtained by VR-Zone reveals. The graphics company reportedly "strongly recommends" that partners making certain GeForce 8700M, 8800M and 9650M video chipsets switch to a revision with a Hitachi underfill, or contact bump material, as soon as possible. The new substance provides "improved thermal cycling," according to NVIDIA, and should improve reliability as well as prevent a glut of orders for replacement chips.
The statement appears to refer to a switch to material that is better balanced and has a higher melting point, which increases a given chip's ability to withstand the regular heat-up and cool-down processes that come with turning the part on or off and running it at full speed. Many current chips from NVIDIA, including the GeForce 9600M of the current MacBook Pro as well as virtually all GeForce 8M parts, use material with a lower melting point and so are prone to long-term failures that blank out video and have prompted warranty extensions by Apple, Dell and HP.

Certain newer chips, including the 9400M integrated chip at the heart of some Apple and Toshiba notebooks, already use the newer, safer material. It's not presently known whether a later revision of the 9600M has been introduced.

NVIDIA has not commented on the latest leak but has historically tried to minimize the scope of the graphics failures, at first claiming they only affected certain HP notebooks but later acknowledging more as the universal nature of the problem became apparent."

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So... I'm not sure what's going on, but I don't have a lot of hope that this problem is going to be fixed via software.

Message was edited by: JasonKelsey

I can reproduce the problem constantly using a "cold" machine (turned off over night) and playing World of Warcraft for some minutes leading to the crash, so I did some testing with smcFancontrol 2 in the background:

After starting World of Warcraft the temperature went quickly up to 100° C with fan speed still at 2000 rpm. Then fan speed slowly began to rise leading to 110° C with still only about 2600 rpm. The game finally crashed "cooled down" to 100°C with about 4000 rpm.

My conclusion was, that firmware is increasing fan speeds to late and to slow. So I created a "Game" fan setting in smcFancontrol setting both fans to maximum 6200 rpm (after playing for some time they will be running at that speed anyway). I switch to that profile before running the game and have no more crashes. Temperature never exceeds 85° C.

So it seems to me Apple could fix the problem by allowing the fan to ramp up earlier and quicker.

I have the 2.53ghz core2duo 4gb 9600M GT 512mb MBP which I bought to replace my high end gaming PC in November this year.

Recently I've started getting a random little flicker which lead me to this thread. I was running the 9400 gfx mode when it happened so have swapped to the 9600 gfx setting to see if it happens again.

I can't say I've had any issues with crashing in games like others have mentioned. I play Left 4 Dead through boot camp in XP SP3 on the standard drivers supplied with no crashes. I randomly get lockups though and I will be updating gfx drivers when I get home to see if this changes anything. I've also played L4D at LAN parties for several hours straight without crashing. I don't think the fans were at 6000rpm either as I couldn't hear them.

I play WoW in OSX and the only issues I have is when I goto Dalaran sometimes my FPS will drop to 1-2 but generally sort itself out after a while. I put this down to the IF/Shattrath/Dalaran lag we all get.

Smc reports temps as high as 101 degrees sometimes and the fans start speeding up then which bring them down to the 80's. I was quite surprised at the heat it gives off, but you have to expect it when the whole thing is a lump of alu really. If I force the fans to max 6000rpm the temps will drop to 60-70 degrees and be almost cool to touch so no more warm left hand.

after waiting about 15 sec. to get into this thread .... because of slow script..rofl.
and after reading the hole thread, i would like to say:
apple, whats going on here?
this is my first mac book pro and i think about getting back to my old powerbook 12",
hopefully, it is really no hardwareproblem....gaming is impossible on windows boot camp xp partition.
and i havent found a program for windows, that does the same in xp, like fancontrol does in osx.
besides: i dont want to use special programms to unheat my mbp in any system.
*****

****, I'm thinking that I might just take this back and get one of the revised Airs. The 9400 will play every game I play just fine, it's half the weight, and it's also much easier to use on airplanes.

Maybe simpler is better?

Bump. My sentiments exactly. I am experiencing the exact same thing as you. I just don't think I should have to run SMC Fancontrol to get this thing to cool itself in time. I think this is the best solution though. I really want to keep this machine and not deal with returns. I don't mind the noise. I do mind having to control the fans based on the application running, rather than the system controlling the fans based on temperature instead. Is there a way to program SMC to crank up when I run a specific application?

Just bought Bioshock and Portal via Valve Software's Steam. $4.99 each is a steal.

Played Bioshock for about 2.5 hours, split between two different sessions.

No crash. Fans were cranking away.

What the ****?