Q: MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

Haere Mai from  Auckland New Zealand

I returned my new 17inch MacBookl Pro as it had continual freezes and waited to buy a new one.

I took the precaution of buying a 15 inch this time to try to avoid problems and for the last two weeks it has been performing perfectly. I notice I have the 6 GB link on STADA what ever that means.

I am lucky as in NZ things have to work and be 'fit for purpose' or one gets a refund at once with no question about it.

The first one froze when it felt like it even on simple moves from one Apple apllication to another, like iCal to iTunes.

I found the whole affair disappointing. So that's my report. When it works it works beautifully.

Off topic during the waiting period I was forced to use iMovie 11 to import my HD. I had to learn iMovie II and I hated it. It is so clunky. I am not thrilled to learn FCP X is based on it. Thank goodness I have FCPro 7.

Ah me! Good luck

Haere Ra

I bought MBP 2 months ago and I have the same problem,but the worse part is I keep getting freeze at least 7 times a day.The problem is i'm currently located in a country which have totally no apple retail store,and I will need to stay here for a long time period.I really hope that I can get a solution from Apple regarding this matters.

Why is apple not fixing your computers

Because the I bought my MBP in HK and i'm currently in Africa region which don't have Apple Store and I don't where to look for solution here.

But you should still be able to send it in via air mail. Apple can't just refuse to fix your computer because you live in Africa.

Today I returned from a weekend away, turned it on to upload my pics, successfully. Then the screen went into vertical lines and froze. I did a hard reboot and it started ok again and I checked my pics. Then it froze again, splitting the screen in a wrap like way. Now every time I try to re-boot I get the grey apple, the spinning wheel, then a white screen and nothing, then the fan starts running faster and faster so I do a hard shut down. This has happened 5 times so far over 4 - 5 hours.

There are 2 major problems - firstly I work on a yacht, so I'm currently a very long way away from New Zealand until September. Secondly one of the things that my girlfriend and I discussed over the weekend was how I needed to fix my habit of not backing up - so today was to be the first backup - it looks like I may have been too late.

Does anyone have any idea what I should do and how I can maybe back up my pics and files!!!

Does your MBp 2011 have HDD or SSD?

Do you mean send to the nearest service centre?But i'm not sure after fixing still have the same problem.Seems like others never got the MBP fix so far.

I believe you need an ASSP not service center. http://solutionprofessionals.apple.com/aasp/ If it were my computer I'd fix it myself, but that's me.

Why are people buying broken MBp Computers that they know Apple wont fix?

I have tried 3 different logic board, all suffered from the problem, the first one have a faulty mini-display port, and the turbo frequency keep at >3.0GHz, the second one is terrible, apps running in both win7 and Mac crash. The third one seems the best, most of the time it is stable, but the turbo frequency only keep at about 2.8GHz.

All 3 logic boards crash in some apps, e.g. WebGL under Google Chrome, Handbreak.

Freezing issues on the MacBook pro are caused by 1 of 3 things.

1. Electrical issues. NOT enough voltage, over voltage, bad electrical connections, etc.

2. The Ssd drive its self. They can cause stuttering and freezing. But this happens only if there is outdated firmware on the ssd drive and/or the user ignorantly does an image of a previous drive .. not a full wipe and clean install with the new drive.

3. Bad thermal control and design. i.e. overheating.

Now, since your logic board has been replaced we can assume  #1 does not apply here.

As for #2, you have not told us anything about your drive or if you even have an ssd drive, so we can not determine if thats the problem in your situtation.

And #3.  That's very likely, especially if you have a Mbp with an i7 cpu. There has been known heat issues on Mbps with i7s. Just search the forum here if you do not believe me.

Known heat issues on 2011 Mbps are due to thermal paste that has been applied imporperly and the Mbps undersized cooling systems.

As for fixing heat issues. You will have to fix that yourself.  Apple wont fix heat issues on 2011 mbps as they would have to recall every single 2011 Mbp to do that as the overheating is partly related to a badly designed cooling system. Apple would lose millions in repair/redesign costs if they recalled every single macbook pro in existence.

This is why I bought squaretrade rather than apple care. Apple care is pertty worthless when apple wont properly fix your computer. At least with square trade I can fix the computer myself or send it off to someone other than apple to have it fixed. And they will pay for it all.

the freeze may not related to your second and third points, for the second point, I have try the Apple stock HDD, a seagate Hybird drive and SSDs, all suffered from the problem.

For the third point, the MBP may freeze even the temperature under 60 degree C. It freeze only by some program that run perfectly in other Macs.

For the first point, It is likely the cause. Since all these 3 logic board have different problems, 1st one with faulty mini-display port, 2nd one crashes with more then 10 known programs in both Mac and Win. the 3rd one with a much  lower turbo frequency compare with the first logic board.

And all these 3  logic boards crash with Handbreak and Google Chrome running WebGL.

This may related to early i7 chipset, with a faulty sata port, apple just make the port running at half speed (3Gb/s), and under votage the port to avoid "the problem".

Someone in here found that some new MBP with a new version of logic board that the sata port running at 6Gb/s, and those new MBPs does not suffered from the crashes.

But for those who bought their MBP before May just like me, they only got the faulty chips.

And when you take your MBP to the Apple Care, they just said they never heard about this, including the freeze, the sata issues...

They just replace with another bad logic board for you. That's what's happening here in HK.

Well, looks like I am joining the party.  My new 15" 2.2 GHz i7 MBPro  is experiencing the hard freeze.  I didn't know about the issue, and working at Apple Care once upon the time, I went through the whole process... I originally migrated from another MBPro, so I thought that was the issue... so I did what AppleCare usually does... reinstall.... so I did.. still issues... so then came the dreaded Erase and Install with the formatted hard drive... I just got done with doing all the updates... literally... then hard freeze. 

This stinks... When I worked there, they always did what was right for the customer, but knowing the issue this long and still not doing anything about it... come on Apple.  I am sure the engineering department is on this, I am not sure what the issue is, I will make some calls tomorrow to friends at Apple... I hope it isn't the thermal paste issue again... we have been through that before.  Well, looks like I am looking at a DOA out of box replacement.. bummer.