MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

I've had mine about 12 days or so. 13" with i7. I'm just surfing and having freezes. Not hot, no load. Little rainbow circle just spins. I'm disappointed, this is my 1st MAC, I hope I don't regret my decision.

I've considered it being some 3rd party stuff like Firefox or Sophos, but not sure.

I can make it happen by running Handbrake. CPU usage goes right up to 779%, temperatures of the CPU cores go to 99C and the machine freezes. I took a photo of my frozen screen and was going to upload the picture but don't know how.

What gives? Isn't thins thing supposed to do thrive at very thing? Not flounder.

I bought this thing for my job and so far, have been unable to do it.

Had that symptoms when I had iStat Menu installed with default settings, that turns on custom fan speed control settings (in Sensors -> Fan Speed Control option, activated by default), by default. I was able to reach a CPU temp of 100°C and the screen froze quite easily using Handbrake or Cinebench.

Since I deactivated the Fan Speed Control option of iStat Menu, my CPU temp doesn't go more than 97°C at most (rarely more than 95°C) in fact, and I've yet to reproduce a screen freeze since then. Even with Handbrake or Cinebench, couldn't reproduce the issue yet.

So I suggets to track down any installed software that may alter the fan behavior (iStat Menu is not the only one having such a feature), and deinstall them or deactivate the fan speed control option, if it's only an option.

are you using a 3rd party SSD drive?

There is a known issue with some 3rd party SSD drive. So if you did put a 3rd party SSD drive, put back the Apple stock HDD that was provided with the MBP in the first place, and use it until the 3rd party SSD issue is fixed.

I have not installed any software that (to my knowledge) would affect fan speed.

I have an OWC 120GB SSD that I have purchased but not yet installed into the system; so far I'm still using the stock SSD from Apple. I hope I don't have trouble with the OWC drive!

Maybe I'll install iStat and see if I can gain control of the fans that way...

I'm seeing the same thing on my new 2.3GHz 17". I don't have a solid STR[1] but it happens fairly frequently. First time I noticed it was while surfing around in Firefox while Aperture was busy processing a few large imports in the background. Today, playing Portal (I never did finish the game) has been really annoying. Some interesting observations:

It seems like "sneaking up on it" matters. If I go from idle and cool to working hard, it seems like the fans don't spin up fast enough and we're headed for a lockup. 92-93C seems to be the danger point.

It's harder to reproduce with the machine sitting on a hard surface, but using it as one would normally use a "laptop" makes it worse. (Yeah, yeah, spare me. Making the argument that the machine sitting on a soft surface is not 'normal use' is pedantry beyond reason.) Note that I said "harder"; the first time I hit the problem with Aperture + Firefox the machine was on a hard surface.

iStat Menus' "fan control" does seem to make the problem worse, but I've had the problem with iStat Menus installed, installed but fan control disabled, and not installed at all.

SMC resets have no affect at all.

I have not been successful reproducing the problem by following the steps suggested in this thread. Running multiple instances of yes > /dev/null with Phootbooth open didn't trigger the freeze, nor did compiling Boost (though I use Homebrew, not MacPorts). For that matter, the first thing I did on this machine was benchmark compiling Firefox, and that went fine.

Honestly, Portal has been the most reliable path to a freeze.

Just the same, this isn't acceptable for a machine in this category. It's clear from both the fans and the long charge time/'Not Charging' that this machine is willing to burn a lot of power to do hard work when asked, but falling over dead playing Portal is Not OK. The 2.8GHz C2D (Mid-2009) it replaced never spun up the fans as often, nor gave up on charging like this, but it also kept running under heavy load.

I'll call Apple tomorrow just to document the issue, but I suspect a real fix is a ways off, be it hardware, firmware, or software.

[1] Steps to Reproduce. I work for Mozilla, and spend a lot of my day job filing bug reports.

Message was edited by: Zandr - Incomplete thought.

Agreed. I had a 15" ThunderBook (2.2, 8G, 500G) for 12 hours before I sent it back.

Portal regularly locked up if either screen or keyboard brightness F keys are pressed.

Also got a reproducible deep freeze rendering a 7 min. 1080p file in iMovie and browsing in Safari, but it took longer to lock that way.

