Lion randomly crashes - black screen

In my case diagnostic test didn't show anything wrong, but laptop died with bsod right at the genius bar. Also the guy checked console kernel panics log, so everything went pretty smooth and I didn't have to prove anything. But it was in Virginia, US. I know how apple service works, for example, in Russia, and this could be a real pain to make them fix something free of charge.

took it to assistance, and the guy said the test passed, nothing wrong with it.

he's gonna test some more, but suggested a clean reinstall. has any reinstall ever been successful in this case?

I'm going to try that next, but I'm not so sure that it will help. I actually had the same crash when I was in Windows yesterday!

No. Did a clean install last night and have had 5 black screens since.

That apple havent still been able to fix this for all people when they have a complete overview over the operating system and all the hardware running in the different batches of macbooks over the years is very surprising. When people use thousands of dollars to buy computers from them and they are not able to fix this for people then they seriously shouldnt be doing what theyre doing. Ridicoulous.

I still have the problem but oddly enough it occured after 10 months to a year of usage. All the no-brainer questions arent necessary like "oh, have you re-installed your operating system" and blala, because of course i have. I installed all the updates and even tried upgrading to lion, giving apple even more money when in fact they should have compensated us. Useless people.

I'm actually quite surprised that anyone havent filed a lawsuit against apple for this yet. When this happens the computers become nearly useless for some people and they spent a good amount of money on it.

I agree. I had a lot of BSOD problems that went away with their video update, but then they came back after a while. I was so angry with Apple for their lack of customer care. My MBP is almost useless in the regard that I can never trust it to function. I could never bring it to a show (DJ, producer).

The result is that I bought a PC, and now I'm in total control of it. It's in my hands, not in Apples'.

One aspect of this situation thats annoying is that in this case the users seems to know more about the problem than apple does. Asking people to run diagnosis tests is standard procedures i get that, but after that they say "there is nothing wrong with your mac". There isnt a better way to get rid of your customers than saying that.

Obviously this is a problem with the graphics card, either how the nvidia 330m graphics card is being handled or some other bug being introduced in the nvidia graphics card. Having isolated the problem to the graphics card (the stack traces always show the nvidia at the top) they should be able to find out what the problem is.

But I guess for apple, ignorance is bliss.

Personally, I find the two year extended warranty should either be extended, or deemed valid since the purchase and installation of Lion, as that was when the trouble appeared to rear its head.

Tor

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4111693?answerId=18935587022#18935587022

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4113257

I found that gfxCardStatus wasn't good enough; it doesn't seem to always catch when e.g. Chrome fires up and somehow enables the NVidia GPU (because of Flash?).

Since yesterday's Lion reinstall and subsequent crashtastic experiences, I've disabled gfxCardStatus and unticked Automatic graphic switching in the Energy Saver (I did this in Safe Boot so as to actually be able to do this at all). So far, it works.

It would be nice, until Apple does a full recall of these affected models (subtle hint), if the Apple engineers could provide a patch which disables the Nvidia GPU at boot (could the boot process remove its visibility on the bus, for example).

Tor

Well my MacBook Pro has been at the Apple store since last Wensday. I hope I get it back soon to update everyone with my experience after the replacement.

has downgrading to snow worked for anyone?

Not to my knowledge. It didn't work for me and some others I've seen trying it.

Unfortunetly "no" jvjv.

I've tried going back to 10.6.3 (via basline install disk) and 10.6.8. Experienced no problems before upgrading to 10.7.3. Something associated with the Lion install modify's something in the machine which isnt downgraded with the install of Snow Leopard. I have a buddy with the identical spec (bought at the same time) and he has no BSOD issues because he never upgraded to Lion <sigh>

..

the apple assistant reinstalled Lion on the MBP and thought it was all ok now.

but it isn't, already got the crash. that's why i thought of downgrading to snow, just to check.

i don't think Lion 'changed' something in the machine that made it faulty. i think it's more likely that a faulty hardware started to die coincidentally by the time Lion was released. maybe the whole Lion thing is just a timing coincidence.

i only wish it wasn't so hard to get this thing worked out. because come on, we're not trying to scam anyone here.

has the crash been happening more frequently, lately, or does it still crashes the same way as always for you all?

It always crashes when the Mac decides to use the NVidia GPU. For some **** reason, it will try to use the NVidia GPU even though "Automatic graphics switching" is off; for example, when Mission Control is activated.

As long as I don't use Mission Control, the machine is stable. If I try to use gfxCardStatus, it doesn't always catch the calls to use the discrete GPU (e.g. crash right after login, for example).

But yes; consistent.

Tor