Sudden, random freeze after 10.5.7 update

And so to conclude I believe the problem is unfixable. If you have Applecare request a replacement computer. Bad video card, no bone.

Hi,

Here is my experience. Since 10.5.7 update, my late 2006 imac with 7300 GT graphic card is freezing several times a day. As I'm getting upset with this problem I did some tests yesterday.

1 - Backup off my box with time machine
2 - Format my 500 Go HD and installed 10.5.1 with original DVD
3 - Update system to 10.5.6 with combo update

*NO additional software installed. NO data migration from time machine.*

=> Used the computer for a day *WITHOUT ANY* freeze (safari, itunes, quicktime ...)

_Sounds like 10.5.6 is OK._

Now second test:

1 - Format my 500 Go HD and installed 10.5.1 with original DVD
2 - Update system to 10.5.7 with combo update

*NO additional software installed. NO data migration from time machine.*

=> *Used the computer for an hour and sudden freeze using safari*.

_Sounds like 10.5.7 is KO._

Now third test:

1 - Format my 500 Go HD and installed 10.5.1 with original DVD
2 - Update system to 10.5.8 with combo update

*NO additional software installed. NO data migration from time machine.*

=> *Used the computer for 15 minutes and sudden freeze using itunes*.

_Sounds like 10.5.8 is KO._

Now last test:

1 - Format my 500 Go HD and installed fedora core 11
2 - Compiled a kernel while playing a 3D game

=> *Used the computer for 2 hours without any problem*.

Conclusion:

1 - This is not a hardware problem
2 - This problem is not present in 10.5.6
3 - Problems start with 10.5.7
4 - Problems are not fixed in 10.5.8
5 - This is a problem with nvidia driver and opengl

Regards

Just to weigh in on this topic;

My Dad is using a MacBook 2008 model and had been complaining to me for the last week about it suddenly freezing up on him. While I was round his house taking a look at his set up, I took the opportunity to use his internet to upgrade my own MackBook Pro (Intel Core 2 Duo) to 10.5.8.

Bad move; mine started doing the same thing as his!

Dad's graphic card is an intel GMA x3100, where as mine is a GeForce 8600M GT. Is this a coincidence or have Apple really dropped the ball and there is an issue with a large range of display drivers?

I've installed smc fan control and taking a note of temperatures when either crash. So far mine has seeized up around 58C despite running fans at 5000rpm (not that hot as my macbook pro usually idles around 45C)

I still don't believe that this problem has not been fixed from apple. Even snow leopard has the same problem 🙂

My Macbook pro late 2008 model, had the same problem. Since I cannot waste any more time with it I bought new unibody macbook pro 17 (and this one has the famous beeping problem with segate 7200 harddrive, at least apple release a firmware fix for that problem).

Anyway, I remember reading long time ago in this thread or somewhere else I cannot really remember, that someone took his machine to apple care and they have replaced the hard drive for him and the problem gone away. I know that its working fine with 10.5.6 and I know it doesn't make any sense that its HDD problem. Anyway, I've decided to try that on my old Macbook pro 15 few days ago, and replaced the hard drive (WD 7200rpm) with very old hard drive I had.

I've installed leopard, and updated it to 10.5.8. I've opened more than 20 pages in Youtube (you know how bad flash for Mac and how it overheat). According to iStat. CPU temperature reached 98 C.
Seriously, I don't know why, but not a single freeze. I cannot explain why, and whats the reason.

I hope someone could try that out and tell us the results, If you have 7200 HD try one with slower RPM.

That's not really resolving the issue, that's just bypassing it.

That being said I've experienced the same thing and I sent my computer to apple for repair. They replaced the logic board, airport card, airport antenna, and the screen. It doesn't freeze anymore and I've done all the things that used to trigger it like downloading torrents, video streaming, video chat (things that would use a lot of bandwidth both up and down)

I would say whatever they did fixed the issue. I'm thinking there was a bad batch of airport cards or logic boards which conflicted with something in 10.5.7+ since the issue is not THAT widespread.

Hi all,

It's now almost two weeks since I downgraded my late 2006 IMac to 10.5.6. Since I reinstalled all my custom apps and personnal data and I encountered NO random (or not random) freeze.

This bug IS related to 10.5.7 and 10.5.8 revisions and sounds to be also present in 10.6 and 10.6.1.

As my mac was freezing almost every 15/30 minutes with 10.5.7 and 10.5.8 I won't buy snow leopard nor upgrade to any leopard version.

I own several Apple devices and I'm really sad about Apple concern in this story.

Regards,

PS : Someone posted a "tip", "workaround" to bypass random freeze by disabling wifi and bluetooth. I tested this a long time ago with 10.5.7 and 10.5.8 and it doesn't change anything

Laurent

Message was edited by: asrenzo

I just thought I'd follow up. I'm still freeze free 12 days on, so whatever apple did worked.

I'm so glad I found this thread - I thought my hard drive was dying, too.

Symptoms I've experienced:

Constant freezing (due to excessive disk activity?)
The grey "flashing folder" icon during startup once or twice.

I've never had any issues with my c2d iMac (late 2007), but in the last few days or so I've been having all the issues that everyone's been describing.

Anyone have any new thoughts?

Oh, I guess I forgot to mention - disabling the AirPort did not fix the problem for me. Hoping someone else has reached a resolution.

Hey, I know this topic is flagged as "answered" but I just thought I'd share our experiences/solution in case it helps others. We had the same random freezing and display anomalies with our MBP after doing the 10.5.7 software update a couple of months ago, and tried various solutions as described here with no lasting effect. In the end we discovered that by turning off "enable spaces" in system preferences the random freezing etc stopped and the MBP has been working fine since. Might not work for everyone, and it does mean that we don't have spaces running, but it was certainly better than having to deal with constant freezing/restarts or doing a reinstall back to 10.5.6. Hope this is of help to some.

Hi all,

I don't know why this discussion has been flagged as answered because I did not find any answer in all this thread. The last proposal is NOT the answer. I tried on a fresh 10.5.7 install with no user data migration nor applications migration and freezes where back.

Now my last experience :

As I bought a _Snow Leopard licence_ for this box, I decided to :

1 - format (once again) my HD => OK,
2 - install Snow Leopard from scratch => OK,
3 - as soon first boot was done, apply 10.6.2 combo update => OK,
4 - check /repair perms and so on => OK,

And, you won't believe it :

- First freeze *7 minutes after 10.6.2 reboot* while trying to configure Mail to check my emails,
=> Hard reboot using power switch

- Second freeze *almost 15 minutes after reboot* while surfing the web with Safari.
=> Hard reboot using power switch

I couldn't believe I had no hardware problem, so I rebooted using my favorite Gentoo install CD and I rebuilded an entire KDE, Xorg system ... from a stage 3 and *NO PROBLEM*.

So don't tell me a multiple hours non stopping compilation process is more tolerant to hard problem than Leopard 10.5.{7,8} or Snow Leopard 10.6.x normal use.

I also installed NVidia officials drivers and I still had no problems.

Then I finally rebooted on 10.5.1 install DVD, imported my TimeMachine backup, upgraded to 10.5.6 with combo, and everything is fine since 3 days.

*PS : Does anybody know how I can get my Snow Leopard money back ?*

Regards,

Laurent

I guess I found some kind of a workaround:

I installed 10.6 on an external USB drive and rebooted to update with lastest 10.6.2. It's now more than 2 hours since I'm using the computer. No freeze, no glitches ...

Sounds like the problem is a video / hdd mixing. No idea. The computer is running fine with other OSes and 10.5.6. Problems started with 10.5.7.

I don't know what I could find now ...

Regards,

Laurent