Overheat? The fans revved and suddenly I could use nothing but the cursor. Had to hold down the power switch to kill all and then re-power & startup. I wasn't doing anything unusual, but I had 7 apps open and was amid an auto-backup to TimeMachine.
Just a little disillusioned and concerned, wondering if anyone else there has experienced a hard freeze like this.
I did a little stress test of the machine too (15" 2.2GHz), though not with XCode as ND381 suggested. I installed gfxCardStatus, iStatPro, got Handbrake, and started a conversion of some movie. Within a few seconds of clicking "Start", the temperatures of the CPU went right up and the fans spun up to 6200RPM (sounded pretty wild!). I then proceeded to try all possible combinations of opening and closing Photo Booth, manually changing the GPU from AMD to Intel with gfxCardStatus, even opening CivIV (game) while the Handbrake encode was going, but I was unable to make it crash. I noticed that Handbrake uses the AMD GPU: when switched to Intel it was only about 60% as fast, I didn't know that it did that. I also unplugged the power cord while it was going flat out, and after a few seconds thinking about it, the battery menu item said about one and a half hours of usage - from a full battery. 😉
So I'm stumped. Just thought I'd share.
Cheers, A.
Same here with a new 15" i7 2.3 GHz. Out of the box when setting it up just kept freezing, needing a hard reset. All I had was a Windows 7 install running under Fusion while also transfering my data from a firewire drive. Powered from the mains, so assume using discrete graphics.
Eventually corrupted my iTunes library, so called Apple. I'd already repaired permissions and done a full hardware test, but before swapping it out, they wanted to reset the SMC and NVRAM. Sighed and did as they asked. Gave me a case number and said ring back if any further probs.
I did a little stress test of the machine too (15" 2.2GHz), though not with XCode as ND381 suggested. I installed gfxCardStatus, iStatPro, got Handbrake, and started a conversion of some movie. Within a few seconds of clicking "Start", the temperatures of the CPU went right up and the fans spun up to 6200RPM (sounded pretty wild!). I then proceeded to try all possible combinations of opening and closing Photo Booth, manually changing the GPU from AMD to Intel with gfxCardStatus, even opening CivIV (game) while the Handbrake encode was going, but I was unable to make it crash. I noticed that Handbrake uses the AMD GPU: when switched to Intel it was only about 60% as fast, I didn't know that it did that. I also unplugged the power cord while it was going flat out, and after a few seconds thinking about it, the battery menu item said about one and a half hours of usage - from a full battery. 😉
So I'm stumped. Just thought I'd share.
Cheers, A.
I've run a Handbrake encode while running an iMovie encode while playing a 1080p movie with VLC and I was also unable to get my machine to lock up. However, running ND381's procedure caused it to freeze exactly as he described. The point being that there is a very specific set of circumstances that must be present to cause the freeze (MD381's procedure is the only way I was able to get mine to freeze), so simply taxing your CPU/GPU heavily by running a bunch of encodes very likely won't cause a hang.
Twice in two weeks I've been editing text in Eclipse and had my new MBP (15" 2.3Ghz i7) completely freeze. The display is still showing my code, buy nothing responds and the clock does not update. I Amy need to visit the Apple store and request a replacement.
I've had the same experience of stress testing the CPU (running Handbrake, six instances of VLC, and some intensive PDF processing) and not freezing up. I agree with Schwa that there is indeed some specific set of circumstances which can easily occur during normal operations but definitely occur using ND381 recipe that is causing this. Aurel, you should give that a try and see what happens.
Thank you feldkamp for confirming that getting a replacement machine doesn't actually solve the issue. I use my machine every day for work and it would be pretty harmful to have to wait for a new one only to have the same issue!
I can confirm here that unchecking graphics switching fixed a couple cases that would cause a display freeze (where the mouse could still be moved). I use the Unity Engine and noticed that it would freeze while baking lighting using the integrated Beast software, but it no longer does after unchecking the switching. However, there's a case - using the rayGL feature of modo 501 - where I can reliably cause a complete freeze/lock-up, and it still happens.
