Q: MacBook Pro (2010) Freeze

For all the users, I have found a workaround for the frozen, at least in the windows OS.
I have installed this little utility:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/SpeedFan.shtml

After the install I have set it to automatic. After this the utility set the fan speed to an optimal value and the MacBook Pro does not freeze.
I have found this utility on Windows but I think that a similar utility exist for OSX (or use the gfxCardStatus).

Apple, it's a temperature problem, you can solve it with a FW update!

Thanks
Enrico

Im a bit curious here... I cant really figure out this thread. I mean, i read so many posts about freeze ups, some worse than others and Apple apparently wont ackknowledge this as an official problem. What i cant figure out is, what exactly is causing this freeze up?.. Is it the GFX and the switching between those? Is it software or hardware?

Has anyone had theirs exchanged and if so, did it solve the issue?

As i stand now, daily reading new posts with this, i must admit i dont really want another MBP but rather go back to where i was before, though i dont really want to use Windows no more..

i've let my computer run without the cooler underneath and it has not froze at all. For some reason I don't think it's heat problems but if you're right i hope Apple gets on this NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enrico Buttignol wrote:
For all the users, I have found a workaround for the frozen, at least in the windows OS.
I have installed this little utility:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/SpeedFan.shtml

After the install I have set it to automatic. After this the utility set the fan speed to an optimal value and the MacBook Pro does not freeze.
I have found this utility on Windows but I think that a similar utility exist for OSX (or use the gfxCardStatus).

Apple, it's a temperature problem, you can solve it with a FW update!

Thanks
Enrico

I had my first full on Freeze today. I've had my MBP 15" 2.66 for just over a month now. I've had the external monitor go the gray fuzzy screen many many times since I've had the unit, but I've not had the full freeze until now.

FYI- yes everything came back to life after the freeze (fans were blowing hard throughout), and it took about "9 minutes" to come back. But, I was doing a "save as Copy" in ProTools at the time (i was about halfway through an 8GB save as copy archive) when the machine froze. this indeed canceled out my archive.

I do not have the stock hard drive (I have a 320gb WD scorpio).

Bit of a bummer. It's a great little machine otherwise. Do we start taking these machines back or is there a fix coming Apple?

Apple?
Hello?

Enrico Buttignol wrote:
Apple, it's a temperature problem, you can solve it with a FW update!

I'm pretty sure it is NOT a temperature problem. At least not the "screen goes frozen for 9 minutes" problem most of those posting here are describing.

But if you think you might have a temperature problem, install iStat Pro and check how fan speeds respond to temperature rises. The i7 can take up to 100 C. If you want to artificially pump up temperature on the CPU, just run this in four terminal windows (use control-C to quit each!), then you've got 4 cpu-consuming processes and all 4 virtual cores should be running at full speed:

perl -e 'while(){}'

joeldadrummer wrote:
FYI- yes everything came back to life after the freeze (fans were blowing hard throughout),

The reason fans were blowing was presumably the same as on my machine: The OS X kernel (kernel_task) was using 100% cpu. If you had been able to ssh into the machine as I was, you'd probably find that everything looked perfectly in order except for the kernel cpu consumption.

Is this a screen freeze issue or is it an unresponsive keyboard/trackpad issue? When it happened to me the sound played from the internet throughout. Has anybody had it when watching a video and did the video stop or continue?

my MBP freezed twice, once was watching an movie in quicktime and today was hearing songs in iTunes

both the times all I could hear was some noise and had to hard shut down
today was running on battery, intel graphics card, no cpu/gpu intensive app (safari, itunes, mail, chat, netnewswire, night owl twitter client)

2 freezes in an month, can't be an hardware issue!?

keeeet wrote:
Is this a screen freeze issue or is it an unresponsive keyboard/trackpad issue? When it happened to me the sound played from the internet throughout. Has anybody had it when watching a video and did the video stop or continue?

It's a screen freeze. The machine continues to work, but the whole screen is 100% frozen - there's e.g. no spinning beach ball to move around.

Turn on seconds in your menu bar time display, and you can easily see if the screen is frozen. If you know a little about the shell, turn on remote login so you can ssh into your machine when it's frozen. You can then verify if it's still alive, and if you don't have time to wait for the ~9 minutes, you can reboot the machine from the shell.

My macbookpro was on repair this week at an Apple Premium Seller.
I explained the situation. I tried to boot, but it froze during the first seconds.

They tested it, and changed the mother board. So far no freeze, but I'm still crossing my fingers...

System profiler now reads (someone here also had the motherboard replaced, pointing out new things inside):
SMC Version (system): 1.58f16
Intel HD:
Device ID: 0x0046
Revision ID: 0x0018
gMux Version: 1.9.21

Nvidia:
Device ID: 0x0a29
Revision ID: 0x00a2
ROM Revision: 3540
gMux Version: 1.9.21

For me watching video. the video freeze frames.. but sound continues. I can move the pointer turn on cap locks. But I can not click/select anything its all frozen. Only option is to force shutdown.

I have the same problem, I have a macbook pro i7 (15'') since 10 days and it freeze 1 or two times a day. Is there a solution or did I have to go the shop to try to have a new one?
Did you think that the next Mac OS upgrade will fix the problem?

PS: Sorry for my bad English I'm not a native speaker.

I am shocked at how watered down and slightly random this discussion has become. i'm offering some common sense:

# please do not post if your machine is not a 2010 model and/or does not use the nvidia 320/330 chips
# if a freeze/crash occurs in windows and not on osx, please wait for a software update. windows drivers are no priority at apple.
# if you run virtualisation software and experience freezes, stop it and check again. see point above.


i am pretty certain this is not a temperature related issue as I ran "yes > /dev/null" (100% cpu) in 4 separate terminals on a brand new i5/15" antiglare high-res at the apple store. the machine could have burned the table (400% cpu). it certainly burned my fingers when i touched underneath. no freeze, no crash. but i did see a flash of garbled graphics in a Flash applet I had left behind other windows...

if you report a freeze, please report your setting of automatic graphics switching. also if you run gfxcardstatus or any similar utilities. most certainly report if you have migrated an old system on top of your new mac.

last but not least. if you wish to remind everyone how much money you've paid, go to facebook.com and share this valuable information there.

Another 2010 i7 MBP user here with lockup issues. My system is configured default for a 17" except for the i7 upgrade(4GB memory, 5400rpm 500GB SATA.)

I typically start noticing major video corruption before it happens and for me it always ends in the gray screen telling me to hold power down.

The 13" I bought at the same time has been flawless.

Does anyone know if apple reps read these forums? I have read through this all the posts and haven't seen anything that looks official on this issue.