MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

Syan,
I suspect as pointed out previously that switching between graphics cards and using the onboard graphics uses memory and this can cause a reclaim from RAM, I also feel that the communication between the SATA controller can also be a factor.

I ordered a 15.4" 2.2Ghz MacBook Pro, and received it on Wednesday night. The computer continuously froze even when doing simple tasks, such as listening to iTunes (no other apps running). One time ti froze with garbled video and pixels. And last night (Friday), it froze and never came back. Turning it own produces only a black screen. I know it's powering on, as I can hear it, and the light on the front is on, but the screen doesn't turn on. I just got back from the Apple Store, where they were unable to fix it after trying everything. They suggested a replacement. Now I have to mail back my $2500 machine, and wait an extra week to use it. Also lost all the hours I spent downloading and installing my applications and importing my old data. Not a good way to start the new purchase of a MacBook Pro.

I had similar concerns as Asteroid01 did with respect to reinstalling software if the machine dies. So after I got everything up and running I created a bootable backup with superduper. I'd encourage everyone else to do this as well. That way when you get the new one back all you have to do is restore it. This of course assumes you have: 1)superduper and 2)enough external storage to back this stuff up.

Even if your computer isn't replaced it's a good idea to create these backups and update them frequently.

I realize that the freezes may occur too often for some to do this (like Asteroid).

Why not just use Time Machine to create a backup? What am I missing? Time Machine's always worked for me -- especially when moving to a new machine that already has an OS installed. You can just use Migration Assistant to migrate your old Time Machine backup to a brand-new machine -- even if the OS versions are different.

That's a good point. I developed my backup strategy before the advent of Time Machine. I don't know, is it possible to boot from a time machine backup? Does time machine backup your installed applications? These are the two primary benefits of SuperDuper.

As it stands now, if my hard drive dies on my primary machine, I can take my backup to a secondary machine and boot OSX from the backup with all of my files current as of my last backup and with all of my applications available to me in the time it takes me to plug in the drive and fire up the comptuer. I can run everything this way until Apple returns my computer (usually about 3 days later). Then I just resync my backup containing all of the files I changed in the interim to the repaired machine --- about 30 minutes.

In any case, if you have the extra space use Time Machine or whatever you want to backup the computer so you don't have to reinstall all of that stuff again.

You can't boot from a Time Machine backup but it does completely backup your system including all your installed applications. What you'd do (depending on the computer you're restoring) is either do a complete restore from backup (if it's the same machine that generated the backup) or reinstall the OS from DVD and then use Migration Assistant to move your files from the TM backup (if it's a new machine). Since the TM backup isn't bootable, you'd just boot to a Mac OS X installation disc (the one that came with your machine) to initiate the restore process.

SuperDuper sounds more straightforward since you can boot right from the backup, but it's not free. 🙂

Message was edited by: Schwa72

I have the 17" 2.3 i7 with 8GB Ram, arrived yesterday and has froze twice. Whats odd though is the screen freezes, yet it carries on working in the background...

Schwa72 wrote:
SuperDuper sounds more straightforward since you can boot right from the backup, but it's not free. 🙂

It's true, but as I've gotten older I've begun to realize that my time is also not free 🙂

Again, don't return your machines. Call Apple, let them know of the problem. All you can do is wait for an update. All new MBPs will have this issue.

Ok Nicholas here is the information:

Under Intel 6 series chipset (hard drive) I have
Link speed 6gb
Negotiated Link speed 3gb

Under Intel 6 series chipset (super drive) I have
Link speed 3gb
Negotiated Link speed 1.5gb

I can confirm that my computer freezes. I just did a fresh install with the latest updates and it froze.

Does that help?

17" 2.2, 8gb Ram.... It freezes a lot, i tried about everything, i thought it was because of my Crucial SSD at first but i put back the original 500 HD and it keeps freezing, less than before but again, impossible to work properly. Called Apple for a full return, don't have time to wait for a hypothetic fix in a few months...

I have a similar problem with my mid 2010 MBP (2.6, 17in, Core i7 with 8GB of RAM). Here's the story:

My MacBook Pro frequently freezes despite very light use. I took it to a "genius" today, but he was not very helpful. Actually, it froze again right at the apple store while they were checking it. The log showed some errors from Quicksilver right before the freeze and they suggested disabling Quicksilver for a while. At the same time they said that Quicksilver is "solid" and should not cause any serious problems. They also recommending deleting flash plugins, but admitted that it was unlikely that a flash plugin was causing freezes.

Nothing came up during hardware tests, and I already did a clean reinstall of the OS (twice).

Since then it froze again for a third time during the last 24 hours). I was not using any heavy programs, just browsing with firefox. The log shows the following message:

11-03-12 9:28:59 PM 0x0-0x2e02e.org.mozilla.firefox376 Sat Mar 12 21:28:59 **-MacBook-Pro.local firefox-bin376 <Error>: unknown error code: invalid display

Same issue, new MBP 17" 2,2Ghz - 8Gb (Apple-) Ram - 500 WD Scorpio drive (Apple).

Lightroom (3.3) was exporting about 150 RAW files to full size JPG's. Fan's revved up and it frooze. Only solution was to shut it down. After I found this thread, I made a slideshow in iPhoto with 300 full size jpeg's, export to iDvd... no problem. Export to Full HD QT file... no problem. Fired up Lightroom and ran the export batch again...no problem. Ran a batch of +/- 50 RAW files in DxO... no problem.

I do not own any games so I can't comment on how it behaves in games.

I'll be watching this thread. I haven't contacted Apple yet, nor the (Apple-) store I bought it from. I would hate to return this wonderful machine 😟

Oh yes, same info as John reported earlier:

Under Intel 6 series chipset (hard drive) I have
Link speed 6gb
Negotiated Link speed 3gb

Under Intel 6 series chipset (super drive) I have
Link speed 3gb
Negotiated Link speed 1.5gb

Message was edited by: Frank E

Message was edited by: Frank E

I think I have the same issue as everyone else. However, it only freezes when I'm running certain applications. So far the only apps that will result in a hard freeze are ScreenFlow, CoverFlow3, and Starcraft. I've played many other games, and use many apps, but these are the only ones that have resulted in freezing. This is getting annoying...

In my instance it seems to be an integrated effect. I encoded a movie with Handbreak and ran six instances of VLC. This caused it to freeze after about 10 minutes or so. Instead, I ran a backup and that froze after 1.5 hours. Then doing nothing over night froze it after 8 hours. So pegging the cpu seems to speed up the process.

I've got a phone call scheduled for 3pm est to discuss this with Apple.