MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

Another user, similar issues. MBP 15 e2011, out of the box OS, 64-bit kernel, CTO with 8GB RAM, high density glossy screen. Have it connected to a 750GB lacie external FW drive, ethernet and 30 inch cinema display. Originally was seeing random freezes when either rendering a lot of RAW files in lightroom or rendering large panoramas (APG, using all 8 cores.) However, have used info in this thread to isolate it to a very simple set of steps:

Steps to reproduce: (1) Reboot, let machine cool down (2) run photobooth (3) run 6-7 "yes > /dev/null &". Crash occurs within a few minutes. No other steps needed.

Am running with the "automatically switch" option selected.

On the phone with Apple tech support now. They think the machine is dead on arrival and want to replace it.

To be determined. I'm hoping my replacement is from a different batch in which apple wised up and used less thermal paste on the machines. If not then I'll probably have to get a refund and wait 'till the issue is resolved (have 2 wks since time of receipt for full refund).

Further confirmation - pay special attention to the (CPU temperatures)

after 807 seconds of testing (still running, see the green text "Rendering Time" for confirmation):

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/1213/screenshot20110319at724.png

~5 seconds after test ends:

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/1213/screenshot20110319at724.png

~20 seconds after test ends:

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/5963/screenshot20110319at725.png

Rapid temperature drop after the test, and no lock-ups of any kind during or after the test. Just laggy response during the test, as expected. 91C was my CPU's max temp, and those 8 blue squares at the top show everything was "maxed". Though I've seen the CPU hit 99C under Windows (but never higher). FWIW, I saw my 2010 hit 105C in Windows at some point last year.

For me, the problem isn't overheating related. YMMV, of course. But for some of us, we get lockups that are unrelated to any sort of thermal event.

hope some of this helps further direct the conversation.

$0.02

Very nice Adrian, thanks for giving us hope lol. Your freezing seems to be more of firmware/software conflict etc. My suggestion is to install OS X on another partition; On the same drive would b ok (so as to avoid having to waste time reinstalling your current partition and have the same problem persist). Boot from that virgin partition and try it out for a day or so with very few third party drivers installed. As for the rest of us.....we need a machine like yours! Btw, when did you get it?

Message was edited by: Chullo

Will do.

I ordered mine as a CTO on March 1. Got it on the 7th.

Hopefully it is indeed some sort of software/driver conflict. Considering how few apps I ever really run, it should be easy to pinpoint if the issue is in one of my pieces of software or in one of Apple's apps.

I'll be sure to keep the thread abreast. Best of luck to all.

Out of curiosity, what temperatures are you guys' systems idling at? Mine right now is at 53C with Chrome open to ~30 tabs, Mail open and Audirvana playing music. I'd say it's usually sitting in the 50C-70C range. Those that are experiencing a thermal issue may have generally higher temps, no?

Chullo wrote:
Very nice Adrian, thanks for giving us hope lol. Your freezing seems to be more of firmware/software conflict etc. My suggestion is to install OS X on another partition; On the same drive would b ok (so as to avoid having to waste time reinstalling your current partition and have the same problem persist). Boot from that virgin partition and try it out for a day or so with very few third party drivers installed. As for the rest of us.....we need a machine like yours! Btw, when did you get it?

Did that already .. problem persists. Still wondering if anyone knows of a MBP owner that does not have these problems? The problem that concerns me the most is during / after full screen gaming. I've had this with Dragon Age. I've checked the Dragon Age Mac forums and other users with new MBP are complaining there as well. I've see no response by anyone that indicates they are not having this problem.

If a firmware fix is being worked, is it to work around a hardware flaw, or to deal with a real bug in the firmware....

Mine idles pretty cool, if I max out smc fan control it idles in the 40s. Under apple defaults, it's usually in the high 40s to mid 50s. I ordered mine CTO on the 2nd and got it on the 9th, so we have similar times on that. I just ran another test doing all I could to try to cool it down (placing the vents toward a high speed fan while suspending in the air) and sure enough....crashed again in about 20s.

