Q: MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

Please tell me, when power is off, sudden motions sensor work? if fell during it is power off, does get activated sudden motion sensor and protect the hard drive.? please explain me.

Im planing to buy 13" macbook pro. Is the problem solved with the new 10.6.7???????

@wonslung do you know how I might check which version I've got installed? I'm pretty sure I remember seeing (For MacBook Pro 2011) in the update - which I did through Software Update, but now you've got me hoping

No fish test, just normal use - finishing off work I was performing yesterday which didn't cause any problems.

iamjohnsname wrote:
If my **ing airport would work for more than ten seconds I'd download this update.

What a joke.

Any comments on possible damage already done to components as a result of overheats? As I wrote in an earlier post, my CPUs were reaching 99C.

Surely that could have a damaging effect on the longevity of my components?

2 things:

one, do you have a desktop or something with a wired connection? if so you can download the update directly from the apple site (theres a link earlier in this thread)

secondly, as i told you earlier in this thread, 99c isn't enough to cause permanent damage to your cpu.


The cpus are rated at 100c which means they can realistically handle tempatures higher than this. Typically if it DOES get much higher it will shut down before it can be damaged.

dtjnr wrote:
@wonslung do you know how I might check which version I've got installed? I'm pretty sure I remember seeing (For MacBook Pro 2011) in the update - which I did through Software Update, but now you've got me hoping

No fish test, just normal use - finishing off work I was performing yesterday which didn't cause any problems.

um....i know there is a way but i forget what it is....you coudl always try doing a refresh from your install disks if you don't have a ton of 3rd party stuff on your system yet.

I did this durring the testing phase because apple asked me to. It's quite simple. You may be one of the very few people who actually do have a machine wiht a hardware issue. If this is the case you should call apple, let them know 10.6.7 didn't fix it and ask them for a replacement.

The issue is not fixed for me in 10.6.7. The usual yes>/dev/null test passes fine now, but I challenge anyone to (properly) try a virtual machine.

I installed 10.6.7 this morning via Software Update. It was the correct update as it mentioned the Early 2011 machines. I've spent the entire evening trying to do some work in a virtual machine and every single time it has ended up with the machine locking up.

Using VMware Fusion (and before that, VirtualBox with the exact same result) I have loaded up probably 5 or 6 times now a fresh install of Windows SBS 2003 R2. This works fine. However, when I attempt to do anything remotely taxing on the resulting VM such as restoring a backup the machine will inevitably lock up. They key thing is that it can take a while before it occurs (sometimes as long as 2 hours).

I can tell when it is about to happen as the general performance of the machine goes to **** about 5-10 seconds before the lockup. Panicked, I hit the "Suspend" button in VMware so I can at least get back to where I am after rebooting. But, unfortunately, it never completes - the machine locks with the VM still in the process of suspending.

I've had it lock up in several ways. Sometimes the entire machine completely locks. Sometimes I can still move the mouse pointer, but nothing responds when clicked and the keyboard doesn't do anything either. Sometimes all the running applications freeze individually (including my VM) but I can switch between frozen applications. I can't launch any new ones, however, because there's no way to launch something with Finder and Spotlight etc all frozen. And no, Force Quit doesn't appear with the keyboard shortcut. Sometimes I can get in via the network, sometimes it completely stops responding to the network. Sometimes it will respond to pings only.

I usually have Activity Monitor open at the time, along with iStat Menus. At the time of the freeze the CPU hasn't ever been fully loaded (often about 50% use of a single core) and the temperature doesn't seem abnormal (60-80 degrees).

The freezes often take far longer to occur when forcing booting with a 32-bit kernel rather than the default 64-bit one. I initially thought that they didn't occur at all in 32-bit but I had one happen after a while so this was not the case.

So to anybody who thinks their machine is now working properly after applying 10.6.7, I'm guessing you just haven't experienced it happening yet. Or perhaps there are only more specific ways to get it to happen now. But it does happen, for me.

Yes... unfortunately had a very similar FREEZE happen to my new 2011 17" MacBook Pro. I was working in iMovie importing from camera and checking for stabilization, and upon returning to my laptop, found the computer completely frozen (no mouse-clicks ro keyboard strokes would respond). I had to perform a hard reset using the power button to reboot the computer.

Also, I've found this MacBook Pro to be sluggish when performing simple tasks like launching applications, etc. Anyone else experiencing the slow response and spinning rainbow when launching applications? Hope Apple comes up with a fix here quickly.

