Lion randomly crashes - black screen

Would you go back and report if it worked?

😉

It's actually pretty simple:

For those whose machines have worked perfectly UNTIL Lion, it's clearly either a software (nVidia driver) or firmware (assuming Apple snuck in new firmware in Lion) issue. Otherwise why would our machines have worked perfectly for 8-12 months on Snow Lion, only to crash every few hours (or more frequently) under Lion?

For those whose machines have crashed since Snow Leopard, it's most likely faulty hardware. But I have a question: if your machine has always been crashing, why did you continue to put up with it? If I paid between $1700-$2500 for a machine and it was crashing since the day I bought it (I'm assuming your 2010 MBPs all came with Snow Leopard so you're claiming it's been crashing since the beginning) I'd have returned that sucker to Apple ASAP. I use my MBP for so many important things I can't put up with intermittent crashing. If the gfxcardstatus trick didn't work for me, I'd have rolled back to SL.

Simple, because on Snow Leopard it only crashed maybe once a month for me. It use to be bearable. Still not acceptable, but at least it didn't really affect me.

here is a brief summary :

* It is a video card driver compatibility issue due to Lion update

* Before getting a bug fix, you can install gFxCardStatus to totally solve the issue if you use your laptop screen by switching to integrated mode and partially solve the problem using discrete mode if you are using an extern monitor.

* Apple knows the issue and is working on it

Computers crash, it's just their nature. Development machines crash more often, and my development machines crash even more often again! :)

A kernel panic every couple of months is so much better than my Windows dev machines it's hardly worth thinking about. A couple of times a day is naturally quite a different matter.

Now whether there are actually multiple issues here, one hardware related, one software, Apple are really the only ones with access to enough data to determine. That's why it's important to submit crash reports.

Unfortunately, locking the graphics down to integrated mode hasn't worked as a solution for some of us, although it's worked for enough people to be worth a try.

trippin2k wrote:

Hi all,

For what it's worth, I have successfully resolved this exact issue (nvidia 330m driver crash) on my Mid 2010 MacBookPro ... I was tearing my hair out for a solution and spent hours pouring over this thread hoping someone had found a solution ... BUT, 2 days now with a STABLE, & FAST install of OS X Lion.

Ok, so what I ended up doing to fix mine was -

* remove any instances of FanControl you may have installed from suggestions here.

* an SMC reset (<- suspect this was key -- I had no visual cue that this was successful so I tried about 5 times)

* Zap PRAM 3 times (yes, hold those keys until the machine reboots three times and your here the chime noize three times).

* Once restarted, I used iStat to confirm that my MacBook pro was able to control the fan speeds and accurately detect the temperatures and react accordingly ...

Again, 2 days now and I am trying to make it crash, but it's working like the day I brought it!

Hope this helps someone.

Possible breakthrough here ...

This is the first suggestion that smcFanControl may be the culprit. Is anyone experiencing this problem who does NOT have smcFanControl (or CoolBook) installed on their system? I'm going to try this ... will report back.

xgrep wrote:

Possible breakthrough here ...

This is the first suggestion that smcFanControl may be the culprit. Is anyone experiencing this problem who does NOT have smcFanControl (or CoolBook) installed on their system? I'm going to try this ... will report back.

Yes, I have experienced this problem without smcFanControl or any other fan software.

Also, I have experienced this problem while only using integrated video (indeed, I haven't used the nVidia video on my Mac in months), so it is definitely not limited to the nVidia drivers.

rafatmit wrote:

Yes, I have experienced this problem without smcFanControl or any other fan software.

Also, I have experienced this problem while only using integrated video (indeed, I haven't used the nVidia video on my Mac in months), so it is definitely not limited to the nVidia drivers.

OK, thanks, good info! I also had the problem with only integrated video. But I'll still try removing smcFanControl and resetting the SMC and report back (it won't be for a while ... I have a day job :-).

@UCLSMac

my MBP started crashing about 3 months ago with SL and I DID take it to apple only to be told there's nothing wrong. similar to another person a few posts ago. The technicials are clueless and simply run the hardware test which we can do on the disk. They probably spend an hour max on the problem and if they can't see a crash then your SOL.

@elio.dainese Chips certainly can have inherent problems. Just because "they are silicon" does not mean they are perfect. There are many manufacturing problems which can occur. These chips can either be scrapped completely, certain features disable or fixed by applying higher or lower voltage to achieve stability etc etc. GPU's especially will be manufactured then tested for grading, and quality of the yield. Based on how they pass tests they will be thrown in the appropriate bin determining whether they are destined for the low quality price point or premium Overclockable variety GPU.

Bad yield GPU chips might instead of having say, a 8 rendering/graphic pipes, have 4 pipes disabled because they were causing faults or maybe they'd simply be cut to reduce heat. So instead of being a premium 8 pipe chip it becomes the cheaper price point 4 pipe chip. Also voltage vs clockspeed plays a factor.

