Q: MacBook Pro (2010) Freeze

Mine started doing this same thing last night. I was able to use an auxiliary pen & tablet to move around but that's not really a fix, of course.

17" MacBook Pro
3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Issues:
cursor freezes
trackpad freezes
several letters on keyboard very balky - have to hit them a few times to work.

Actions:
power off/ restart brings everything back for a while.
cleaned trackpad (thought there was something like hand lotion making it unresponsive. no)

Then this thread which I started going through until I found that it is at 70 pages! I'm too dumb to know which fixes I should filter out of this.
Pretty big issue, huh folks? Has anyone had luck talking to Apple about this since this is obviously more that a little hiccup?

Thanks all, and good luck!

Hi All,

maybe this might bring some light into others people life .
Let me say that I am not sure if this is related to a logic board issue when running Windows on higher loads or not but here is what I was running through (maybe some without running windows as bootcamp do have freezes as well?).

When all the freezing started, as far as I remember pretty much right from the beginning after I purchased the laptop, it was first in Windows. The NVidia driver gave me an error message that the driver restarted and did recover sucessfully. From that time on it sometimes happened again to me, but more critical, from that time on the laptop also started to freeze entirely from time to time, both in OSX and Win7.
So I brought it to the genius bar and they did a repair on it (changed the logic board). When I came back home with the repaired laptop I instantly started OSX and did a software update so that the just release firmware upgrade got installed onto it (EFI v1.9).
I recognize now, the the cooling fans do kick in much faster when the laptop is running on higher loads, a behaviour I would like to have on my previous 17" MBP as well since that ******* is hot as **** at the keyboard.

Up to now I am running my laptop now for a couple of weeks and I have to say, both in W7 and OSX pretty stable without any issues.

b.r.
Houli

Hi eekahil (and anyone else who is interested).

Short story: I've had freezing issues since I got my MBP in late July. Phonecalls to apple support and more recently a trip to a local service provider have all been fruitless. None of the fixes (software updates, PRAM resets, OS reinstalls) have worked thus far. Comprehensive hardware tests by the service guy were all clear. The plan from here suggested by the service guy is to do a proper reinstall of the OS and failing that, go to the genius bar. To be honest I'm at the point where I just want to get my money back and buy something that actually works 100% of the time.

I asked the service guy about the replacement policy - apparently apple will happily replace within 10 days if it's a faulty computer, no questions asked, but otherwise they require 3x replacements of parts before they'll replace the computer. Not much help to me given there's no identified hardware problem.

SO I would suggest to anyone who's just started having this problem and it's less than 10 days after the purchase - get a replacement! Don't do what I did and hope the problem was a one-off and will go away... I was reading frustrated posts like this a month ago and didn't actually think I'd end up writing one myself.

As others have already pointed out, the more we bring this problem to apple's attention e.g. by fronting up at genius bar, asking for replacements and refunds, etc, the more apple will hopefully realise they need to do something about it. I would think that if so many people are having this issue (I know these forums give a biased view but 1000+ posts in a few short months - that's a lot!), and there is supposedly nothing wrong hardware-wise, there is something intrinsically wrong with either the MBPs themselves or the software. $2000+ per MBP x however many people are reporting issues on here = a lot of $$ for apple for selling us what may be a total lemon. I can't help but suspect that if this were happening with the iPhone 4 this problem would be getting a lot more attention.

ANYway sorry about the cynical ranting. Here's hoping things work out well for others with this issue, and that apple get a solution asap.

I would say i run mine extensively and I bought mine in May.
I had some crashes at the beginning, but with all recent updates mine is running just fine.
I am very happy with it and usually i got skype video, CSS and couple browser running at the same time for several hours. everything running just fine.
crossing the fingers for everyone.

Mine came back from the repair shop today and the hard disk had been replaced under warranty. As I now have a 13" MBP (I need to work), I left this running in the office and will see how things go over the next week or more before putting it back into service full time.

I will keep the forum posted as to whether this has fixed the problem for me.

Well I have to take back all I said two days ago. Today the NVidia driver in Windows 7 again messaged that the driver needed to be restarted due to a hardware issue (2 weeks after repair with all updates installed).
It then happened three times in a row where at the third time the laptop froze entirely forcing me to switch the laptop OFF/ON by holding the power button for 5 seconds.
In OSX I haven't had any freezes up to now but I believe it is only a matter of time until it happens again as it did before the repair.
Due to the fact that I didn't actually reinstall all the software I assume it is a hardware related issue regarding the graphic chip.

b.r.

Hi!

the laptop I have is a MBP2010 bought by the end of April this year. Here are the specs:

Modellname: MacBook Pro
Modell-Identifizierung: MacBookPro6,1
Prozessortyp: Intel Core i7
Prozessorgeschwindigkeit: 2,66 GHz
Anzahl der Prozessoren: 1
Gesamtzahl der Kerne: 2
L2-Cache (pro Kern): 256 KB
L3-Cache: 4 MB
Speicher: 8 GB
Geschwindigkeit für Prozessorverbindungstyp: 4.8 GT/s
Boot-ROM-Version: MBP61.0057.B0C
SMC-Version (System): 1.57f17

APPLE SSD TS512B:

Kapazität: 500,28 GB (500.277.790.720 Byte)
Modell: APPLE SSD TS512B
Version: AGAA0206
Native Command Queuing: Nein
Wechselmedien: Nein
Absteckbares Laufwerk: Nein
BSD-Name: disk0
Medientyp: Festkörper
TRIM-Unterstützung: Nein
Partitionstabellentyp: GPT (GUID-Partitionstabelle)
S.M.A.R.T.-Status: Überprüft

Took me some time bring it to repair since I needed it until University semester ended.

b.r.