Both required a hard reboot and I had no response from mouse or keyboard.

It's been a week since I sent it back and still no shipping information on a replacement...

I got the same issue with mine 2.2 Ghz, 15".

Received it on Friday evening, and it already did that few times.

It is only the screen freeze. I can still access it over the network. I have Apple Care so I will phone them Today to find out what can they do for me.
I mean, I don't want to part with the machine to be honest.
If it is just a software snag (and this machine is running pretty incompatible with other machines version of 10.6.6, that probably was rushed due to the release date) - then so be it. As long as we get some answers.

Here's a C programme that exposes the issue (loads the machine):



#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <unistd.h>

void* foo(void* f)
{

unsigned long long a = 9;
while(1)
{
unsigned long long b;
a = a a*aa+a;
a = a/2;
b = a*(a/16);
a = a + b*a;
}

}

int main()
{

pthread_t a[10];
int i;
for(i=0;i<(sizeof(a)/sizeof(pthread_t));i++)
{
printf("%d\n", i);
pthread_create(&a , NULL, foo, NULL);
}
sleep((unsigned int)-1);
return 0;
}
Just compile it with clang s.c -lpthread -o s
and run it with ./s
;]
It takes few miniutes but it will eventually lock.
I checked log files, and I haven't seen anything there that would help Apple guys.
I'm also tempted to go to the apple store Today and see if they would let me recreate it on their mbp If they have 2.2 version, I think the key is to have two graphic chips in the machine.

I too am having problems with the new 17", my first one came w/dents and scratches and now this one crashed to the point where only the cursor woud move. Had to kill everything. Was encoding via handbrake, burning a video ts to dvd via toast 11, surfing on chrome with about ten tabs. Watching a video via itunes or vlc and I think had word 11 open. Don't consider that super hardcore for a 2800 dollar machine.

Same problem here. It happens to me everytime I start a rendering process in Cinema 4D. It seems like the SMC doesn't turn up the fans quickly enough.
My workaround at the moment is to start streaming a 1080p video from youtube before I start the rendering process. This turns up the fans to about 5000RPM and then it doesn't freeze during rendering. 😀

Message was edited by: K43l

John,

I have a 240GB OWC Mercury Pro SSD and I can confirm that it makes no difference with the freezing issue. The machine behaves exactly the same on the included 500gb HDD as it does on the OWC. The machine will freeze under the same circumstances on both.

No other problems what so ever with the OWC drive.

Message was edited by: lithast

I had a graphics issue.. out of the box all the title bars were baby blue and the windows background was baby pink! I didn't have it long enough to see these issues on this thread I am currently waiting on the arrival of the replacement.

I am a very HEAVY user running 9 desktops at once all with very intensive apps running and in use on my iMac 3.06 i3 and it heats up to around 70 - 85 degrees and stays there until I drop about 24 - 36 hours later... I sleep for about 3 hours then its back to another 24 - 36 hour spurt.

It does slow down after about 3 or 4 days of running that hot and I have to reboot it. The Macbook Pro is to replace what I am currently doing on the iMac and from what I am reading on this thread the baby blue and baby pink is a minor issue compared to what I am in store for. If this is a issue and they can not fix it then the machine will not be able to do what I want it to do which is what my iMac is doing currently.

Chullo wrote:

Temporary solution until apple fixes this..
Download gfxcardstatus
Set mode to integrated only
Use machine.

what does it do ? does it safe ? i'm so afraid 🙂

I guess I have the same problem. When exiting Dragon Age the computer freezes. Seem like a widespread problem with cider ports and new Macbook Pros.

Have Apple said anything yet about the graphics problems?


Best regards Andreas

We got ourselves a MacRumors.com news on the front page.
I, and I'm sure few other people, wrote to them to submit a short info about that problem with few "please" words, suggesting they do a story on an issue that is far more serious than for example a problem with Home Sharing on the new MBP

There is a discussion on their forums as well regarding our topic and it's fairly fresh - i will be joining them with some links to the summarized info we managed to clear here, as well with a link to the blog page made by John Harrold and being taken care of by few others