There are even cases where video cards will have higher than expected yields so to fill the lower price point card allotment they will on purpose disable features like pipes through firmware. There are cases of users unlocking features in their cards to upgrade the card to a higher quality card via "hacked" firmware updates. IIRC a example of this was the nvidia 9500 unlocking to become the far more expensive (at the time) 9700. You could even buy these "unlocked 9500 to 9700" cards on ebay.

Thus, firmware DOES play a factor in hardware performance, feature set and stability through enabling/disabling certain features which were previously disabled to provide stability.

Anyway i think we have a case where some mid april 2010's 330m GPU's were marginally faulty but passed the "quality assurance" checks. Some people, like myself, would crash so rarelythat apple couldn't detect the issue and simply tell us "there is nothing wrong". After lion there was a possible firmware update which has inadvertently unlocked hardware features which were either disabled or untested and simply don't work reliably.

One final thing to think about: Another reason i'm certain its a hardware + firmware issue and not simply a driver problem... I bought my MBP mid 2010 at the exact same time as my work mate. We both have the same model. He never crashed in SL, not once. I started crashing many times after about 6months. Then we both updated to Lion on the same day. I started crashing immediately and upto 15+ times a day. He is STILL yet to crash. Please tell me how software could result in my identical machine crashing when his does not if its purely a driver issue and not hardware? We both have identical software how could it magically perform differently on his machine than mine?

I've had freeze ups, spinning beachballs, Internet losing conectivity, and occasional crashes. Reading this post and 100s of others it seems that those of us with MacBook Pros that have 2 video cards (particularly NVIDIA GT 330M) are having problems. Some speculated that it is a graphics card driver problem, so I went to the NVIDIA site to see if there are any updated drivers.

At http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=205891 they list a developer graphic driver for the NVIDIA GT 330M. I thought my MBP could not get much worse and was about an hour from going back to Snow Leopard and restoring from my Time Machine backup.

Well after installing the developer drivers (which also installs CUDA) I've been able to switch graphics cards, start and actually use Safari and Chrome with no crashes, hangs, loss of Internet connectivity, etc. The display seems to scroll smoother - even if using the integrated Intel graphics card (was there a conflict before?).

I recommend trying the driver from NVIDIA - there certainly is not much you can lose.

wired00 wrote:

immediately and upto 15+ times a day. He is STILL yet to crash. Please tell me how software could result in my identical machine crashing when his does not if its purely a driver issue and not hardware? We both have identical software how could it magically perform differently on his machine than mine?

Excellent post! From my own past experience, I can confirm everything you said. Chips are graded and labeled exactly as you describe.

There's just one flaw in your last paragraph: you say you have identical software ... unless you are identical twins who mirror each other's every thought and action, that obviously can't be true. Presumably, you have at least slightly different software configurations. Perhaps the slight differences don't account for the behavior, and the hardware is the root cause of the different behavior. But perhaps not. It's certainly not impossible for software differences to account for the difference in behavior. I do plan to find out, at least on my system, if smcFanControl (i.e., software) is a factor in the crashing since installing Lion.

Anyway, slow progress here in the speculative universe ... the folks at Apple who are looking at the bits actually know what's going on.

Mark Marin wrote:

...so I went to the NVIDIA site to see if there are any updated drivers.

At http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=205891 they list a developer graphic driver for the NVIDIA GT 330M. I thought my MBP could not get much worse and was about an hour from going back to Snow Leopard and restoring from my Time Machine backup.

Well after installing the developer drivers (which also installs CUDA) I've been able to switch graphics cards, start and actually use Safari and Chrome with no crashes, hangs, loss of Internet connectivity, etc. The display seems to scroll smoother - even if using the integrated Intel graphics card (was there a conflict before?).

I recommend trying the driver from NVIDIA - there certainly is not much you can lose.

Being desperate and all I downloaded and installed the developer driver. I set gfxCardStatus preferences so that the integrated GPU is used when the MBP is on batteries, and auto-switching is done when the MBP is connected to a power source.

Sad to say that the crashes have not gone away. And that's why I set gfxCardStatus to use integrated when the machine is on batteries. So that I can at lease login by disconnecting the power cord.

So, here I sit, drumming my fingers on the table....

If Apple will not fix the problem i'll be' force to do it, but I really hope to don't do so.

Anyway a guy reported few pages back in this discussion that a downgrade to Snow Leopard fixed the issue.

Just re-tried the SMC reset combined with updated CUDA nVidia drivers, then set gfxCardStatus to Dynamic and started working. No luck, five minutes with Xcode and the simulator and bang!

Switching to Integrated now seems to be working though, so it looks like the SMC reset or the updated drivers are working for me. Will switch back to Snow Leopard and check the stability of straight Integerated there (without touching the drivers).