MacBook Pro (2010) Freeze

Anyone else with the new i7 MBP experiencing a hard freeze? No Grey Screen of Death, just freezing screen and input. Only remedy is to hold the power button to cycle the power.

It has frozen twice in the last week. Both times the machine was on battery power and certainly not under load - just light browsing, no gaming.

Just curious if this is going to be a longer term problem...

[System]
Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
Memory: 8 GB

[Serial ATA]
Model: APPLE SSD TS512B
Revision: AGAA0206

MacBook Pro (2010), Mac OS X (10.6.3), Intel Core i7 2.66, Apple 512GB SSD

Posted on May 3, 2010 1:56 PM

Reply
1,712 replies

May 23, 2010 11:34 AM in response to Artitron

I would like to add my computer to the list, as it crashes in the exact same was as the others: mouse moves, but nothing else happens. It has only done this twice in the past two weeks, but I now don't have much confidence in the long term integrity of this unit. I am hesitant to request a replacement because I don't want to be without a computer for two weeks (it's a CTO). Apple's recommended solution for me is to clear my cache frequently, which seems to me not to be a permanent solution. Really hoping there will be a firmware upgrade, but wondering if this is something more fundamental.

My computer is as follows:

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.B07
SMC Version (system): 1.58f16
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

May 23, 2010 12:05 PM in response to Artitron

In my case, all input (mouse/trackpad/keyboard) hangs, even superdrive stops loading discs, and a hard shutdown is required. Ran Apple Hardware Test twice, but no issues found. Tried reinstalling SL from scratch, but still freezes. No excessive temperatures detected with iStat Pro, freezes completely at random, even with auto gpu switching disabled. Really don't know what to do, since I have no idea of what's the ratio of i5/i7 MBP owners having the same problem. For those who had this issue and got a replacement, did that solve the problem? Or should we wait for a software solution?

May 23, 2010 1:10 PM in response to Artitron

Machine I got:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,1
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz

Nothing in kernel logs when it happens to me, there is no pattern. Can be heavy usage or light usage. Same issue happens, freezes for approximately ~10 minutes (complete freeze, even mouse) then comes back and everything continues as if nothing happened. Happens to me at least two times a day.

I doubt it's a hard drive issue, the MacBook Pro came with a 5400 RPM drive and the same issue occurred. I reloaded the OS and the same issue happened. I then switched to my OCZ SSD Drive (new SSD), same issue.

Also having a issue where my keyboard input is delayed, so I called AppleCare and they're sending me a new one. Hopefully the new one is better.

May 23, 2010 1:29 PM in response to Artitron

Not sure if this has relevance, but I'll throw it out anyways. My 15" (i7, 256SSD, 8GB, Matte) was having the same symptoms (under both OS X & Bootcamp Win7). It was freezing 2+ times a day, so Apple support has a replacement on the way. I was mainly running mobile, sometimes plugged in, sometimes on battery. Being plugged in didn't seem to make a difference.

For the past week, I've been working in my office (always plugged in and always connected to a new 24" Cinema display) and it hasn't locked-up once. Very strange. I'm still betting on a problem with the graphics hardware - but I'll see how the new system behaves.

Apple support, incidentally, is nothing to brag about. After 1+ hrs on the phone, finally reached a higher-level support contact. She told me a replacement system would be shipped. After not hearing anything for another week I called back - seems my case didn't get promoted correctly. Now it's going to take another 10-14 days for my replacement system to arrive. 3 weeks to resolve a DOA system is unacceptable...and we are even an enterprise customer.

May 23, 2010 10:49 PM in response to dliang

Hi All,

My MBP 15" with 500GB (Toshiba). Bought in late March 2010. Froze on me on 18 May 2010 in less than 2 months in service. No windows or parallel installed. Standard stuff with Firefox and Chrome. While operating with both Safari and Chrome opened. It froze on me with the beach ball.

Force shut down tried to repair using disk utility, boot up using DVD. On all 3 occasions it hung on me.

Sent in to E Serv and was told that it is highly possible that a hard disk failure had occurred.

Unable to recover data. Hard disk was targeted for 4 days only 14% observed whilst in service.

All my data is lost. Would be replacing my harddisk as it is under warranty.

Anyone else facing this issue?

May 24, 2010 1:04 AM in response to Artitron

I seem to be getting the same symptoms as everyone else. I have the following setup:

MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
500GB @ 5400 rpm

I think I've had my Mac for about 3 weeks already. As soon as I started the computer I tried viewing a YouTube video and the first freeze occurred, out of the box mind you. I didn't think much of it, although I was kind of concerned since I literally just began using it and it started to stall for about 20 seconds. I thought that maybe it was a Flash issue somehow, since I've had minor freeze ups on certain Flash enabled pages before with other Macs.

I would continue to get these stalls daily and wondered if it was my extra ram added that could cause it to freeze up. The only reason I thought it might be the ram was because I had added ram to my previous MacBook Pro Intel Core Duo and never got the speed bump expected when I installed it. (I added it after I had received my computer). Because of that, I thought I was experiencing a potential ram issue.

I also thought that Snow Leopard could be the issue and found this post:

http://appletoolbox.com/2010/04/the-simplest-most-effective-fix-for-mac-os-x-10- 6-3-freezes-startup-issues/

However, the install CD that came with my Mac is 10.6.3, the very version that may be the issue here. So I borrowed an original copy of Snow Leopard from my friend, but my Mac doesn't seem to accept it. Nothing works, holding C with the disc inserted at startup doesn't work. All I get is the Apple chime with the gray screen and the Apple logo, no activity at all. I also tried going to the system preferences startup disk pane and choosing the CD to boot when restarting, but that didn't work with the same mentioned result as said before. I'm curious if anyone has successfully tried downgrading from 10.6.3 with the new Core i7's particularly. If so, please post your results.

Now the 20 second stalls are occurring more frequently about a dozen times daily depending on my use of the computer. Besides trying to downgrade the current version of Snow Leopard, I have no clue what could be the issue. My computer is brand new so a hardware issue is probably unlikely (although freak accidents occur). This issue is beyond my capabilities. I guess I'll be taking my brand new MacBook Pro to the Apple store. This has been a horrible experience to say the least.

May 24, 2010 2:19 AM in response to Artitron

I had initially posted on this and it got deleted... So let me try again:

Same problem here- New MBP 17" core i5 - I've had it for a week and it 'hung-froze' on me 17 times now. This is completely random sometimes happens 3 times in a row, sometimes will not happen for over 6h and it happens irregardless of what programs I use.
The only solution is to manually restart.
It appears that when I do all changes in settings are lost (Screen brightness, Sound volume)

I travel for my work, so I went to a Genius bar in Tokyo (Shibuya) and they told me they will not replace my mac because I did not buy it in Japan... Can anyone tell me if this is even true?

Needless to say I am frustrated because it is my main work tool.

Hope Apple can get this fixed really quickly.

May 24, 2010 11:03 AM in response to Artitron

Experiencing the same issue. Three times now, once last week, and twice last night. Nothing in the logs. Mouse pointer moves but display frozen. After reading this thread, I let it sit for a while after the third occurrence last night and it did come back to life after 10-15mins. I spoke to Apple support this morning and they want me to leave it on after booting into the install DVD to see if the problem is HW or SW. Will try that and call them back tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I'm also trying out the gfxCarStatus tool and setting it to "Intel only" to see if this fixes the problem (in which case the NVIDIA card would be the root cause). Let's see how it goes..

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MacBook Pro (2010) Freeze

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