Screen turns black when gaming?

hi i bought my first macbook pro just before christmas and within a few days i had the dreaded black screen of death in both os x and windblows , when i orderd my pro i opted for the 2.8ghz cpu and the machine seems to get very very hot when doing anything too intensive so i wonder if heat has anything to do with this i tried playing battlefield 2 in bootcamp and got a black screen within minutes however on my friends 2.5ghz model he can play the game with no issues , i returned my mac back to apple and have been given a replacement to my original spec however after only having it for two days it is exhibiting the same problems so im going to try and get a refund ,

sorry my post isnt very helpfull but you guys should definatly try and get replacement units !

Tim

Have you tried to use SMCfancontrol (or similar software) to set your default rpm speed higher than the default (2000rpm)? For some reason (likely a software problem with SMC firmware) unibody macbook pros don't accelerate the fan speeds correctly when temperature rises.

I have the similar problem, the screen turns black and the audio goes in an infinite loop. This happened several times only when I was playing games like Team Fortress 2, L4D and Far Cry 2 on Window XP SP3 under bootcamp.

I noticed everytime this happened, the temperature at the top left corner of the keyboard got painfully hot. What I did was I positioned my MacBook Pro on a cooling pad so that the pad's fan directly hits the hotspot. To further ease the load, I opened my window to cool down room temperature since it is winter in the UK. A highly ineffective method, though this frequently solved the problem, but not always, and also I am not going to play my game inside a freezing room just to cooldown my laptop. I got sick the other day just because of it.

Question: Wouldn't the fan speed drop back to default (~2000rpm or wtv it is) when bootcamp to Windows even after you set it to a higher speed while in Mac OS X?

i have tried using the fan control and making them run at higher speeds but to be honest with you have had limited success , initially after the crash when i rebooted the machine it ran fine as the fans where running at a higher rpm but even with this the machine lasted about 30 minutes tops,

I'm currently awaiting contact from apple with regards to this problem will post when i get it ,

how do i find out, in which Week my MBP was build?
and does Fancontrol work, after rebooting to Windows under bootcamp? i think its just working under osx? right?
or is the setting for the fanspeed under Fancontrol an overall setting, so i can choose Windows under bootcamp too?
i got the simply MBP with the 2,4 GHz Chips and only 2GB memory, but i have also the BSOD, but only under Windows, so far.
Any Demo-Games that let me leed to the BSOD under OS X?

In your System profile, under the hardware section, you will find the serial number of your MacBook Pro. It starts with a W. the third and fourth number represent the week in which your MacBook Pro is build.

Update 6.0

It's been several weeks since I received my 2nd Macbook Pro (I believe this to be built in week 44). While this laptop has shown no signs of BSoD. From the day I brought it home I have had SMCFancontrol installed to monitor temps. I noticed the temps get very high before the fans start to kick in but eventually they do kick in. My last MBP I don't ever recall hearing the fans ramp up at all. I now have SMC installed (haven't ran it lately been using fancontrol which is installed into the system pref). I have gamed for hours at a time with this MBP on different games with no problems.

I can't say for sure if this is going to last but what can I do besides use the MBP to the best of my ability..? I suggest anyone experiencing BSoD even after installing fancontrol to go and swap out their MBP for a new one. My guess is that you have already done far too much damage to the GPU chip and therefore will never have a stable chip. Swap it out for a new MBP hopefully you get one built within week 40ish which seems to be more stable and install fancontrol from the start so you don't burn out your chip until Apple releases a fix for this obvious over-heating issue.

Hope this helps. I know how frustrating it is, but it seems to be the only solution for right now.

When the GPU has been damaged your system won't start 😉, And you get the BSoD as safety so that the chip wouldn't damage... When you install a fancontrol I think this is more damaging the fans than the GPU and I think the whole story is a driver problem...
What soon must been solved or there comes a Still update from Apple :-P

Hi,

I was wondering whether people were using the unibody macbookpro trackpad to control dead space. I've found today that the second i touch the trackpad, the game crashes, but using an external mouse, it seems to run OK.

I've found the Apple trackpad drivers to be very unstable in bootcamp. When playing World of Goo over Steam the only time it wouldn't crash was when I was using a separate mouse ... touching the trackpad would cause the gfx to glitch and several levels to be unplayable.

To be completely honest, as the first mac I've ever purchased for myself (always been stuck with Powerbooks and Macbook Pros for work), this machine has been a colossal disappointment. The only thing that hasn't failed has been the magsafe power jack. 2 bad screens, bad DVD drive, BSOD in gaming, dust under the glass, faulty keyboard with keys popping off, and a wonky trackpad that sometimes registers right clicks as clicks in Safari.

Would really like to swap it for a working machine but after talking to applecare I have to go through a long process to prove it's broken. Will probably cost them more to pay an authorized repair shop to swap all the faulty parts than just cross-shipping me a new laptop.

Well folks.... I am on my third MBP, this one was built week 50 if 2008.

I took it back to the Apple store today with a slew of GPU error reports in the console...

