MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

Report of the machines freezing using the INTEL graphics chip:

"
Using google chrome (extend the window to take up the whole screen), go to their webGL demo at

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/det...arium/?f=webgl

Set the fish count to 1000, wait for 1 min.

Please Note: Your Macbook could freeze completely, so save any opened documents!

On my macbook Pro 2011 2.2Ghz hiRes the issue is reproducible every time after about 30 sec using Intel GPU. I have not tried ATI graphics yet."

From http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=12212522&postcount=52

This freezing issue finally seems to be hitting the news sites and blogs. Let's hope this will put some pressure on Apple, and that they'll fix it as quickly as possible.

I'm still 99% sure that this is a software/driver issue, not hardware...

Agreed, I came across the article on maclife, I thought i was the only one and that i was just being a *******. Good to know im not as much of a noob as i thought. And word yet on a fix? i think im going to go the apple store today and bug the genius peeps. lol haha "bug" the genius peeps.....there is a bug with the lappy toppy hahaha...wow way toooo tired

I am also experiencing this issue. At first I thought it was the application I was running, Eve Online, but it appears to have the exact same symptoms that everyone else is reporting: Black screen, locked up, able to ssh to the machine, cursor responds. I will be calling Apple after work on this issue.

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Additionally this issue only happens after the system has been running the application for an extended period of time. If I exit the app a few minutes after starting it's closed without issue. After running for 30 mins + the application locks to black screen, cursor responds.

Message was edited by: Bourius

ive had 7-8 kernel panics in the last few weeks,funny thing is, its not happening in windows,even when i game,i wondered if the default install of osx is gammy?- so you think a call to apple?or back to the store,?i wondered if its the graphics switching,its not going to the discrete gpu when it needs to.now in concerned to take it back,oni few weeks old,seems like lot o probs with new machines,according to this thread.

That article, might be usefull. however it doesnt give any information that will help. sound like a screen reading IT support moron on the other end of the line. (not meant as a personal attack on you, just the content)

I have a base model 15" MacBookPro8,2 2.0GHz i7, 4GB RAM, stock 5300RPM disk running OS 10.6.6, VMware Fusion, xcode 3.3.x, mac office 2008 & 2011, chrome, adium, etc.

I've run through the steps you outlined twice and can not get my machine to freeze/crash.

That really doesn't mean anything. Once the machine has crashed the firmware likely defaults to max fans. There is no way to tell if this is cause or effect.

Personally, I suspect it's much, much more likely to be firmware / driver issues. These are the sorts of issues that usually can only be reproduced under heavy threaded use. Which coincidentally also produces heat.

I thought the Pro in MacBook Pro was for Professional, not Problematic. Or Probably won't work.

As this is my first Mac and I have invested thousands into the switchover from Windows, buying licenses for CS5 and Final Cut on top of the price of the Mac, I have to say I'm sorely disappointed.

Is Apple in the habit of fixing these things? And if so, quickly?

I'm a video editor and my income depends on my computer's productivity.

At this rate, I'd be better off cutting film.

It's weird....I've had this crash but it is totally random for me.

I can't seem to "make it happen" by doing the stuff people say to do.

Right now as i'm posting this i have yes running 8 times and photobooth running along with cinebench. No crash. But it DOES happen. Originally i thought this may be something to do with parallels. After i read other people having this issue i realized it may be a real issue. I am really hoping apple will be able to solve this issue without having to replace my laptop, i love this machine and i don't want to send it back....

In my experience Apple will always make it right. The question of timing is up in the air. If someone relied on the machine for income and this issue is hitting, I'd recommend your return for full refund and wait it out if possible.

Could be next week. Could be 3 months. You never know.

guys, guys, guys!

can anyone try my workaround? Here's what I did to avoid the freeze:

before doing CPU intense stuff, make the fans run at higher RPM (watching 1080p Youtube video should do the job).
And then as soon as the fans are at about 5400rpm, start whatever you want to run/test.

In my case, this fixed the crashes with Cinema 4D. The CPU temperature goes as high as 93C, but then gets cooled down to 87C/88C, fans running at 5200RPM.

K43l wrote:
guys, guys, guys!

can anyone try my workaround? Here's what I did to avoid the freeze:

before doing CPU intense stuff, make the fans run at higher RPM (watching 1080p Youtube video should do the job).
And then as soon as the fans are at about 5400rpm, start whatever you want to run/test.

In my case, this fixed the crashes with Cinema 4D. The CPU temperature goes as high as 93C, but then gets cooled down to 87C/88C, fans running at 5200RPM.

Yeah, nursing the fans to speed up slowly will keep mine from freezing some of time.

I would like to know if anyone is NOT having the problem. I've had my 15" mbp since March 2nd and haven't had the freezes described. I have been using applications in CS5, playing movies, converting cds for iTunes, etc. I have SMC fan control and the highest I've seen the temperature is somewhere around 60C and then not very often. Maybe it's because I don't play games. No, I haven't tried the steps specified to "make it freeze".

I just did a test with my Mac Pro (early 2009) and Macbook Pro (2011).
I started a RAW to JPEG batch conversion with Lightroom and played
a 1080p .MOV file with the VLC player.
The Mac Pro didn't have any problems with it.
The Macbook Pro (2,2Ghz, 8GB RAM) couldn't handle it...during playback the
video froze every couple of seconds.
*That can't be right, can it?*