Chullo-
I ran smalluxGPU using the settings you suggested and didn't get any lock-ups (I quit the run after ~1000 seconds). It seems to me like there are possibly two things going on here -- one's an overheating problem and one's a driver/firmware issue. Hopefully Apple won't decide to cure the overheating issue by underclocking the GPU or throttling the CPU's turbo features.

FWIW that was a very good stress test -- my CPU topped out at around 90C and my fans spun up to 6200rpm -- no other stress tests I've tried thus far have been able to generate as much heat. I suspect that was because it stresses both the CPU and GPU heavily.

I know "it didn't happen without pics" so [here's a screenshot|http://home.earthlink.net/~kfscoll/images/MBP_smalluxGPU.JPG].

Hey Michael, Adrian happens to be in a unique situation in this forum with his issue not being heat related. Most of our systems will crash when running the smallluxgpu test @ 1024x768on 8 cores + GPU.

Schwa72-- I agree. And I hope they don't solve it like that either...my geekbench score is 10013 now, so I'll know if they took the easy road.

Just did another one....10215.
http://rapidshare.com/files/453401506/Screenshot_2011-03-19_at_8.25.44PM.png
**this is a direct link.

Message was edited by: Chullo

Thermal paste is used to increase conduction. Basically when you have a heat source (cpu) with a heat sink on top of it the thin gap air that lies between the two creates a huge resistance to heat transfer. The thermal paste basically fills this void, makes it easier for heat to flow from the cpu to the heat sink. I don't really see how excess paste will result in any significant increase in heat buildup with the cpu.

I understand you should be weary of what you read on message boards and whatnot, but I'm not just pulling this out of my rear end. I have a PhD in chemical engineering and transport (both mass and energy) is a pretty fundamental aspect of this field.

Well you are the expert lol. Umm, quick question though, wouldn't increasing the contact area have a negative effect when it comes to thermal paste? It's always been known to me that a super conductive thermal paste like arctic silver for example will result in too much heat being retained in the CPU. It's basically in the instruction manual. I'm thinking that too much thermal paste results in a thicker than normal layer being present above the CPU, reducing heat transfer. I don't know the chemical side of the equation though.

John Harrold wrote:
Thermal paste is used to increase conduction. Basically when you have a heat source (cpu) with a heat sink on top of it the thin gap air that lies between the two creates a huge resistance to heat transfer. The thermal paste basically fills this void, makes it easier for heat to flow from the cpu to the heat sink. I don't really see how excess paste will result in any significant increase in heat buildup with the cpu.

I understand you should be weary of what you read on message boards and whatnot, but I'm not just pulling this out of my rear end. I have a PhD in chemical engineering and transport (both mass and energy) is a pretty fundamental aspect of this field.

John, I just assumed that metal-to-metal contact was an inherently more efficient way to transfer heat than using thermal paste between the two metal surfaces. If that's the case, then I'd think that too much thermal paste would reduce metal-to-metal contact and thereby reduce heat transfer.

FWIW, I had one heat-and-mass transfer class during undergrad but that was a loooonng time ago. 🙂

My situation is also not heat related at all. As I described in short what I experience (page 20)
I don't need any test, any stress put on the system, on any number of cores - all I need is change my "i" to "d" on the gfxCardStatus to make it all stop, instantly, no questions asked, no given time for any answer..

by the way, if not the gfxCS I would simply put that metal box in that cardboard box back, not really knowing what to do with a flat LED lamp with some keys on the bottom.

the Intel graphics didn't produce ANY freeze and any problem; I did try to test it as well to check, all stable

Adrian, I've been playing with the 2.2 machine all day and have had freezes as quick as 10-15 seconds and as far out as 21 minutes, 49 seconds.

I'm using Temperature Monitor by Marcel Bresink and it's showing individual temps for 8 cores. With no load all of my cores are hanging out at about 53c/54c with the exception of Core 4 which is showing 82c. Under load however, all w/ SmallLuxGPU all of them get up to 96c-98c before failure.

If Adrian's machine is topping out at 90c he's in a much better position.

BTW - I did just hang up the phone with a senior advisor and she said that engineering is working on a fix however there is no ETA. I'm still replacing this beast though with a new box that will hopefully behave.

Obviously, they are monitoring this thread so keep posting system info, symptoms and things that are causing and helping the situation.