Q: MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

Hello all,

I bought a refurbished 2011 Macbook Pro 15" 2.3 i7 from the Apple online store.  It froze from the get go while setting up my initial account.  The first freeze was a blue screen with black lines accross the screen.  I had to reset using the power button.  After that it would not load and I heard a repeating 3 beeps from the computer.  I decided it may be a ram issue, maybe was loose during shipping, so I opened the case and reinserted the ram.  To my surprise it had 8GB of ram, when I bought a 4 GB machine?  Anyways, the computer booted as normal and I was able to set up an account and start using the machine.  An hr into using it, I downloaded skype, opened it and it froze.  Screen seemsed to shift, there were horizontal lines accross the screen, and I could move the mouse cursor, but that was all I could do.  I restarted the machine with the power button, reloaded skype and it did not freeze.  I figured they were both random freezes and left it at that.  The next morning I connected my macbook to my LG LED tv using an HDMI to miniDP cable.  I stared to watch the pbs newshour and within a minute the screen locked up like during the skype freeze and I could still hear the audio from the stream.  I restarted the computer 3 separate times and each time it froze.  I called apple, did the usual reinstall osx, reset pram, reset smc, but I could keep making it freeze.  Most of the time it froze rather quickly,but sometimes I could put it under heavy stress and it would keep on working.  I called apple, and they are letting me return the machine on a DOA return.  I then bought a brand new machine using my military discount and hoping a new one will not have the same issues as this refurbished machine.  What ***** is that I am stationed in Germany, so I have to wait most likely another week and a half to recieve the new machine and test it to make sure its not a dud.  All this is to replace my 2008 macbook pro who's logic board died a month after my 3 year warrenty expired.

Oh, and one more thing.  I installed gfxCardStatus and it will freeze on both graphic card types.  I checked the system information and it seems like I have one of the older SATA 3 GB link speed logic boards.  Are the newer 6GB SATA mbp's freezing as well?  Here is one more picture of it freezing on my tv.

I have macbook pro 17" early 2011 2.3 gh. My laptop once a day randomly freeze ( keyboard is active for sime time, i can pump up the volume or turn of the keyboard lighting ). It happens mostly after quiting or starting app.

Except that my macbook also doesn't want to wake up from sleep or even from turning of the screen. Everything is working after wake, except the screen. I have to close the lid and wait until laptop goes to sleep. Then open - and everything is fine.

This things naver happen in Windows 7 under bootcamp. My computer is very stable at Windows, i play most recent games ( Deus EX, Crysis 2, Starcraft 2 ). I even overclocked GPU - 860 mhz core / 1050 mhz memory. With those clocked laptop can operate all night in 3dmark'11.

I don't know what to do.....

I have to work under Mac OSX and edit movies in Final Cut. HELP!!

Should I replace my apple store. It's only 2 weeks old.

Greshone, i got the same problem when im quiting application applications. I disabled the Automatic Ggraphics Switching and no more freezes.

I filled in a bug report about this: After further investigation it has been determined that this is a known issue, which is currently being investigated by engineering.  This issue has been filed in our bug database under the original Bug ID# 9759509.

Thank You Samplex

Maybe this whole issue with freezing on very expensive Macbook Pro computers needs to be made more public, maybe via TV shows like BBC 1 Watchdog.

Go public if You can - I live in Poland - we have dumm apple service ( not real apple support ). I show my macbook and they didn't know what to do.

My mac cost me almost 4285$ = that's the price for 17" 2.3 gh matte  here in my country and now body cares about me in Poland

So, i have tried to be quite first and run all the suggestion found in this thread.

I got the same issue, first month of being lovely machine no glitch at all, but suddenly just 2 weeks ago I have come to the pool of user who experience the freezing.

To cut it short, I just tried to disable the automatic graphic switching and installed gfxgraphicstatus to manually change graphic card.

After running photoshop, illustrator, premiere and after effects while browsing with firefox and listening via itunes, quits all the application and still working fine.

Please install latest Mac OSX built: 10.7.2 11C71. I downloaded it and I haven't got any freeze since 2 days.

My macbook : early 2011, i7, 17". 2.3 gh, 8gb ram (1666mhz).

Please confirm. Latest build You will find here: os_x_lion_10.7.2_11c71_combo_updatereversioner.dmg

Hard freeze hour later aftes quiting skype

Well, I've got my new RAM from Crucial. Since I swapped out the olf 8GB and went back t the stock 4GB I've not had a crash at all.

Tomorrow I'll put the 8GB in and see what happens.

Have you checked out all the posts on here under this heading? It's people with the same issues and not necessarily with Lion although some have noticed the problems since installing it.

My Macbook Pro 15" i5 had a new logic board 8 months after purchase and that was after many weeks of erratic problems with it.

Lion randomly crashes - black screen

ok.. update.. i´m back from the Apple Store with a new logic board (What a wonder?! )

For now everything works fine.. but ive tested it only for 2 days... i´ll give an update after a week or so.

My macbook pro 15'' 2011 just froze today. I have this laptop for about 2 weeks now, completely brand new from apple. I was watching a stream for about 10 minutes and it froze. I was not running any app or rendering video at all.

Is there a solution for this yet? I have the latest version of mac lion (10.7.1)

Well, that test of the new 8GB RAM from Crucial lasted all of 5 minutes. The RAM caused a Kernel Panic.