Q: MacBook Pro (2010) Freeze

I'm disappointed !

I have the problem !

Randomly, I have the beachball and my OS freeze during 5-10 s.
But, I not have Screen of death or Hard Freeze.
After this 5-10s of freeze, the MBP run correctly.

I have reset PRAM, SMC.

This problem started early !

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
Seagate harddrive 7.200

Message was edited by: iOz

Agreed damian. I turned off Graphics switching and haven't had a crash in weeks.

I used gfx Card Status by Cody Krieger. It lets users use only Intel or only NVIDIA. Apple left out this important capability in the System Preferences for some bizarre reason, but this app does the trick perfectly. THANK YOU Cody Krieger! Apple you should hire this guy!

http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus/

Yep same app i use, zero issues in at least 2 weeks. Seems to be the fix for now

Look, don't blame Apple exclusively on this one.
Intel made the stupid choice of putting their lame integrated graphics on the same location as their mobile chips. That was such a pathetic decision on their part and one to just take a shot at Nvidia.
Apple is doing the best it can with a VERY tricky piece of software in switching between the 2 chips.
Intel messed this up, they had no technical reason or benefit to do this to the chips they sell to Apple for their MacBook Pro's. Do it with the chips for the netbooks or cheap PC laptops.
All you should be giving Intel some of the complaining you are giving Apple on these boards.
Its their pathetic chip design, integrating their dog slow graphic chip that is causing problems.

It happened to me tonight for the first time as well. Couple seconds and a google search (on a windows pc later, I find myself here, right in the middle of sixty plus pages of posts reporting the same issue. Screen freezes, sometimes sound is stuck in a loop, nothing reacts. Requires hard reset to make it work again (four times in the last 2 hours). As with most other people reporting this issue, mine is a 15 inch core i7 2.66 GHz MBPro, about six weeks old. ***** having to pay over 2000 eur for something like this...
Hope there is a fix soon...

Thanks Kevin,

I am still in 10.5.8 and gfx does not support that version, so I guess I am forced to migrate to 10.6.x if I want to get rid of the freeze problem...

GoTVols,

I blame Apple for the silence not for the problem. We all believe there is something very wrong with some of the parts in the Intel motherboard and we know that in the past Apple has acted and replaced parts to solve some Nvidia problems. So, why there is a complete silence now?

I love my mac and I am not planning on moving away from it but I need a solution and the logical point of contact for me is the manufacturer who sold me the MacBook Pro.

aurbinar wrote:
We all believe there is something very wrong with some of the parts in the Intel motherboard

Don't count me in despite having reported one such incident early in this thread. After weeks of usage, I have to conclude that my i7 is the most reliable piece of hardware I've ever used. My single incident may, as I wrote, have been related to very high memory usage by VMware, so I still think some of the issues reported here may be due to software bugs locking up the kernel. Of course, there may also be a certain - and maybe quite high - hardware failure rate for these new motherboards.

Message was edited by: Espen Vestre

I'm having the exact same issue with my i5 MacBook Pro as well.
my specs:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
Memory: 4 GB

- no… running Windows under Bootcamp as well.
- no… migration from older MacBookPros.
- no external devices like monitor etc…
- no ram defect or other hardware issue after diagnostic tests through apple serviceprovider


I received my new baby 2 month ago. the machine worked fine and smooth as all my books before. The automatically switch between Intel and NVIDEA chip was one of the reason i updated my last one to the iCore.
But… like all you guys.. this freezing is a real big problem now for me too.
It began after the first big strange crash during watching an flashmovie in fullscreen. suddenly everything freezed and the book seems to explode with some serious loud staccato sounds: booom, boom, boom, boom. it didn't stop.. so i shutted down hardly with the offbutton. After reboot and since that time, my book freezes many times..
SURPRISE: When i switch off automatic graficoption to run only with intelchip, there is no problem at all. My mac runs perfect and without any freeze. If NVIDEA is coming out (again automatic-mode) with Apps running like Chrome, Skype and PS5- everything freezes after several minutes…

Hope apple can fix this or to find one real good solutions for this...

Just got my MBP back from 3 days of stress testing by the Apple Geniuses. They couldn't replicate the issue. I turned automatic graphics switching OFF, and then four hours later -- kernel panic. Same problem. ARGH.


