Q: MacBook Pro (2010) Freeze

*I may have found a solution.* (Well, not me, but someone else). Not sure if it has been mentioned before but I'm going to try it and see what happens. Here's the original link: http://www.displaylink.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-508.html

And here's a summary of what the author says must always be true for the display issues/freezing to occur:

-15 and 17 inch 2010 model MBPs — Intel i5 or i7 processors
-Mac OS X 10.6 — Snow Leopard
-DisplayLink driver is installed — any 1.6 beta version (probably 1.5 too)
-Nothing is plugged into the MBP's Mini DisplayPort (MDP) — even an adapter with no monitor attached will stop the bug from occurring
-System Preferences > Energy Saver > Automatic graphics switching is on — this is turned on by default in OS X
-OS X booted in normal mode — not safe mode (shift) or single-user mode (command+s)
-No applications are using advanced graphics rendering — iMovie, iPhoto, Adobe Flash player, many third party apps
-(Possibly also; When using external monitors the MacBook Pro's screen is not the primary monitor — the monitor with the menu bar)

So to fix it, do one of the following:

-Turn off System Preferences > Energy Saver > Automatic graphics switching
-Plug something (anything) into the Mini DisplayPort (MDP) — just an adapter will fix it, it doesn't need to be attached to a monitor
-Install gfxCardStatus (http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus/) and configure it to only use NVIDIA — this may not fix the issue when booting
-Uninstall the DisplayLink driver

The author claims that the issue is that in order to preserve battery life, there are two GPUs - a lightweight and a regular one. It will use the lightweight one unless there is something more taxing - external display, iPhoto, etc. Then it will use the heavy duty one. It is the lightweight one that is causing the issues, if I am reading the article correctly (I only skimmed it...). So any of the above "fixes" will force the computer to use the heavier duty GPU.

You should read the entire post by the author in the link above. It has some really good info about the different processors in these machines.

Hope this helps - I'll report back later and see if it helps my machine or not.

Message was edited by: Kippie

Interesting post Kippie!

Now that I think about it, I never experienced a freeze with an external monitor plugged into the Display Port (home setup) - it's always been standalone (office setup). The last freeze took place right after a I loaded a Flash heavy website which also supports your post.

My recap:

1) HDD swap (Seagate to Toshiba) by Apple did not eliminate freezing.
2) Full OSX reinstall without Migration Assistant / TimeCapsule did not eliminate freezing.
3) Trying TH2011's suggestion to replace Flash with 10.2 beta (upgraded on 21. December).
4) Monitoring GPU state using gfxCardStatus (will force to NVIDIA if #3 does not resolve).

--
Marc

my refurbished 15" hi-res anti-glare was delivered yesterday afternoon.

Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
Memory: 4 GB

it froze immediately out of the box on the first two power-ups. i've had it run long enough to install some applications but with on/off freezes along the way. it ran for a good 4 hours last night uninterrupted and since then i've had to hard boot a good 5-6 times in 30 minutes of use this morning. i have an appt at the genius bar in a little while, but i'm guessing i'll end up returning it based on 88+ pages of problems.

i've had it freeze with or without power plugged in, with or without flash installed, in various applications, and a few times just booting up. i've never connected to an external display and my firmware seems to be the 1.9 version.

not good.

i've had it freeze with or without power plugged in, with or without flash installed, in various applications, and a few times just booting up. i've never connected to an external display and my firmware seems to be the 1.9 version.

not good.

Not good at all. But did you transfer any data from another mac to this machine before using it?

(my machine (same model, but 8GB RAM) is still rock solid)

Digable,

Any chance you can disable "Automatic graphics switching" under "Energy Saver" and report back?

--
Marc

no. i didn't use migration assistant. it was still 10.6.4 when i got it, so i upgraded to 10.6.5 and the rest of the lastest updates, then installed my apps (cs4, lr3, vmware, etc). i still haven't even copied my photos/music/docs over yet. i didn't want to invest too much time in something that was already displaying seriously problematic behavior.

i understand that's a possible fix, but for more than $2k, i'd rather not have to do that. we'll see what the genius bar says.

Not suggesting it as a fix but only to identify/isolate the problem.

If many of us can show that GPU switching is the culprit, it may lead to a more timely resolution from Apple.

I too will settle for nothing less than a fully functional MacBook and just want to get to the bottom of this! I'm sure glad that I'm not doing any live work with it, like DJ'ing!

--
Marc

digableplanet wrote:
then installed my apps (cs4, lr3, vmware, etc).

Well, VMware Fusion isn't exactly trivial stuff. Did you install the newest version?

(Fusion runs fine on my i7, but I'm glad I have 8GBs of RAM)

@Espen Vestre

um. running the fusion installer: not difficult. copying a vm from another machine: not difficult. running the vm: not difficult. not sure what your point is.

my point is that no matter what applications were on my machine at any given time, i had the freeze problem. constantly. there really was no pattern.

anyways, the genius bar took my mbp in for diagnostics, so i'll have to wait a few days for their recommendation.

happy holidays.

digableplanet wrote:
@Espen Vestre

um. running the fusion installer: not difficult. copying a vm from another machine: not difficult. running the vm: not difficult. not sure what your point is.

VMware is not simple, it's very resource demanding and installs system extensions. I had to remove the systems extensions of an older version of Parallels on a family member's MacBook when it was upgraded to Snow Leopard. I don't have similar bad experience with VMware, but - again - which version of VMWare are you using?

Also, forgive me if I missed it earlier in the thread, but what kind of crash are you experiencing? The frozen UI (but working machine) crash that was discussed at the beginning of this thread, classic kernel panics or something else?

digableplanet wrote:
i understand that's a possible fix, but for more than $2k, i'd rather not have to do that. we'll see what the genius bar says.

I agree. Even with the "fix" I posted above, I was not willing to have that issue with a $2200 machine. I returned it today.

Wow, Dig. I think I had that same machine in my cart for a couple days before getting cold feet from this thread. Sorry you have had to deal with this.

Mitch Towne1 wrote:
Wow, Dig. I think I had that same machine in my cart for a couple days before getting cold feet from this thread. Sorry you have had to deal with this.

i'll keep you posted. my dad and friend also have 15" i5's with no problems, so i guess that is possible too.

digableplanet wrote:
i'll keep you posted. my dad and friend also have 15" i5's with no problems, so i guess that is possible too.

DH has one at work, a MacBook Pro 15", also a mid-2010. He has never had the issues I had with mine (two: one they replaced the logic board twice, hard drive one, display once before giving me a brand new one last Sunday, which had the SAME problems). Baffling that it's only certain machines.