"Apple has added a new feature to the support section of its website dubbed "Express Lane," making it easy for customers to select a product, detail any issue they may have, and get in contact with an Apple representative."

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/14/appleoffers_personalized_support_with_express_lanewebsite.html

Just want to add my entry to the litany of misery. My 15" i7 MBP was purchased at the end of May. I now get the freezes every few days, with the exact same symptoms described by everybody else - frozen display, machine keeps operating but no graphics or I/O, occasionally resumes after 15 minutes. I'm also a Chrome user which seems suspiciously common.

I'm almost always using an external 23" monitor, meaning - I believe- that I'm stuck on the nVidia graphics permanently.

I wish Apple would investigate this problem! Need this fixed, but hard to survive without my machine for long.

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

this is what devbugs@apple.com replay me ...

This is a follow-up to Bug ID# 8418115.

Engineering believes that this is not a bug, but rather, a unit-specific failure. It may be a bad component or a manufacturing defect. This channel (issues filed through Bug Reporter) is not the appropriate channel for this issue.

We recommend contacting AppleCare for further support at 1-800-MY-APPLE (1-800-692-7753).

If you are interested in self-support options, you may find the following information useful:
<http://www.apple.com/support/>

Thank you for taking the time to notify us of this issue.

Best Regards,

Developer Bug Reporting Team
Apple Worldwide Developer Relations

******************************************************************************** ************
THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE
******************************************************************************** ************
-------------------------------------------------------
Bug ID #: 8418115
Bug Title: MAC BOOK PRO 13" Freeze MID 2010
-------------------------------------------------------
<GMT10-Sep-2010 22:13:36GMT>
Summary:
The mac book pro worked fine since bought in Juny 2010.Till now it had 3 freezes whole system.
No working mouse,no working trackpad,no working keybborad and light ,nothing.
Only force restart works.Notice the screen freezes,not rare draws or pixels.
I reinstalled OS X and frozen again just rebooted.
I think is not for hot,or disk failure,
Apple Hardware test ok,permissions repaired ok,reinstall os x ok,and still freezes once per month.

I'll add my story for support. My laptop worked fine for about 2 months and a couple of weeks ago started doing this. The laptop just freezes, have to do a hard reset (lol - it actually just froze when I was creating my account to post this). I have used gfxCardstatus to force the graphics to stay on Nvidia. Seems to happen in clusters. I had 6 freezes on 9/12, 4 on 9/13, 3 on 9/18 and so far 2 on 9/19. Did a hardware test that came up clean. I installed an SSD myself so I'll probably have to put it back to stock but you think I can take this to my Apple store and show them my 15 crash logs and ask them to replace the logic board? That is the only fix I have read about where people have not come back and said it wasn't fixed.

For the record.... I'd had my MBP for around 6 weeks before I started to get unexpected freezes. It got worse till one Saturday it would freeze every minute or so making it totally unusable.

I put it down partly to installing Adobe After Effects CS5??. Anyway took it back and got a new motherboard. The next day Apple released an update with regards MBP's freezing and I've not had a problem with it since.

HVXuser...

Like hvxuser and the previous poster, DBADood, it took weeks (almost 4 months) of perfect running before the freezing started with my i7. It was taken back to the Apple agent here and instead of the logic board the hard disk was replaced under warranty. There had been no indication of this in either SMART status or in the extended hardware tests. It has been running for 7 days with no problems. Is this perhaps not one but a number of faults that are manifested as freezes? I am perplexed.

I just got my MacBook Pro 13" last Thursday on 16 Sep. Since then, it has freezed 2 times in 5 days. First time when I was typing a message on Skype, and the other time when I was reading a PDF file on Preview.
I made several phone calls, first to the reseller where I bought my computer. They told me to bring my MBP to them, and they will reinstall the OS for me. Then I called the Apple Support phone-line and got an answer that the problem isn't related to the OS, but the other software I am using...
I checked the update website, the firmware update is for 15" and 17" MBP, not 13". I have totally no idea what I can do to solve the problem. The software I use includes Skype, Adium, Firefox and Parallels Desktop running win XP. I just don't / can't imagine that the software I am using should be the problem.

This is my first Mac. I bought it because of it's stability, never know that it would freezes 2 times in 5 days...

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro7,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP71.0039.B05
SMC Version (system): 1.62f6

Return it!
Yo can do it for 15 days since the purchase..
All we have the same problem.
13" 15" and 17".
Software issue?Great answer from Apple.. xD
Mine today goes to service center to make a diagnostic.

Return now you can,and buy another one!
Cheers.