Random Freezing - Continued

In my case my computer only freezes when I have power cord connected. No freezing when running MacBook off the battery.

One fool proof way of getting MacBook to freeze is watching a film in iTunes. When power cord is connected the computer freezes after 1 hour or so. The freezing will continue unless I change the GPU. It does not matter on which GPU I am before the first freeze.

When watching film on iTunes without power cord connected, then there is no freezing.

Is it only me or others have the same experience?

Freezing started after installing 4GB of memory.

Hi all,

I also have an Aluminium Macbook 2.4GHz (ordered right after it was presented in Oct 2008) which I wanted to upgrate (RAM) soon after purchasing it. However I came across this thread and thought I would wait and see if either the 3rd party producers or Apple will find a solution to this problem. Obviously, not very much happend so far, so I decided to simply try my luck and ordered the Kingston 4GB kit (KTA-MB1066K2/4G).

I replaced the original RAM with Kingston about 2 weeks ago and had my MB running nearly all the time and so far nothing happened, no freezes, even installed Win7 on Bootcamp which is running smoothly. I instaled all updates beforehand and made sure the RAM is placed firmly in its sockets. I really do hope it will continue like this.

I know this is probably not a big help for you guys, but since I followed this thread from its very beginning I thought I'd just share my experiences.

Good luck for all of you!
-Markus

I'll add my woes to this very long list.

I just bought a late 2008 UMBP 2.4Ghz and immediately upgraded the RAM from the factory 2Gb to 2 x 2 Gb Kinston SIMMS. Until I upgraded the RAM the machine didn't flinch. As soon as I started running the Kinston RAM I started having Kernel panicks and the Screen freezes so extensively documented.

I've been running exclusively on the 9400 Gfx card as I haven't needed the 9600 yet and will obviously try that given what people have experienced here. I've resorted to swopping out one of my Kinston 2Gb sims for one of my factory supplied 1GB SIMMS to see if that stabilizes the machine until Apple comes up with a fix.

My machine is one week old, but it doesn't seem like there's anything to be gained by sending it in at this stage...?

Just got the brand new 13in mbp, the first Friday after it came out, so of course not expecting any problems. This hasn't been an issue until the update for the OS. I don't have to necessarily shut down my computer; I have freezing periods every few minutes and they do eventually recover from not responding.

This happens with every browser, not only Safari (verified by Activity Monitor). I checked my plugins, etc for the browser and they're all fine. About to go abroad today and this is a big hassle...but this is the computer I'm bringing 😟. Nothing else has to be open either, it can just be the browser itself freezing. If I restart the computer, it will cooperate for a little while then go back to its annoying habit.

Is my best decision to wait to hear back from Apple regarding this issue (since they seem to be aware of it)? Or go in after I come back and have my logic board replaced, etc?

Thanks

I am having the exact same problem.

While I'm doing pretty much anything -- using Safari, listening to music on iTunes, using iPhoto -- it will frequently freeze and show the color wheel. When this happens, spaces and expose still work, and even other programs sometimes, and it fixes itself after a while.

My computer is brand new, I've had it for just over a week...whats going on?

I took my mac to the local mac store and asked them to replace the RAM. This is pretty much my only option since my unibody MacBook Pro is out of warranty (it has been introduced to a nice glass of pinot noir...)

Result is that I do not have the freezes anymore. Everything is fine. The memories that I had problems with were Kingston. Now I have Samsung.

The weird part however is that the guy who swapped my ram, installed my old RAMs into his unibody MacBook Pro and he has no crashes. According to the serial number our machines should have the same configuration.

So if i understand this correctly...the models affected are the 2.4/2.53 original models. I ask because i have the Mar 09 rev 2.66 MBP and have not had any freezes

Hope I didn't jump into troubled waters. Just bought a Refurbished 15", 2.53 w/2gigs. No problems so far, but after all this reading about freezing I'm rather concerned. Posted in another thread about how to find out what year it was made but now, I'm afraid to download/transfer anything to it...

My refurb 2.53 was having bad freezing problems, at least once per day. I took it to the genius bar and they couldn't reproduce (of course, it happens randomly!) and diagnosed a software problem based on the console logs which had NVDA (OpenGL) errors in them when the freezes occur. I've done an archive & reinstall and have updated only up to 10.5.6 and so far it hasn't froze on me in ~30 hours. Heres hoping this issue is resolved and I wonder if 10.5.7 has something to do with the freezing issue.

Just an update, my computer has NOT frozen since I've done the Archive & Install and updated only to 10.5.6. This is the longest it has gone without freezing since I've had it.

Make that two...

I have random freezes that don't require a reboot about 15 times a day, much more when i do intensive tasks and push the computer (handbrake for ex).

I have iStat and i notice that Hard disk activity is dead during these spaces of time, but proc and RAM seem to still be active. Could it be that the Hard disk shuts down when pushed too hard ?

I have a stock 2.8Ghz with CTO 500Go 5,400 RPM and 4Go RAM.

I had the same problem and have been following this forum and a few others for the last couple of months.
I purchased my MacBook Pro with 2Gb (hynix) of RAM. Then I upgraded to 4Gb from Crucial. Since I did that, I have had the same random freezes everyone else has been experiencing. From all of my checks and swapping around of memory (worked fine with 3Gb installed), I was convinced that it was a problem with the MacBook. I took it to an Apple service center and they kept it for 3 days and came back and said that all tests ran without fault. The same day I got it back, it froze again as it typically did at least once a day. From all of the feedback in the forum, it seems as though those persons using Samsung memory modules had no problems plus I found another forum where one person who sells and services MacBooks Pro said that they realized they (late 2008 model) had this problem from day 1. From his observations, he also concluded that Samsung memory was the only one that seemed to work without the random freeze.

I have since purchased 2 Samsung 2Gb RAM modules and replaced the crucial sticks. My Mac has been running all day without any freeze. I will monitor further but so far so good.
Just thought this may help out as I know how frustrating this problem can be.
I purchased the Samsung memory from OWC - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Samsung/8566DSM3S2GB/

voddy, I have the Samsung modules and have random freezing. It happens very infrequently but it still happens with the Samsung modules. It might take a week or two for it to freeze up but it eventually will.

My MacBook Pro has been randomly (but regularly... like every day) freezing since I got it. It's immensely annoying. I raised a case with Apple and thought I had it fixed by disabling SMC Fan Control, but it came back unfortunately. It's mightily annoying. It's doubly annoying because my last MacBook Pro had the burning-out NVIDIA graphics chip -- quite honestly, it seems to me that NVIDIA is bad news, and it's a bit hard to understand why Apple has stuck with them through thick and thin despite all the problems people have been having.

My system is running the original RAM that shipped with the machine (4GB) supplied by Apple. I wouldn't be surprised if the discussion around RAM brand etc is a red herring.

Dan, my worries mimic your own. My Samsung branded RAM is what shipped with my MacBook Pro straight from Apple. It has the random freezing problem. I highly suspect the problem lies with the NVIDIA chipset too and that we'll never get a resolution to the problem because they have already moved onto newer revisions of the chipset which may have fixed the problem at the hardware level.