Q: MacBook Pro (2010) Freeze

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..

If we are talking about the same issue, yes "Intel Only" will "fix" it for you.

My machine never "came back" after it froze though. Once I let it sit there for almost 20 hours just to take it to the genius bar in that state. When they saw it, they just opened a case to get a replacement machine. They refused to troubleshoot it actually. I am getting my new machine tomorrow. Will post back with results.

Message was edited by: BigCat400

I'd be very curious to see if the new machine fixes it for you. Cos I can't imagine that Apple would've figured out and corrected a HW problem so quickly. And if they did, then they really should be issuing a recall. But of course, that's wishful thinking. Btw, did you have to give up your machine while waiting for the new one or are they letting you keep it until the new one comes in?

No, I still have my current machine. They gave me a month to return it. So I will actually have both machines for a while. Of course, they charge the CC again, and will refund once they receive the old machine.

What I am hoping for is that there was a batch of machines with bad hardware (maybe bad NVIDIA chips or something), and that the new machine won't have the problem.

This is exactly the reason why I am hesitating to change it: I had the freeze only once and if it is HW related, are we sure that replacement mbp will incorporate the good HW?
That's the reason why I opened a new topic (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2439917&tstart=0) requesting people having received latest machines, whether or not the problem has been really fixed.
moreover, I am surprised by the fact that some people have the freezing very often (with basic programs / applications open, as safari or itunes) and other, like me, experienced only once (but in particular cases).
I have til tomorrow to decide whether or not to launch RMA.....
Cheers

Message was edited by: califfo1975

I received my new 24" monitor today which I am now using with my new 2.4 i5 MBP. Everything seems to be running excellent, but after a shutdown / reboot I experienced the freeze at log on and then I closed the lid, the MBP slept, I re-opened it and the mouse / trackpad could move after a minute, but I could not input anything at all. Also, the color profile seemed weird, but there were no distortion or artifacts on either displays. After a total of about 6 minutes full control was gained again and everything is running normal.

There may be some machines that have hardware problems, but I'm sure that what I just experienced as well as the instance on initial boot is definitely software related and is what was described by Apple in the 10.6.4 beta / fix notes. I'm eagerly awaiting the 10.6.4 update now.

_*@ ARTITRON*_

My MBP has rom (SMC, GPU but I do not know for Intel HD though) revisions newer than yours and in spite of that I had (only) one freeze (fingers crossed). It has been a long time since your last post: did you report any other freeze?
Thanks a lot

In case this is useful for you guys.

I had the freeze several times - display frozen, mouse pointer showing and the kernel log showing NVDA channel exception. This was on a 17 MBP i7 8GB 500GB/7200 AG. It happened about once a day until I took it back.

I'm now on a replacement machine which is using a clone of the drive. There is no sign of the issue whatsoever after 2 weeks - on the same usage pattern as before.

It has been suggested here that the laptop might freeze when a switch from Nvidia to Intel, or vice versa, happens. I don't think this is a plausible explanation, as I had a number of freezes while my laptop was connected to an external monitor. (No coincidence there; this is just how I use my laptop for most of the day.)

When on external monitor, the Nvidia card is always being used. In fact it seems that the Intel chipset doesn't support an external monitor. So it appears to me that the freeze just can't caused by a switch, since the computer wouldn't switch when connected to an external monitor.

Alex

Hopefully the updated drivers in 10.6.4 solve the issue when it's released. I haven't had any random freezing though.

Had freezing issue's after 2 days when i got my bacbook pro 15" i5 (2,53).
It started to happen at first during gaming, then it started when just using Safari.
I went back to the store and they did the extended apple diagnostic run on it, after the 2nd run it locked up.

So they offered me a new macbook, i pay some extra and got me the 17" I7 (did not trust the 2,53)

This is my second day with the 17" macbook.... and it just lockedup ingame... it was starting acting up like the 15" model.

So now i ran a software update and guess what, it had a update for macbookpro 15" and 17" (mid 2010) to improve graphics stabillity.
The update is old it seems... http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/patch-graphics-issues-on-your-new-macbook-pro -20100414/



I will let you know my finding, going to stress test it now:)

Message was edited by: piepo

Ok this is really annoying..been using gfxcardstatus and nothing happened for a week now i think..and right now my MacBook froze even though I have selected intel only.. Was watching a movie on vlc player and it just got over...computer responded by changing spaces but nothing opened when i clicked on ...there was a beach ball (loading spinwheel) only on the space vlc was on...and after a min, I cudnt move to any spaces.. I can't do anything.,,it's been 15 minutes...and nothing has happened. I guess m just gonna hold down the power botton

I think for most people the problem is the hard drive, not the graphics card.
Although some people are having problems with their graphics card.

I agree. As I posted before, the graphics issue has nothing to do with the switching. The issue is with the NVIDIA GPU only, and it's reproduced faster if you force the machine to use NVIDIA all the time.

That's not good news as I was hoping that would be a temporary fix until Apple resolves the issue. Is there anything in your logs? The spinwheel indicates that this may be a different issue.