MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

@Mario: I might be going out on a limb here, but you probably read "MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze Pages" which has nothing to do with the thread itself as "Pages" only refers to the number of pages OF this thread and not the "Pages" as they occur in memory 😉

As for the actual problem: I'm expecting the MBP 15" to arrive these days and I'm almost certain it'll have the same issues, which probably (and hopefully!) get fixed by a firmware upgrade sometime soon.

It would not hurt you to have it looked at if you are experiencing random crashes, lockups, or even complete shut downs of the system.

I was experiencing similar type issues with my brand new 2.2 GHz 15" Macbook Pro that I received just 2 days ago; after some troubleshooting over the phone and taking quite a few suggestions from users here on the discussions, I decided to take a trip over to my local Apple store's Genius Bar.

They determined there that my Macbook Pro has a Logic Board failure. (Higher numbered unexpected shutdown codes in the Console Logs and Diagnostics that state hardware failure(s), to be specific.)

source: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2775930&tstart=0

I don't know, but I spent a few (4) hours in Win 7 playing Fallout New Vegas and not a single crash. There were times where the fan seemed non-existent and times when the fan revved up real quick to full blast. Maybe this is a driver/firmware issue in OSX?

how do you use the gfxCardStatus program? I downloaded it but it doesnt seem to do anything when i open it.

I agree. This does not seem to be an overheating problem. The only time I get this problem is when running a game for a while, then either quitting properly or cmd-tabing out of the game. This typically only occurs after playing for a while.

I've tested with both 'automated graphics switching' off and on, and it happens with both settings.

What this seems like is some sort of firmware bug that is triggered by extended use of the fans and a switch in graphics resolution. I haven't reported it with apple yet, but I hope they are looking to fix it, because I agree with the consensus here that this is completely unacceptable and should have been caught in testing.

Let Apple know so it is more likely they will quickly release a firmware update to fix it!

Having the same issue here.

I'm not certain that is any one specific thing. However:

- I am suspicious of automatic graphics switching. It changed some video game settings mid-play and hard-froze the machine one time.

- I am suspicious of the whatever ATI hardware process happens when an application goes from full screen to Finder, either windowed or quitting the application. In almost every case I froze, it was switching from Full-screen to window, or quitting a full screen app.

- I don't know if this is a heat issue, however the fact that there is no kernel panic can't rule it out.

- I doubt it is RAM. Apple has a notorious history of screwing up graphics in their laptops, not screwing up installing RAM. Also, when there are RAM failures, doesn't the mouse stop moving too?

- Unless I force the machine to boot into 32-bit mode, it defaults to 64-bit mode. Last night after both disabling automatic video switching and forcing it into 32-bit mode, I played an entire evening of games with no problem. Today I had to restart the machine for a software install, unaware it had defaulted back to 64-bit. When I got home and started playing, I got crashes. Investigating realized no matter what I told the machine, unless I held "32" down during boot, it defaults to 64-bit.

I hope this information is useful but I will be calling AppleCare tomorrow.

I should add that I've gone over this thread a few times and haven't seen anyone mention what happens if they turn off automatic graphics switching and start in 32-bit mode?

alright,

I've confirmed that even with 32-bit forced, automatic graphics switching off, it still freezes.

Zapping pram and smc has fixed my issues so far. Been testing for an hour. CSS / L4D2

blake let us know how you geton..

I dont really play any games on any of my previous macbooks and I am awaiting for the latest macbook pro at present. But can some of you who have and have Not had problems please confirm some of this info.
Are hard freezes or unoperative problems with your macs (only able to move mouse) related to just games ?
Is anyone having problems with CS4/5 LR4 etc on there mac ?

Has anyone done a reinstall of OS 10.6.6 and then just used the machine for a full day and not had any problems ?
has anyone not got any fan software such as istat/ smc etc installed and still getting issues ?
Auto switching from a game to the finder can revert back to using the std graphics card and this could be the cause as well as 3rd party fan control software. However I feel that the OS 10.6.6 in conjunction with slow fan speed accelaration with lower or not to warm room temperatures slows down the cooling of the CPU/GPU and causes the hard freeze especially if there are 3rd party drivers for fan control installed - Please lets here some feedback on this.
As a final point when charging your macbook pro at the same time this may also be a problem, so has anyone had this problem during charging or not ?
You can test this by booting up into AHT by holding the D key down (make sure you have less than 70% charge and more than 20% charge on your battery, and the power connector is in). Then do the std test and repeat a couple more times without restarting - Do you get a tmp' error ?

I think the more we all try different settngs we may narror this down to either a Hardware/ software fault.

Thanks.

Try the following and Further info….
Please note Apple Hardware test may not report an error if not charging laptop at time of testing or if macbook is almost or fully charged (plugged in or not). Only try this test if your charging macbook that is not almost fully charged.
graphics switching auto - turn this to off (do you get the problem)
Also try running in 32 bit mode (how to do this I don't know at present waiting on macbook pro any day now)
disabling the S.M.A.R.T update interval on Istat pro (if installed)
Remove 3rd party fan control software (not just switch off)

This problem occurs for me daily on my new 15" MBP 2.2, and it is beyond frustrating.

I've had sleep/wake issues with this machine since I got it. I'll open it up and nothing will respond - no mouse, no keyboard. I'll close it again, count to 30, open it up, and then it goes.

Last night I set some files copying. Nothing intensive, nothing that should have strained the graphics. I run gfxCardStatus and it was on "Internal" the entire time... and I was left with a spinning beachball. Even terminal stopped responding after a while. Had to do a hard power cycle.

The logs report:

(com.apple.ReportCrash) Falling back to default Mach exception handler. Could not find: com.apple.ReportCrash.Self

And that's all - nothing for a couple hours and then that!

It has also locked when attempting to change resolutions in Starcraft II (but not while actually PLAYING Starcraft II).

Reading this thread, I don't think there's much commonality. I'll run the hardware diagnostics from the application disc, and call Apple... but I'm not holding out much hope that this is something they will resolve. It sounds like a firmware issue to me, but could also be a bad batch of logic boards.

Had Apple call me, things we did:

Disk Utility Verify - Pass.
Permission Repair - No problems.
Hardware Diagnostic - Pass.
SMC reset + PRAM reset...

And it is booting, sleeping, waking, and performing faster/better... so we will see. They are leaving the case open for now.

@matthewadams: No I was actually replying to iFrodo, whose theory was that the freezing and slowdown is due to "swapping" (also known as paging), where the kernel writes unused pages from RAM to disk.

This condition is easy to recognize and you will plainly see that you ran out of memory.