Screen turns black when gaming?

Hey guys,

I went and bought both crysis and crysis warhead last week and did dome testing. At 1024x768 with medium/high settings, both games seem to be running perfectly. In some instances, I had run the game for 2+ hours with no extra temperature management in windows xp sp3, and to my surprise, there was never a BSOD. I find this odd as oblivion and CoD4 cause BSODs for me, yet crysis, perhaps the most demanding pc game on the market, runs fine.

Oh and Gareth, the random lockups in L4D can be fixed by disabling the multicore processing option in the in-game video settings.

I have spent since christmas doing tests and have found the following:
(all tests done on the 9600M GT for an hour with cooldowns between tests)

Results:
OS X
WoW: No Crash
StuntMania: No Crash

Crossover (Steam)
Team fortress 2: No Crash
Garry's mod: Crashes (due to unrelated issue)
Half life 2: No Crash
Portal: No Crash
Counter strike source: No Crash
Left 4 Dead: Crashes

Windows XP (Standard drivers)
Team fortress 2: Crash
Garry's mod: Crash
Half life 2: No Crash
Portal: No Crash
Counter strike source: No Crash
Left 4 Dead: Crash

Windows XP (nVidia drivers)
Team fortress 2: No Crash
Garry's mod: No Crash
Half life 2: No Crash
Portal: No Crash
Counter strike source: No Crash
Left 4 Dead: Slow to load but No Crash

GPU temps:
Doing nothing: 58C
Playing a game: around 80-90C

Things I found out and notes:
Left side of display hinge gets unbearably hot
Left side of trackpad gets very hot
Area around WASD keys gets extremely hot
Do not game in bed, it burns
USB cooling pads did not help at all with the temperatures

It also works out that when running games at home, My MacBook Pro overheats, while at my friends house (warmer room) the MacBook Pro does not overheats, is the overheating protection working on internal vs. external temperatures?

I'm having to think carefully about what gaming in the summer would be like, its freezing here currently but in the summer it would get very hot in my room

Conclusion:
After monitoring the GPU for all the tests, it seams that the GPU is being overclocked with base drivers in both OSX and Windows, installing drivers from nVidia works fine in windows, but not the ones from the bootcamp disk or the ones built into OS X, it does help if the applications you use are native and intel because some Problems I have found are related to rosetta and WINE (core of crossover)

Things still to do:
Work out the difference in nVidia to Apple provided drivers
Test again in summer
Find a fix!

Hey folks, I'm following RoberRM's example and adding this for the numbers too. Bought a 2.53 GHz MBP midway through November and discovered the BSOD while "testing" the Mac version of Prey. It still occurs even with the various firmware updates and 10.5.6 installed.

I've contacted Apple, I have a case number, and as soon as the Xmas break is over I'm hitting Bluewater and the MBP is going back. I don't care if they replace the logic board or put the hard drive in a new machine, I just want a £1700 machine that works properly... 😟

Gutted, the MBP is my 6th Mac and it's the only one that's given me problems. Sigh.

After 1 month of waiting, there is NOT EVEN AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT of this issue from Apple.

This is outrageous!! SGD $4000 for defective product!! I don't even want an exchange anymore, the problem won't go away! I want my money back!!

I added a program (system extension) called "fan control" and my black screen issue is gone. I also use iStat Menus to keep an eye on the system temps. It seems to me that this problem may not be a graphics chip problem at all. The firmware or operating system is responsible for monitoring system temps, is it not? I did have the black screen issue once while under lower powered graphics prior to adding fan control. Not a single instance of black screen since I added this. iStat menus revealed that the system was simply not responding to increased heat previously. Temps would climb and the fans would sit there at 2000 rpm. Now with fan control the fans speed up immediately and run between 3500 and 5500 rpm while gaming. All working fine. Seems like firmware or OS to me. We certainly shouldn't have to resort to third party software to get our fans to work properly but at least there is a workaround for the time being.

I read the hole Thread (and others with same issue).

Perhaps i order a new MBP soon. Just one question:
are there ANY MBP units out there, with no Problems at all during HEAVY gaming under Bootcamp?

Thanks

Message was edited by: m.beiner

I am using week 52 (last week of 2008) macbook pro 15"

so far, i have not yet encountered any BSOD in both mac os x and windows vista, in heavy gaming.

I have only been using this computer for a few days though, unsure if it will manifest in the future.

Since my logic board replacement last month, I've not had a single hiccup in bootcamp XP SP3.

Temperatures do hit 110C, but no BSOD or crashes.. After a while temps settle in the lower 90C range.

Mostly play source games full settings.

wooo. Was at the mac store today and was about to pull the trigger on a new mbp but something in my gut held me back. I guess I'll wait for the next installment of mbp or the problem fixed w/ this mbp

Has anyone heard if the imac have this problem?

Until then i'll keep this g4 466 mghz runnin9 No problems since I owned this since 2000 and i'll be playing Ghost Recon until I get a new machine.

Any new buyers getting Bsod?

Meatwagon2 wrote:
Has anyone heard if the imac have this problem?

my imac 20" 2,66 (graphics proc ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO) run games without any issue. No experience with NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS though.

p.s. apple fix the bsod problem!

Mmh,
I read this Thread again: it seems that the replacement MBPs from ch0b1ts2600, Kevenly, Dachande663, Robert Derelanko, chieferich, Chaucer498, CLHF, and Garrett H. are OK.
+ several Users in this thread with no gaming Problems with their first MBP.

I have the exact same issue. Haven't tested this in Mac OS X yet.

Boot ROM Version: MBP51.0074.B01
SMC Version: 1.33f8

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0647
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3343
gMux Version: 1.7.3


I hope to get my unit replaced soon. This is my main computer, so I don't want to miss it for a week or two. I will call apple tomorrow and see what's up.
I have bought mine from apple's online store. Can I visit an authorised reseller to get this issue resolved? We do not have any Apple stores in my country. Only "authorised resellers".

Message was edited by: David De Keersmaecker

I have problem with LFD just straight up quitting within 5 minutes or less. No freezing or looping, just minimizes and quits like I was never playing.

Multicore turned off. Video switched to windowed non bordered.

GoW & CoD5 lock up within the first few minutes as well.

What's up with that!

1st MBP 2.8 (Nov 5): Major BSOD, 9600 GT useless
2nd MBP 2.8 (Dec 3): No BSOD at all, faulty optical drive
3rd MBP 2.8 (Dec 17: No BSOD at all, faulty LCD

Only one out of three I've had exhibited the BSOD problem, and may you all believeth me when I say unto you that I put each 9600 GT through grueling, rigorous testing.

Hi

Well I still don't believe this is a driver bug as under vista mine ran extreamly hot and scrambled the graphics. I think this product was untested and rushed to production much like the xbox and the ring of death!

It's clear to me the thease laptops dont have enough vents and hot air is pushed against the hinge under intense load! as soon as the body warms up enough the whole system crashes!

I think apple have made a big mistake with this and are resolving it by underclocking the gpu and speeding up the fans and not the real cause a badly designed product!

Ive sent mine back for a full refund and im holding out for the new imac lets hope they aint made it that THIN it overheats like this!

Im sorry to say were all a bunch of beta testers for the macbook pro till they bring out rev.2!

Carl