Screen turns black when gaming?

Well, so much for that. 🙂

Trackmania (under Steam) crashed almost immediately. Both in windowed mode and with "Display vsync" enabled in fullscreen.

I'll do another quick stress test in Warhammer, will report back.

I quickly got escalated to 2nd line and they helped me through the process of logging system data in OSX to hopefully find some logs and causes.

They have that now, including links to this thread.

They will get back to me inside of three business days, which probably means mid next week.

Very helpful and understanding, Apple Support.

Will report back next week. Until then I'll continue stress testing Warhammer in windowed mode. 🙂

I wouldn't wonder if the problem is the known defect of the nvidia chips.
Nvidia knows about since july but doesn't dare to inform but instead keeps on selling those affected batches of bad chips.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/08/28/nvidia-55nm-parts-bad

To quote from the article:

+"... Basically every 65nm and 55nm Nvidia part appears to be defective. It is not a question of yes or no, but how defective each line is, and what the failure rate for each one is. We are hearing of early failure rates in the teens per cent for 8800GTs and far higher for 9600GTs, so this is not a quibble over split hairs."+

More details to the problem are described here (further links insde):
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/01/why-nvidia-chips-defectiv e

Basically the article says that many manufactures try to "fix" the problem by increasing the fan speed but this merely delays the problem (they try to get out of warranty). In other cases (like mentioned) here it didn't help because there is no other fix than replace the bad chips. (The defect is basically a bad choice of the chip-packaging material from nvidia which will lead to the ultimate death of the chip after a certain time)


What a pity apple used nvidia chips in its mbps 😟

Regards,
ToM

Hi I'm new mac-user and I want to know how I can test my MacBook Pro if it's plagued by this problem. I haven't any games and I want to know if with any benchmarks I can test my computer and how I can test it. I bought it in last of october and it arrived me on 10 november. Thank you and sorry for my english.

1. Download the free game Nexuiz (for OS X) at http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/
2. Install this game
3. In Mac OS X go to system settings -> energy (or power management?) and select 'best performance'. A windows will pop up, click on 'logout'
(note: the names of the menu could be slightly different, I don't use English as language on OS X)
4. After you logged in again, start this Nexuiz game
5. Play and pray that you don't get the black screen of death 🙂
6. Post your results here (important!): did it crash, or not? How long have you tested? etc ...

I get a black screen of death with Nexuiz after 5 - 10 minutes of playing, but some people will get it only after 1 hour (or more) of playing.

The MBP I purchased last week was getting the BlSoD when playing WoW in Leopard 10.5.5. I installed smcFanControl and that seemed to do the trick; however, I exchanged the MBP anyways, and I just restored the new computer from disk image. Hopefully everything will work fine now. I'll post an update if I still get a BlSoD when playing WoW.

I purchased my MBP one week ago. I was quite concerned when I read this thread. I downloaded the open source game mentioned earlier. I also downloaded the Flatout 2 demo.

Laptop is set to use dedicated graphics chip ("Best Performance"). I played for 1 hour now, details/effects set to high. So far I was not able to reproduce the black screen. I am only using OS X. The Laptop gets quite hot and fans start rotating at high speed. But no black screen so far. (I will keep monitoring the issue).

Using the link posted here earlier I found out that my MBP was manufactured in week no. 45 (November).

I hope Apple will release an official statement regard that strange bug.

I tryed Nexuiz for about an hour on my Macbook Pro (bought in early Nov.) and it doesn't seem to have the issue but only a noise caused by cooling fans rotating at millions rpm 🙂

Message was edited by: Carolus730

Another hand up on this issue. Win XP SP3, continual black screen crashes in Oblivion, C&C3 and Half Life 2. No crashes (yet) in SupCom, World in Conflict and Bioshock, but I suspect I just haven't played these titles long enough. The crashes which I experience usually occur within 5-10 minutes of starting Oblivion, C&C3 and Half Life 2. The other games I have played for several hours with no lockups. Varying the video drivers using laptopvideo2go drivers does not seem to have any obvious benefit other than delaying the inevitable.

