Q: MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

I have exactly the same problem.
first i asumed it was something i tried that got my system stuck so did fresh install.
that ended up in having Apple replace my harddrive (i could not install MacOs on it at all).
so i expected it to be fixed. but then discovered that when i switch locations (and i do that a lot) my system still hangs. Today i removed iStat Menu, and it has been stable since.

I'm a registered user so i will report this to iStat. i do like the tool, so i hope they can fix it.

Hi Simon.

I have the 2.7ghz i7 dual core processor Macbook Pro 13 inch. Wait, something is not right here. You have the 2.3ghz i5-2410M processor Macbook Pro 13 inch. According to Intel, the maximum speed of your CPU with Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 is supposed to be 2.9ghz. How is it then that your CPU is being pushed to 3.4ghz? I have another question. What is your processor score for WEI(Windows Experience Index)?

Sincerely,
Marvo

Hi,

That's exactly what I did. When I phoned support, they told me it might be a good idea to reinstall from the cd but th install failed the first time and the system completely lost my ssd (folder icon when booting). After a few resets, it came back. I don't have istat so cannot confirm it was that.

My system is getting the ssd replaced tonight.

Hi Marvo,

From Apple's website:

"The new 15- and 17-inch models bring quad-core power to almost everything you do. The available 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor — with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.4GHz and up to 8MB of shared L3 cache"

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/features.html#processor

This is what I also see in Windows 7.
I'm at work at the moment so will run the experience index later.

I think I finally find a compromised solution on my Mac: just turn off Graphic auto-switch. When Graphic auto-switch turned off, no screen freezing suffered any more even when I ran heavy Vbox task.

sorry, false report. My Mac has just frozen after hours heavy running.

"just a little disillusioned and concerned, wondering if anyone else there has experienced a hard freeze like this."

Rensoom

Yes, I have experienced it and more on my 15 in mbp, freeze with a visible curser while working in preview ( photo editing) I could still hear my chat buddy and it has also frozen where I could move the curser pointer around.

After subsequent updates (foolishly thinking it maybe software) the freeze occurs in iphoto ( with only iphoto running) editing will induce a black screen panic almost every time.
Except for the time I had the black screen and horrific noise to accompany it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYmigksLL4k

- Freezes presented in test accounts all accounts.

• I updated to 10.6.7 as touted.
• Running Disk permissions doesn't help ( not to mention how odd the unfulfilled progress bar is)
• I reset the PRAM
• Reset the System Management Controller (SMC)
• I made a new partition and did a fresh reinstall (apple apps only) and 6 DSC_xxxx photos, nothing else running and more of the same.


This is not a heat nor a software problem, this is a graphic card
or logic board problem.

Same here, a brandnew macbok pro (1 day old...) was running 2 instances of virtualbox and I started up coda for some programming work and the system went bazinga.

There was some audio playing so it stayed on a kind of repeat mode for a 1 second sample. I hard to press the powerbutton to hard reset the device. This happened 3 days on the same day...

I am having this same problem on my brand new (2 day old) Macbook Pro! Grr!

My specs:
Macbook Pro 15"
OSX Version 10.6.7
2.2 GHz i-core i7
1 GB ATI video card
8 GB ram
750 GB hd

I assume it's the ATI video card causing all of these crashes. This issue is NOT FIXED in OSX version 10.6.7, as I just got the machine (factory shipped with 10.6.7) and I have been experiencing graphics glitches/artifact all over the screen.

I'm not even doing anything graphic intense... I was playing World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2 and have crashed (required manual reboot via the hardkey) at least 10 times.

Dont say that ive ordered 2 custom jobs coming next week.
Thought the update cured it

Hello there

It's my first post here, I live in Brazil and recently bought a Core i7 2.2ghz 15" MB Pro to replace my Late 2008 13" MB Pro.

Came here just to state i'm having the exact same issues everyone else describes here while on OS X 10.6.7, but I tend to disagree it is a hardware problem. I've been running Windows 7 x64 on Boot Camp flawlessly (decided to give it a try, since my so beloved OS X decided to freeze every now and then with no explainable usage pattern).

Just to add a bit more, on Boot Camp i'm running a few games, working on VS 2010, encoding videos with Handbrake and doing casual stuff, browsing on the internet, playing Flash stuff and until now I had no freezing at all.

Hope this post adds some more info to the pool of data we're collecting here.

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYmigksLL4k

* Freezes presented in test accounts all accounts.


• I updated to 10.6.7 as touted.
• Running Disk permissions doesn't help ( not to mention how odd the unfulfilled progress bar is)
• I reset the PRAM
• Reset the System Management Controller (SMC)
• I made a new partition and did a fresh reinstall (apple apps only) and 6 DSC_xxxx photos, nothing else running and more of the same.

This is not a heat nor a software problem, this is a graphic card
or logic board problem. "

Heads up.. Your laptop is broken take it back and get a new one instead of posting on a forum.

Regards,
Simon

Greetings,

I said I'd report back once I received my new machine... To recap, I ordered a CTO 2.2 GHz Anti-Glare 17" MBP with the stock 750 Gb drive and 8 Gb of memory; in the first few days, it froze repeatedly while trying to set it up, so I did all the resets (SMU, PRAM, reinstall) and devised a simple test (8 copies of yes > /dev/null in the Terminal with PhotoBooth open) to force a hang before calling AppleCare to arrange for a replacement. Just before the courier arrived to collect the machine, 10.6.7 came out and while this seemed to improve things, it did hang yet once more after the update. So I sent it back.

The new machine arrived this week and I immediately reformatted it and started pounding it to see if it would fail. I ran heavy CPU work with a mixture of discrete and built-in graphics card usage, and could not make it fail. I ran it with air conditioning on and off (I'm in Singapore), and I could not make it fail at all.

So, I have now completely migrated all of my data to this new machine (from a ~5-year-old C2D 17" MBP), and I'm not looking back... This machine is WAAAAAYYYY faster, and even at full CPU load for 12 hours (with no air conditioning in the room) does not get as hot to the touch as the old C2D machine did...

I'm a happy camper -- both with the hardware, and with Apple's handling of a disappointing start to this transition.

Cheers,
Scott

So I take it that it is now safe to buy one of these machines now?

same question here, has the problem been solved?