Q: MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

I can confirm that I've just reproduced the problem with photobooth running (effect ON) while 7 "yes > /dev/null" were active.
It took only about 10 seconds to freeze.

It seems that tomorrow I'll call apple for a refund !

@Milk:

That's exactly the behavior I've been seeing. Flash Videos and viewing iTunes movies in full screen pretty consistently caused a crash. But I've seen it a number of other times as well -- when not doing anything particularly video intensive...

I can get the crash to happen with the first 2 of the 3 tests described on the wikispaces article.

Message was edited by: jeffles

Your 3 year old MBP with the 8600M GT may be covered still, take it in to the Apple Store - they have a specific test for these particular Nvidia cards. I just took my 3,1 in for this issue and it's being repaired for free.

This is, however, a separate issue from this thread.

@digimania

good find with that warning. I'll presume that's the case, then. It's the only experiment that has caused any lockups for me since Saturday. Though I must also again say that from last Monday - Saturday, I was getting infrequent lockups without any load being put on the machine whatsoever.

Glad that we can, however, scratch the Chrome "test" off the list.

$0.02

Anyone tried to boot with 32bit kernel? I haven't been able to reproduce a freeze since booting in 32bit mode. Tried 8xyes>/dev/null cinebench and use chrome webgl with 1000 fishes.

Just putting in my 2c here... Been trying to replicate this problem and crash my laptop all morning.

I have finally been relatively successful but I think I've boiled it down to one main issue. Now remember this is going off my own experience with my laptop:

2.3 i7, 17" matte, 8GB RAM, 750GB HD.

I've had 2 unknown random crashes since working with this laptop. Not sure what caused this. Graphics on screen freeze but mouse still remains responsive.

interestingly enough, I've had varying success in trying to replicate this crash. However, I think it is due to the actual event of switching from integrated to discreet graphics. I can only seem to get my laptop to crash when switching from the intel chipset to the ATI card while under gfx load. I've downloaded the gfxCardStatus app (great job to Cody Kreiger btw) to have more control to over what causes these crashes.

So far, after using gfxCardStatus to force my laptop to run only in DISCRETE mode (yes discrete not iterated) while plugged in to a power source has solved these problems for me. I've also set gfxCardStatus to only run in INTEGRATED mode while on battery. Basically I've disabled the switching functionality of the laptop. Yet I've maintained the full functionality of the computer while plugged in.

I don't see why you would want to use the discrete card while on battery power anyway. If you are running heavy duty GFX apps, then you would really wanna be plugged in anyway right?

STILL, Apple needs to get on top of the ball with this one. I don't like having to "duck-tape-up" my shiny new MBP just to avoid crashes... AND if this really is a Hardware issue, then I am **** WELL EXPECTING a FREE replacement...

Message was edited by: Dievo

Message was edited by: Dievo

10.6.7 is now out. Give it try!

I played around with that test on my Macbook Pro Mid 2009 with Nvidia 9400M, and it went nuts after a while, screen flickering black. I could move my mouse and hear the music on background but couldn't click on anything.

Managed to take a screenshot: http://img843.imageshack.us/i/freezeb.png/


And a lot of these in system logs in Console:

21.3.2011 22:09:27 kernel NVDA(OpenGL): Channel exception! exception type = 0xd = GR: SW Notify Error
21.3.2011 22:09:27 kernel 0000006e
21.3.2011 22:09:27 kernel 00200000 00008397 00000474 00000010
21.3.2011 22:09:27 kernel 0000047e 00001458 00083401 00000009
21.3.2011 22:09:27 kernel 00000000 00000000 00000002
21.3.2011 22:09:27 kernel 00000010 00000000

Message was edited by: shimatta

not only is 10.6.7, but it specifically lists:

"*Improve graphics stability* and external display compatibility"

here's hoping.

woot, downloading the update now.

it says that it will fix stability issues for all 2011 macbook pros. I'm so glad this hit all the major blogs....heres hoping that it fixed it for us.

Oops I have downloaded it too fast...

Could someone please copy / paste the changelog here ?
Thank you

The Mac OS X 10.6.7 Update for MacBook Pro is recommended for all early 2011 MacBook Pro models. It includes general operating system fixes for Mac OS X Snow Leopard that enhance the stability, compatibility, performance, and security of your Mac, including fixes that:
Improve the reliability of Back to My Mac
Resolve an issue when transferring files to certain SMB servers
Address various minor Mac App Store bugs
Address minor FaceTime performance issues
Improve graphics stability and external display compatibility
For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4472
For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Thank you very my much !
Quite encouraging !

Nice: Improve graphics stability and external display compatibility
https://img.skitch.com/20110321-k968wn8emwbhqek5rxywqxgrs5.jpg

Let's hope this will fix the freeze problem

I just updated. Issue still persists for me on 1000 fish test.

Message was edited by: ideazinfinite