Macbook pro is also manufactured in week 45 (3 - 9 Nov), so the fact that the poster above does not appear to have a dud machine does not mean the Nov production run is OK. I have noted that it does not appear to be a heating issue, as ramping up fans to 6000 rpm using a utility does not prevent a crash in Oblivion, even though the GPU temps are much cooler than on other games in which I experience no lockups even after an hour or two of gaming. I have logged the temps experienced in each case to check this. It could be that the rate of change of the temp is so high just before the crash that the logger does not get a chance to write the newest block of temps just before the crash, but the evidence suggests this is not the case.

I really hope Apple comes up with a fix, because even though the engineering of this toy makes me worship it like the apes worship the monolith in Space Odyssey 2001, unbridled machine **** can only take you so far. I bought the machine to do 3D rendering (which it does beautifully) and play games (which it does beautifully - when it works). I am going to have a serious sense of humour failure soon if this problem is not fixed ASAP. In every other respect it is a lovely machine, but I want to game this XMAS darn it !

I do not want to foster confusion or spread rumors. But I think it is important to still discuss the question - is this a hardware issue or software.
Also arguments for discussing with Apple's Support staff could come in handy.

I found this Link in another thread:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/08/28/nvidia-55nm-parts-bad

I don't fully understand the details given. From my understanding there could be a problem of larger magnitude with Nvidia's chip production.

Maybe one of you guys could have a look and give update if that article is related/helpful?

Regarding this Nvidia article you've linked to (nice find, thanks)-

I don't know if the author's analysis of the information he's evaluating is correct. If he is correct then Nvidia made a large batch of bad chips. The material they used to make them is unstable, faulty, and fails under duress or over time. The failure rate was bad with the 8600's, and according to him the failing percentage is even higher in the 9600 GT chips. He states that manufacturers are aware of it and they use high fan rates to attempt to compensate long enough to get machines past warranty but all it does is prolong the issue. The only way to find out if you have a good chip or a bad chip is to disassemble it in search of a difficult-to-access laser-etched ID number.

Nvidia apparently changed their manufacturing materials and methods to attempt to correct the problem, but instead of eliminating the defective stock and replacing faulty components, they have chosen to randomly mix up the bad chips with the newer chips and continue distributing them for use in laptops until the bad chips have run out. The author suggests that to do otherwise may likely bankrupt the company.

So that's the story in a nutshell, and if it's accurate it explains why some people have okay machines and some people don't.. It would of course it also explain why getting a replacement logic board or machine often alleviates the issue. By my count in this thread alone, only one person received a machine that continued to manifest the black screen of death after replacement.

I am happy to see this discussion. Have a new MB and have been having problems playing World of Warcraft. I bought this machine b/c it was supposed to be able to run this game.

My screen does NOT go black, but will freeze with sound looping in the background. I would say that this is a consistent problem, happening many gaming sessions but not all. I have to do a hard restart to proceed. To date, I have been experimenting with a variety of factors that I thought might be the cause: turning down video and sound options, installing/uninstalling add-ons, my razer deathadder for mac mouse, etc. I have just installed smcFanControl. There does not seem to be a specific trigger, though I note that my machine is running hot and working hard to keep up with WoW. It only locks up after I have been playing for at least 20 mins. I will try and be more systematic in my testing and report back.

I have a 17" Intel MBP-- but not a new 2008 machine and have been getting the black screen of death while playing WOW. It isn't just the new MacBooks or Pros. Apple needs to investigate this problem on both new and old models.

EJulien, do you get it with other games as well? There might be a WoW-specific bug if so. On these new machines such as mine, these lock-up happens in any game. I only old games save for the Flat Out 2 Demo but they all lock up when using the 9600M GT.

I try to play with Nexuis and FlatOut 2 for 1 hour and it seems that my computer haven't the problem. I hear the noise of fun speed and I registered only one problem with the audio. When I playing with FlatOut 2 my audio is freezing and I must restart. I don't know if the problem is caused by the flag on 3d audio on the optiono of the game because when I restarted my Mac and I turned of the flag on 3d audio I don't registered the problem. The problem is it due by this option?