MacBook Pro (2010) Freeze

I experienced both types of freezes on my mid 2010 MBP (2.6, 17 in, Core i7 with 8GB of RAM, 10.6.6). The problems actually started with screen artifacts without freezes. The artifacts looked as if the screen did not refresh properly after scrolling and sometimes black squares.

Freezes started later when I created a new user account and moved all my data there. When the machine freezes, usually the screen is garbled, the mouse is not responsive, cmd altesc does nothing, and I have to restart the computer using cmd ctrlpower.

I also get the other type of freezes when there is a spinning mouse pointer, but the screen is not garbled and I can move the pointer. It actually happened once when I took the machine to the apple store for an inspection. The tech person suggested deleting flash player plug-ins, but also admitted that the freeze did not have anything to do with flash. He checked the log and found a bunch of errors from Quicksilver. I removed Quicksilver when I got back home, but the machine froze again (with the second type of freeze). There were error messages from Firefox:

11-03-12 9:28:59 PM 0x0-0x2e02e.org.mozilla.firefox376 Sat Mar 12 21:28:59 **-MacBook-Pro.local firefox-bin376 <Error>: unknown error code: invalid display


<<I think we at least have to distinguish between the two main forms of freeze:

1. The freeze with graphics artefacts and unresponsive (frozen) mouse pointer (this thread or <a class="jive-link-external-small" href="http://">http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1807105 (143k views) or http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2587510).

2. The freeze with spinning and moving mouse pointer (the threads about 3 Gbps SATA etc.). Supposed to have been fixed by EFI 1.9 but maybe not as you're still seeing the problem.>>

I've been watching this thread for a while. Having the same issues you describe here. There do seem to be two types. Yesterday I had none, today I've had three crashes. Most days I will have one or two.

Although I use CS5 it only happens when I use Photoshop, but that is just random.

Most of the time I can be just browsing, using Lotus Notes and Tweetdeck then the screen turns to scrabbled egg and the pointer will or will not move, followed by the beach ball. Keyboard goes dead, backlights go and have to hit the power switch.

Hardware test full and short - clear
Fixed permissions, cleared cache, run scripts, done pretty much everything apart from reinstalled software. Guess that is next..

This just can't go on.

@ragtag_2: I had the exact same problem as you, but with Final Cut Pro.
The real problem is that Apple is no longer capable of delivering quality/performance with their computers. And to me, it's better if they just stop messing around with computer hardware, if they don't know what they're doing.
I had my logic board replaced twice, and i still have the problem. And it doesn't matter if i turn off Motion Sensors or switch GPU with gfxCardStatus. It just crash every once in a while.
Better get a performant PC with Windows 7 x64 these days, then waste over $2500 on a s **y MBP that doesn't work as it should.
This is just my opinion!

Seems like the logic board replacement fixed my problem. No more kernel panics at all. I can run CS5, Windows 7 in Parallels, while watching a 720p movie out on my HDTV through the Mini DisplayPort, no problem.

Very happy over here!

Just for an update, I reformatted mine with just the apple software and it would still crash to the black screen and have to be hard reset. I contacted Apple and they had me take it to a authorized service group.
I saved all my crash logs and I also showed a Flip video of the computer and having it crash.

They have sent it off to apple saying it is a bad logic board.

I bought my macbook pro in April last year and have been having these freezes since day one basically. But it has gotten worse, in the beginning it was just a couple of seconds and then the computer came back to life again. Now the mac either freezes and doesn't come back to life or it is a black screen of death. Have also been having the spinning wheel and the clock stops ticking. Sometimes I am still able to use the mouse and move the cursor and sometimes I am not.
Another thing that is extremely annoying is that when typing an email I cannot move between the lines with the arrow-keys because the marker is stuck in the end of the message.
Have had numerous contacts with apple care and they seem to pretend that they are not aware of the problem even though you can read about thousands of people experiencing similar problems.
However, I have erased my HD and reinstalled mac os but the problem is still there. Apple's engineers have been looking through some of my logs and haven't been able to find a solution. Have also had a service guy at an authorized mac dealer to look at it and he could find anything wrong.
Today apple care told me they were soon going to release a new mac os update that hopefully would make things better. According to their policies he was not allowed to tell me when exactly!
This is my first mac and I thought I was aiming for quality but it is really something of a joke!
Regards,
Daniel

Ok, just back from the Fifth Av. store where the changed my logic board! No crashes yet 🙂 Happy times!

