Q: MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

Just done a few tests on my machine. I have installed several games including:
- The Sims 3
- Assassins Creed II
- Call of Duty 4

All these games do not run in full screen or freeze after some time or freeze when altering the graphics settings. On The Sims 3 during the first run I got a 'We do not recognise the graphics card' error/warning.

During all freezes the sound continued to play, however all other pieces of hardware failed and/or disconnected. External USB drives turned off. My bluetooth mouse and keyboard disconnected and my external monitor showed the same frozen state as on the MBP display itself.

The freeze was evident using both graphics cards. On one occasion iTunes played to the end of a song and then stopped. On all occasions the fans were screaming and a hard reboot was needed.

@John:

I just had my first crash this morning. I've skimmed through the thread a little but haven't had time to read it all. Is the consensus this is a firmware issue or something else? Should I call and get a replacement, or just wait it out?

Thanks,

JJ

I also had my new laptop freeze several times. I found it was a small program(MenuMeters) that I used for displaying network traffic. The program works great on my other systems. I then installed fan control(http://www.lobotomo.com/products/FanControl/) this seemed to removed most of the freezing. Now the fan engages quicker.
ColdMac

First of all, I apologize if this is redundant information. There are a lot of replies in this thread.

I purchased a Early 2011 15" 2.2GHz MBP at the end of February and have been experiencing these issues as well.

I decided to come up with some manner of repeatable test to bring my system to a halt and here is what I came up with.

Handbrake encoding VOB files already on the hard drive.
Running Netflix in a browser window (used Chrome)
Running a video game (World of Warcraft, Civ V)

I can consistently get the machine to freeze within a few minutes doing this. The CPU temp is around 91-92 degrees Celsius and all 8 virtual cores are at or near 100% usage.

I also have bootcamp set up with a Windows 7 Professional install. I decided to see if I had these problems in Windows. I tried the same experiment as close as I could. I ran handbrake, NetFlix inside a Chrome window, and ran Dragon Age Origins. My CPU temps were around 95-96 degrees Celsius and my CPU usage was at or near 100%. I ran this for over 30 minutes without a freeze.

This makes me suspect that this is not a hardware issue but a software/firmware issue. Has anyone who has gotten a macbook replacement found that their issues went away?

Thanks @nickwellings I'm glad someone else can confirm that the Sims 3 is not working with the new MBP... or.. working at dangerously hot temperatures.

The first time I played I didn't realize it was over heating and after 1-2 hours of play the computer was so hot that I'm worried it could have caused slight internal damage. Since lowering the graphic settings to the lowest possible & still having the problem I have been afraid to play any games.

Message was edited by: kirkins

JJ,

One individual had three machines with the problem, another said he went to the mac store and was able to freeze all of the machines there. I'm of the opinion now that this is a systemic problem. Others have had issues with windows, but I haven't seen enough evidence to say these are the same problem, so I'm inclined to think it is a driver/firmware/software issue. My replacement machine is on the way, so I'll have a second machine to experiment with next week.

You should call apple and basically add yourself to the list of folks who are affected by this. The following posting describes how to reproduce the freeze consistently, what you should do before you call, and what others have determined is the way to stave off the problem while you wait for a fix to be released:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13253066#13253066

John Harrold wrote:

One individual had three machines with the problem, another said he went to the mac store and was able to freeze all of the machines there.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13253066#13253066

@John Harold

Wow that must have been embarrassing for the mac store. I have been watching this forum for an hour or so and the page views on this thread are rising like crazy.



Its no wonder why... just do a twitter search for mac book pros

http://twitter.com/#!/search/macbook%20pros

Message was edited by: kirkins

i just ran the dev null thing i saw a few pages back:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2768351&start=330&tstart=0

running 7~8 of those + photobooth crashed my computer (i also specifically turned on graphics switching to see if it would freeze) i saw a huge temp spike (fan seped increase as well) then it just froze.... the interesting part is that i had itunes running, and music continued to be played in the background, it even switched from one song to another

second test: i managed to run 9-10 of dev null and photobooth with graphics switching turned off with NO crash!

this has led me to believe 2 things:
1) it is caused by the onboard intel gfx chip
2) only the video freezes (other applications continue to run)

Mike,

the interesting part is that i had itunes running, and music continued to be played in the background, it even switched from one song to another

This is consistent with many (most?) peoples experiences. Go back through the thread (all 500 replies) and see for yourself. Also, if you have remote login enabled, you can ssh into the frozen machine. It's just the interface that's frozen at that point. Though there is some indication that this it the beginning of a cascade which will even freeze these underlying processes that seem to still be running.

http://twitter.com/#!/search/macbook%20pros

News circulates fast, hope Apple bug-fixes do too!

Mike282 wrote:
i just ran the dev null thing i saw a few pages back:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2768351&start=330&tstart=0

running 7~8 of those + photobooth crashed my computer (i also specifically turned on graphics switching to see if it would freeze) i saw a huge temp spike (fan seped increase as well) then it just froze.... the interesting part is that i had itunes running, and music continued to be played in the background, it even switched from one song to another

second test: i managed to run 9-10 of dev null and photobooth with graphics switching turned off with NO crash/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png

this has led me to believe 2 things:
1) it is caused by the onboard intel gfx chip
2) only the video freezes (other applications continue to run)

Please read some more of this thread and reevaluate your conclusions,
try forcing the Intel GPU with gfxCardStatus tool and i'm 99% sure that you will see no crashes, and if you do i would really like you to write about it, because there was no such crash yet (but in fact i hope this would not happen - it would just complicate it all :P )

And as John Harrold said few posts up, all new people reading this thread having the same problems with their new machines - please contact Apple to add your MBP to the affected list, making it longer to bump up the priority.

Thanks too to those few users (like John and others) here trying to organize/host this thread making it more informative for newcomers

I'm currently at work and can't do this but can we perhaps setup a blog somewhere with:

*-Description of the problem.*
*-How to re-create the crash.*
*-Known models potentially affected.*
*-Possible workarounds.*

I am seeing exactly the same symptoms on 1st gen Macbook Pro.

Here you go. If anyone wants to edit or make changes, and I need to add any permissions so you can do so just email me (john dot m dot harrold at gmail dot com).

http://mbp-freeze.wikispaces.com/

Hi John,

Thanks for setting this up.
Is it possible we could add '+Try re-encoding large video files in a program such as handbrake+' to how to recreate the problem?