If I get the BSOD while playing on this one.... I will let you know! I am almost afraid to play tonight!

I it happens on this one... then is is a hardware/software design flaw..... at which point I and not sure what I will do.

BSOD , Kernel panic with WOW
Graphic card: 9400M

Kernel panic:

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x001A9C68): Kernel trap at 0x0109c79f, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x80010033, CR2: 0x0000053c, CR3: 0x018ef000, CR4: 0x00000660
EAX: 0x00000000, EBX: 0x202bd000, ECX: 0x06f38400, EDX: 0x00ad1ea0
CR2: 0x0000053c, EBP: 0x2a3b7788, ESI: 0x00000000, EDI: 0x2a3b7aac
EFL: 0x00010206, EIP: 0x0109c79f, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x2a3b0010
Error code: 0x00000000

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x2a3b7588 : 0x12b4f3 (0x45b13c 0x2a3b75bc 0x1335e4 0x0)
0x2a3b75d8 : 0x1a9c68 (0x464700 0x109c79f 0xe 0x463eb0)
0x2a3b76b8 : 0x1a038d (0x2a3b76d0 0x2a3b76c0 0x2a3b7788 0x109c79f)
0x2a3b76c8 : 0x109c79f (0xe 0x2a3b0048 0x2a3b0010 0x2a3b0010)
0x2a3b7788 : 0x10f3a8e (0xad1ea0 0x3 0x2a3b7b54 0x2a3b7b58)
0x2a3b77e8 : 0x10f3e06 (0x202bd000 0x2a3b7aac 0x2a3b7a5c 0x2a3b7b54)
0x2a3b7ac8 : 0x10f067b (0x202bd000 0x3a000000 0x4 0x2623545c)
0x2a3b7b78 : 0x109e7f3 (0x202bd000 0x2a3b7c50 0x2a3b7ba8 0x203a4090)
0x2a3b7c88 : 0x43b3cc (0x202bd000 0x1 0x2a3b7cdc 0x2a3b7cd8)
0x2a3b7cf8 : 0x43fc25 (0x202bd000 0x1 0x4332f38 0x1)
0x2a3b7d28 : 0x43fd3c (0x202bd000 0x1 0x4332f38 0x2a3b7d58)
0x2a3b7d68 : 0x18a534 (0x202bd000 0x1 0x4332f38 0x6ad51b8)
0x2a3b7db8 : 0x12d506 (0x6ad5184 0x5203c98 0x2a3b7df8 0x11f1c6)
0x2a3b7df8 : 0x126609 (0x6ad5100 0x42dfc08 0x4b2c744 0x0)
0x2a3b7f08 : 0x198153 (0x2a3b7f44 0x0 0x0 0x0)
0x2a3b7fc8 : 0x1a0977 (0x5f658c0 0x0 0x1a30b5 0x44404f0)
Backtrace continues...
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.GeForce(5.3.6)@0x1082000->0x1119fff
dependency: com.apple.NVDAResman(5.3.6)@0xbd0000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(1.7.1)@0xbc2000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.5)@0x61e000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(1.7.1)@0x7a5000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: World of Warcraft



*This is my firs mac. I hate it, heating problems, kernel problems, video problems. *** is this?*

There appears to be a problem with SMC where it doesn't ramp up fan speeds when computer gets hot. Try smcFancontrol or similar software to manually set higher fan speeds when gaming (for example 4000rpm) and see if the problem persists. This is quite good solution while we're waiting Apple to fix the problem once and for all.

1. Hard drive sound on my System. I took my Laptop into the Apple Store and hand them look at it. I have the the 320gig 7200rpm drive. If makes a repeating hum sound (almost like a grinding sound) all the time. The Tech said that Apple knew about the issue and it has something to do with the vibration coming from the Drive and the Mounting brackets. He said that maybe some new Rubber gaskets might be used to fix the issue. But I've seen or heard nothing more about this. But this issue is just for the 320gig 7200rpm drives.

2. Black screen of death issue. I tried taking Ram out to see if that would fix the issue. NOPE.
I also checked temperature but that's not the issue. I can boot the Laptop up after being off and
very cool. And launch "World of Warcraft" or "City of Heroes" and cause them both to cause a Black Screen and a repeating 1/4 second sound from the speakers. And the only fix is to hit the power button. Now the way I can cause it to crash is go into either programs QUALITY SETTINGS and change it up to HIGH QUALITY or lower from that... and it instantly crashes. It seems if I leave it at a
lower setting it plays just fine. But in "City of Heroes" if it's on High Quality and running I can also force it to crash if I rotate the angle up or down all the way.

I got this Macbook Pro late 2008 model when it first was released. I want to know from anyone out there if you think Apple should replace this Laptop due to having both of these issues. I don't really think that a Software patch is going to fix this issues.

I Have a same problem this is coz this new 9600GTi using high performance MBP even in Mac os. And xp and vista also using GT so thats why black screen and hot.

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP51.0074.B00
SMC Version: 1.33f6
Serial Number: W8844xxx1GK
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT:
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: 3327
gMux Version: 1.7.3
Displays:
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected