MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

I waited a week. glad I did. mine hasn't done any of this, you guys buy it right away when it was announced? mine came from the factory, was a cto & not a ready-boxed machine, so it's fresh (shipped march 4).

Macbook Pro 15" Core i7 2.3 Ghz. I've had 4 Kernel Panics in the last two days, and two freezes under load. Rendering video, or running VMware seem to exacerbate the problem. Fans ramp up, and then Voila! Kernel Panic. This is ridiculous... I'm calling Apple for a replacement.

Smart move. One has to seriously question exactly how (and how thoroughly) they check these products out before they release them. I have not bought it (yet) and am glad after seeing all the threads and posts. IMHO here is a lot of risk in buying the first rev. of a new hardware release. Heck, as far as I can tell, even Intel's release of the CPU's was as recent as late January. So, not a big surprise overall.

I am the black sheep when it comes to these systems. every machine in my sig list has been replaced. no matter what I do, how well cared for, I get 2 years tops. applecare has served me well & waiting to make sure mine is ok.

Hi all,

I'm definitely experiencing issues with complete freezing of my new MBP. Here are the specs:

2.3 Ghz Core i7, 8GB RAM (from Corsair, machine came with 4GB stock) and 500GB 7200 PRM HDD.

Under normal use I have not had any issues but when testing StarCraft II and Minecraft, I will randomly incur a lockup where only the pointer is usable. In some situations I can play for hours without issue but in others it won't even take 5 minutes for a lockup to occur.

Has anyone tried to reproduce these issues using Boot Camp? I plan to install Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and see if the problems are indeed related to the manufacturing of these units or if the extensions in OS X for supporting the new hardware are buggy.

People: You are NOT helping with this issue! I am reading SO many posts from people demanding replacements but GUESS WHAT: This is not a problem with your machine - it is a software/firmware issue. Any new MBP you get will have this problem. Instead of calling demanding a replacement, WAIT for the update, and in the meantime call and raise awareness about this issue. Thanks!

Message was edited by: Adam Adkins

I kinda agree with you, lots of unwarranted crying on some things - ooh it's kinda warm/hot. the hard drive makes noise! the fans come on when it's warm...

it's a QUAD CORE freaking processor! apple has crammed a mac pro into a laptop finally. they should have done a bit better testing on the software extensions maybe but I saw a lot of griping for an updated system too... in the dog house either way.

I can't have my machine freezing tho when I need it. doing a live recording or something like that, doesn't cut it. fan noise, hard drive, temp, all acceptable to me. when you work a machine, this is what happens. my work is more important than worrying about a little chatter from a drive or the fan running hard.

Im not too worried about the fan running a bit loud or hard, it may need to - this is a powerful machine. Cutouts and freezes should not be occurring and this is a worry, should not need to spend nearly 3 grand on a computer that does this and then have to wait for an update When?!

If the first batch may have been a problem then apple should address this and have them auto replaced and mention the recall. If Apple is unaware of the issue then they should be made aware of it. Mine was ordered on the 28th and is shipped on the 3rd (hope its ok).

Adam Adkins wrote:
People: You are NOT helping with this issue! I am reading SO many posts from people demanding replacements but GUESS WHAT: This is not a problem with your machine - it is a software/firmware issue. Any new MBP you get will have this problem. Instead of calling demanding a replacement, WAIT for the update, and in the meantime call and raise awareness about this issue. Thanks!

Message was edited by: Adam Adkins

Adam is exactly right. If you're having troubles, call Apple in addition to posting here. There's evidence that Apple Engineering is already working on this issue, so I suspect we'll see a fix shortly.

Schwa and Matt which processor 2.2 or 2.3 and hdd do you have. Just curious as to whether the problems are more to do with the 2.3 processor or not, as from what I recall Schwa you dont seem to have replicated any of the freeze issues or maybe I am wrong.

I use BOINC to consistently recreate the issue. It will fail on games too. Same symptom - black screen when coming back from a game or frozen screen when BOINC is cranking the CPU.
17" 2.3 i7 just bought last week.

Took it to Apple and they looped their extended tests for 24 hours with no failure. I brought it home and froze it inside of 15 minutes.

I know that they're working on a firmware/driver patch. ***** to have a new toy and be stuck with my old toy until they figure it out.

Ok, so wanted to update folks.

Nothing has helped. New OSX install, everything Apple has suggested. I'm sure it's firmware, but there are other issues with this box as well (optical drive is a bit wonky) so I'm gonna return it and wait until these issues are resolved.

I'm not returning it over this issue - that would be crazy... but I am returning it.

For everyone saying that this is a firmware issue and nobody else is helping, sadly there is no proof of that. I just finished on the phone with an Apple Senior Advisor for the 2nd day in a row of trying to fix it, and they said these forums are not an accurate source of anything when I said people are saying it is firmware.

Think about it, there are quite a few people who are having issues, but think about how many more aren't having issues. I know of tons of people with the new Pro in the same specs as I am, doing more than I am doing and not freezing up.

After finishing all of the Advisor's tests and trials, he set me up for a new product replacement. Sure, I'm not happy that I'm going to be without my computer again for a long while, and during Spring Break when I was going to buy and play DA2 none the less, but there are computers that aren't working and there are computers that aren't working; it might be a firmware issue, but I didn't ask for a replacement, Apple recommended one to me. And hopefully this will fix up the issues for me at least 🙂

I disagree Adam. I was having all the same issues as the people on here so I'd return my new Macbook and buy the Windows laptop I was looking at (Sager 8150). In looking at their boards, people are having the same problem with these. With a little more research I learned that people are having the same freezes with desktop, laptop, Windows, Linux, OS X with different ram, graphics cards ... everything different except the new Sandy Bridge processor/chipsets. There's clearly something major going on and it doesn't have anything to do with software. I'm not going to blame Apple, but I walked into the Apple store today and returned my laptop. It was a really easy process, they just scanned my receipt and gave me a new receipt to put it back on my card - less than 5 minutes and I was done. Windows 7 Service Pack 1 seems to have helped the issue a lot, but I don't want a computer that's clearly having hardware issues from day 1.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/555274-random-freezes-8130-8150-a.ht ml
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/304461-31-sandy-bridge-computer-random-freezes

Have any of you saying that it's a defective machine try the same tasks under windows? I have the same freeze/blackscreen issues when exiting steam games and star craft 2; however, when I run bootcamp and player games there, I can easily play 2-3 hours and exit the game just fine. Clearly, there is some driver issue that is not playing nice on SL at the moment. I just don't see how the majority of this can be a physical problem. If the same thing occurred in windows 7, then we'd be in trouble.