This does seem to be a pretty specific issue. I ran both the CPU and GPU tests of Cinebench multiple times in a row and could not trigger a freeze, despite the fact that the tests fully tax each of those components.
I wonder if this has to do with GPGPU features? rayGL in modo 501 uses the video card to do raytracing, and other apps out there might use or trigger OpenCL (Grand Central Dispatch). Maybe that has something to do with it?
I am having the same problems as others discussed in this thread but I am also experiencing something else I haven't seen anyone mention yet. While watching flash videos for an extended period of time I will occasionally have a crash that halts the system to the point where it is completely frozen(cannot ssh into it). When it crashes the screen gets artifacts and the audio loops over and over.
Just to add another voice to the chorus. I took delivery (2.2 GHz, 17", AG screen, 8GB memory) last Friday, and spent 2 days setting up (full reformat first, Bootcamp installation) and transferring data from my old machine. It locked up ("soft freeze" - could move cursor, but could not interact with it, but ssh in seemed to work, applications still seemed to be running) four times over the two days. Called Apple on Monday, and they wanted me to do a bunch of tests, but I didn't have the machine in front of me. Yesterday, I did a full re-install of OS X, installed no other software, did an SMC and NVRAM reset, and 3 rounds of hardware tests (all ok), and then tried to make it fail before calling them back. I figured this would take a few hours, but all I did was start up Photo Booth (saw here that that would force the discrete graphics card to be used), and 9 Terminal windows -- one running TOP (to see usage), and 8 more to run % yes > /dev/null to tax the CPUS. I got 5 of the terminals running (cool to see 5 processes running at 100% CPU, and still see 30% idle 🙂 ), and as I tried to click on the window to start the 6th, the system was completely locked -- hard freeze... no cursor, no clock, no screen update, nothing. Hard reset -- called Apple and they are sending me a new machine this week. I then initiated that same sequence again to see if I could immediately reproduce the crash, but could not -- however about 4 hours later the system locked again with the "soft freeze" -- cursor would move, apps were running in the background, but could not interact with it. So clearly, there are two types of "freezes" -- one that seems to still allow applications to run but no interaction with the window manager, and another that is a true "hard freeze" - no response, everything stopped.
As a matter of interest, I let the Ken Burns picture screen saver run as part of the testing (when it took a long time to lock up) -- at one point the RSIZE (resident memory size) ballooned up to almost 4 GB of RAM -- I'd never seen that before...
Will advise how new machine fares (as I put it through paces before transferring any data this time)...
Scott, my experience matched yours up to the point that Apple asked me to reset the SMC and NVRAM. After that the issue hasn't re-occured (2 days and counting). Which is weird - doesn't seem to be a black and white hardware/software issue for me.
Replicated your tests on mine, got 9 terminals up and running, all CPUs maxed out, 0% idle, obviously the temps up at 90 degrees and both fans are spinning hard, but no freeze. Switched between Intel and AMD graphics, all OK. I'm typing this at the same time.
Its odd, I have every application I have open and running right now and its not even hot or struggling. Using 8GB ram and all the CPU.... I have the graphics boxed ticked, do I dare untick it?
The problem appears to be related if not directly caused by the graphics switching.
These solutions come from this thread and others. *I have had zero lock-ups since.*
1. No software solution - disable automatic graphics switching in the energy pane.
2. Install gfxCardStatus to force either chipset.
3. Install smcFanControl to monitor temp sensors and force a minimum fan speed of at least double (4000 RPMs)
All solutions are free. I'm using both tools to best monitor and control the problem.
Until a firmware update is released to address the issue then this will be necessary.
I haven't installed anything, just unchecked that box in the Energy Saver that turns off the automatic graphics switching. recorded my meeting last night using BoinxTV, with an HD cam hooked up to a Matrox input box, a blue yeti usb mic, & doing a live screen capture of another mac using screen sharing. Didn't freeze or anything.