@things43 - let me know how that works out for you. I'm going insane with mine... 😟

Curious if any of you having freezing issues are using a Momentus XT hybrid drive?

I hear what you're saying.

When I say it only happens with Photoshop I mean, only in CS5 - but it can crash at any random time whether or not I'm using PS.

Had a whole day this week without a crash, the day before that I had three in an hour.

Hadn't tried gfxCardStatus myself.

My Macbook Pro has frozen at least 5 times today, and all I can do is hold the power button and wait a few minutes before I start it up again. All I had running at the time was Safari and Tweetdeck.

I don't know what this "grey screen of death" is, all that happens on my computer is just a freeze of the screen with whatever I had open. The freeze has occurred on battery life and while plugged in.

Any tips?

I am getting numerous freezes every day, and sometimes when I'm only running Safari.
Also have had many Grey Screen Kernal Panics.
I'm having to reboot by holding the power button at least 3 times a day.
I have run long and short hardware tests, RAM tests and repaired permissions all to no avail.
I think my next option is to re-install the OS etc, and we all know what a pain that is.

This is the 4th Mac Laptop I have owned, and have had more problems with this one than all of the others combined over all the years I owned them.

I use my machine in a professional capacity and as such have always been totally willing to pay what I consider an "Apple premium" for consistent performance, but right now i'm feeling like i've basically bought myself an expensive alloy bread-board with an Apple logo on it.

I know of at least 10 other people at my work that are currently holding off, and seriously reconsidering whether they are prepared to risk spending their hard earned cash on machines that they can't trust. After all, they only need to Google MBP freezes to see how widespread this problem seems to be, and when I've been asked I can only tell the truth.

I really do hope that Apple are taking this seriously, and find a solution soon.
They are dealing with a lot of professional users here - people that are willing to spend what they need to for guaranteed stability. Word spreads really quickly, and I know for a fact that people just aren't willing to take risks with what is essentially their livelihood.
If I hadn't have ended up in a position where I needed to replace my old MBP in a hurry, and had done a little research I definitely wouldn't have bought the machine I have now, but then again, based on how positive my experiences with past Mac laptops had been I didn't think I'd need to do any research. That great reputation is now rapidly dissolving for me, as it seems to be for others too.

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 8 GB
Processor Interconnect Speed: 4.8 GT/s
Boot ROM Version: MBP61.0057.B0C
SMC Version (system): 1.58f16
Serial Number (system): W802860GAGW
Hardware UUID: 4ADDBB91-A58F-5D9F-9908-233C8FF9B9F2
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

meekul wrote:
SMC Version (system): 1.58f16

Except that my SMC version is 1.58f15, your machine is identical to mine. And it's the most reliable laptop I've ever owned. I've used it for 10 months now, and only had one very strange lockup early on (which is why I contributed to this thread). After that I may have been forced to reboot with the power button maybe two times. Unlike any of the other mac intel laptops I've used (4 in total), I've never had a grey screen kernel panic with this machine.

So I think you got a machine with bad main board or memory or similar, and should get it repaired or replaced.

If you don't want to reinstall, maybe you could try to run the machine from a clean system (no third-party software) on an external hard disk first? Though I think Apple would want you to do a clean reinstall on the internal disk before they repair it on warranty.

Thanks for the reply Espen, I'm glad that your MBP is performing normally.
Yeah, I think running it barebones from another drive will be a good start in isolating where the problem may be, it's just a time consuming process.
It is quite possible that I got a faulty machine, I guess the more of them you've owned the more chance there is of getting one a defect.
There just seems to me to be an unusually large number of this generation of i5/i7 units experiencing the same issues, and I guess at the end of the day all I want to do is pay my money and get a product that works, though I do understand that statistically this is not possible 100% of the time.

Hi,

If you search a little bit for this issue, you will find that this issue is not new! I have a MacBookPro v5.1 (late 2008). The same issue, motherboard and memories are replaced (when the machine was under warranty) with no good result. Still have freeze issue but at longer interval than yours.

This is a very nasty problem, very intermittent, hard to trouble shoot. It seem to be a "structural" problem.

I regret the PowerPC machine that was very stable and efficient.

Very frustrating!

Good luck!