This problem was never an issue with the 13" series. This only affects the 15" and 17" because they use the AMD graphics cards... But yeah it looks like it solved the problem anyhow. Go get yourself a laptop sir!

what temperature is your MBP in when it freezes?
i have seen a video that shows what happens to AMD processors and to Intel processors when the coolers are removed' wich means that thy are overheated:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y39D4529FM4&feature=related
and i think that maybe this is what happens to the AMD graphics card to

Have you installed 10.6.7?? I'm assuming you've not, based on your posts. This problem is fixed.

This is a different issue. There is a trouble ticket on the Virtual Box site covering this specific issue. It affects all Sandy Bridge CPUs (not just quad core) running on OSX. There are about 5-6 work arounds (flags you set at boot up) that seem to provide some relief until they get an actual patch out.

The issue is an incompatibility in the kext.

rdotw wrote:
The issue is not fixed for me in 10.6.7. The usual yes>/dev/null test passes fine now, but I challenge anyone to (properly) try a virtual machine.

I'm sorry this isn't working for you but the update fixed it for me. i run vm's all the time, and have been since the upgrade, no issue whatsoever.

I installed 10.6.7 this morning via Software Update. It was the correct update as it mentioned the Early 2011 machines. I've spent the entire evening trying to do some work in a virtual machine and every single time it has ended up with the machine locking up.

That ***** mate, i think you have a faulty machine. The update fixed this issue for 99% of people. I've been following these forums and also the comments on several other places. I also have my own personal experience and that of my friends who own macbook pro 2011 15/17's. Everyone i know has had this issue solved with the update.

Using VMware Fusion (and before that, VirtualBox with the exact same result) I have loaded up probably 5 or 6 times now a fresh install of Windows SBS 2003 R2. This works fine. However, when I attempt to do anything remotely taxing on the resulting VM such as restoring a backup the machine will inevitably lock up. They key thing is that it can take a while before it occurs (sometimes as long as 2 hours).

I can tell when it is about to happen as the general performance of the machine goes to **** about 5-10 seconds before the lockup. Panicked, I hit the "Suspend" button in VMware so I can at least get back to where I am after rebooting. But, unfortunately, it never completes - the machine locks with the VM still in the process of suspending.

I've had it lock up in several ways. Sometimes the entire machine completely locks. Sometimes I can still move the mouse pointer, but nothing responds when clicked and the keyboard doesn't do anything either. Sometimes all the running applications freeze individually (including my VM) but I can switch between frozen applications. I can't launch any new ones, however, because there's no way to launch something with Finder and Spotlight etc all frozen. And no, Force Quit doesn't appear with the keyboard shortcut. Sometimes I can get in via the network, sometimes it completely stops responding to the network. Sometimes it will respond to pings only.

I usually have Activity Monitor open at the time, along with iStat Menus. At the time of the freeze the CPU hasn't ever been fully loaded (often about 50% use of a single core) and the temperature doesn't seem abnormal (60-80 degrees).

The freezes often take far longer to occur when forcing booting with a 32-bit kernel rather than the default 64-bit one. I initially thought that they didn't occur at all in 32-bit but I had one happen after a while so this was not the case.

So to anybody who thinks their machine is now working properly after applying 10.6.7, I'm guessing you just haven't experienced it happening yet. Or perhaps there are only more specific ways to get it to happen now. But it does happen, for me.

I'm sorry bro, but i think you're wrong here...I tried for hours to make mine crash last night with massive vm load, smallluxGPU and other tests concurrently. No crash. It's fixed for me for sure.

Same with plenty of other people.

I think you are one of the less than 1% who actually own a faulty machine.

Did you check your console for any error messages thrown up by the virtual machines when freezes occur? The graphics card freeze has the characteristic that it leaves no error message whatsoever. If you find specific error messages, then this is probably not related to the graphics card issue discussed here. Furthermore if you have specific error messages you can actually begin to investigate what the problem really is.

I have installed the 10.6.7 update and it didn't help
i still have that kind of artifacts on my screen: http://spiess.pl/lines.png
and it just isn't working for me

another thing - i have them in any MacOS copy on any partition i tried to install
i have them in MacOS SETUP <-- !!
and in Windows 7

waiting now for a courier that will take it to Authorized Service as I have no possibility for a replacement in Poland..

Thanks, but I did see that issue and applied a workaround. I switched to VMware Fusion to be sure, but it still happens.