Interval Since Last Panic Report: 790074 sec
Panics Since Last Report: 2
Anonymous UUID: 2A18E82A-36AE-4F4A-8A75-CB347B098CCC

Mon Aug 9 21:43:49 2010
panic(cpu 1 caller 0x2a8ab2): Kernel trap at 0x00000001, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x80010033, CR2: 0x00000001, CR3: 0x00100000, CR4: 0x00000660
EAX: 0x0b5ca500, EBX: 0x00000000, ECX: 0x0000000c, EDX: 0x0b5ca480
CR2: 0x00000001, EBP: 0x7f02bc08, ESI: 0x0b5ca480, EDI: 0x460bc000
EFL: 0x00010246, EIP: 0x00000001, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x00ac0010
Error code: 0x00000010

Backtrace (CPU 1), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x7f02b9e8 : 0x21b455 (0x5cf328 0x7f02ba1c 0x2238b1 0x0)
0x7f02ba38 : 0x2a8ab2 (0x591664 0x1 0xe 0x59182e)
0x7f02bb18 : 0x29e9a8 (0x7f02bb30 0xe948cc0 0x7f02bc08 0x1)
0x7f02bb28 : 0x1 (0xe 0x1010048 0x1010010 0x10)
0x7f02bc08 : 0x1216a75 (0x460bc000 0xb5ca480 0x0 0x0)
0x7f02bc38 : 0x122069f (0x460bc000 0xc0d12dc 0xb5ca480 0x1200e6a)
0x7f02bc78 : 0x12207e5 (0xc0d1000 0x460bc000 0xc0d1320 0x8)
0x7f02bca8 : 0x11fa46a (0xc0d1000 0x460bc000 0x8447c000 0x0)
0x7f02bcd8 : 0x53352d (0x460bc000 0xc8973e8 0xc8973e8 0x1)
0x7f02bd28 : 0x56440a (0x460bc000 0xc8973e8 0xc8973e8 0x1)
0x7f02bd88 : 0x2850e5 (0x460bc000 0xc8973e8 0x1 0x0)
0x7f02bdf8 : 0x21d7f7 (0xb6e4768 0xd3d5884 0xb6e4770 0xb6e47a4)
0x7f02be38 : 0x210983 (0xb6e4700 0x7f02be7c 0x9043520 0x7f02be70)
0x7f02be98 : 0x216be6 (0xb6e4700 0x0 0x0 0x0)
0x7f02bf18 : 0x293b71 (0x7f02bf44 0x0 0x0 0x0)
0x7f02bfc8 : 0x29f018 (0xba19560 0x0 0x10 0xba19560)
Kernel Extensions in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelHDGraphics(6.1.6)@0x11f6000->0x12a2fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6)@0x926000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(2.1)@0x959000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.1)@0x937000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: WebKitPluginHost

Mac OS version:
10F569

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 10.4.0: Fri Apr 23 18:28:53 PDT 2010; root:xnu-1504.7.4~1/RELEASE_I386
System model name: MacBookPro6,2 (Mac-F22586C8)

Hey Kevin & Damian -- which setting on gfxCardStatus do you use, Intel-only or Nvidia-only? Or would it be worth it for me to just disable automatic graphics switching in the system preferences?

I've been using gfxCardStatus for the last 2 months after the encountering the freeze a few times. I can confirm that using the Intel-only mode or the Nvidia-only mode does not fully prevent the freeze. I was showing photographs (via iPhoto's slideshow) to family on an HD TV (which means I had to go into Nvidia-only mode since Intel-only won't allow you to use an external display) and mid-way through the photoset the whole thing froze. I had to do a hard reboot since I didn't want to keep everyone waiting for 10mins while the graphics came back to life. I do have automatic graphics switching turned off in the System Prefs.

Im using gfxCardStatus too and can recommend that "automatic graphics switching turned off" and to run with intel "only" mode is for now- and in my case- the better way to defend me from next freezings.

Baseliner, could I take you up on the point you make: "I didn't want to keep everyone waiting for 10mins while the graphics came back to life. . . ." Like others in this thread I have had freezes that come and go, but are you saying that if left alone, the card/system (whatever it is) will eventually finish what it is locked up with and return the computer to the user?

I had been giving up and resorting to the power button.

@Graham - yes, for the specific problem that this thread's OP mentioned (i.e. a graphics freeze where the mouse pointer can still be moved AND there's nothing in the logs), if you let the machine be for about 10 mins or so (some have reported up to 15mins), it returns to life and you can resume normal activity. At least that's been my experience and the experience of some others also on this thread. I believe some other types of freezes have also made their way into this thread so I'm not sure if your freeze is the same as what the OP experienced. In any case, it's worth trying once to see if waiting helps.