Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

So, in July I installed lion on my Macbook pro i7 2010 and had to downgrade to Snow Leopard again because of the continuous black screen issues.

But now I'm geting the same issue on Snow Leopard.....What the ****!

I spent 2000€ for a machine that should not have this kind of issues.

And the worse is that Apple does not say a word about these machines, if it's a software or hardware thing. If Apple respects their costumers has they say they do, just give an official reply to all these problems.

There's a similar thread running on the NVIDIA forum at http://bit.ly/oWBZgI where users have found that replacing the Logic Board has solved the problem.

I assume that the replacement Logic Boards are carrying a different graphics card, not the NVIDIA GT330M which seems to be causing the problems, especially for users running Lion.

It must be possible for Apple to have narrowed down the cause of the BSOD now. Perhaps a solution is in the pipeline? Fingers crossed.

I'd also give a link to a FB page but when I do that my posts are censored and deleted, so I won't post it

Have tried most of the tips suggested in this thread, but no luck. I still get BSOD way too often.

After a clean install of 10.7.1 it even seem to have got worse...

My MBP info

I also have a mid 2010 15" MacBook pro 2.66ghz i7 and have been having the same bsod problems. I just brought it into the apple store on thursday and showed the problem to them. The guy there looked at the crash report and agrees that it looked like a problem with the nvidia card/ logic board. He said he would order in a logic board replacement just in case and in the meantime he would run a battery of tests on it to check everything.

I just got a call today from them saying that it is ready to be picked up and when I asked what was done to it they checked and said nothing. They said they could't reproduce the problem on their own and their tests found no problems with the hardware. They said in their opinion it is likely a software issue.  After further talking, they agreed to do the logic board replacement although they said that they are making no guarantee that it will fix anything because they found no hardware problems in their tests. I mentioned this discussion on their website and how the replacement logic board has worked for most people but some needed 2 or 3 before it fixed it. They agreed to do this one replacement but that if it doesn't work that they won't replace it again because they believe it is likely software related.

So we'll see what happens once they replace the logic board. Hopefully that will fix it for me (fingers crossed) otherwise it looks like im going to have to really fight for them to do more. I'll post here again to let you know what happens.

good luck techman28 i'm sure it will be working 100%

Same issues, random BSOD, tried all the tricks with gfxCardStatus, clean install, etc etc...I won't even touch 10.7.1 now after reading that it worsens things in some cases! And I'd revert to SL except I also hear that the BSOD still happens!! The biggest issue now is TIME - the masses of it, wasted dealing with this!

I just called Applecare to start a case and of course, the guy had never heard of this issue. Wow. Don't they have some sort of system in place for tech support people to share reported case information? I mean, this may be a small percentage of MB Pro users with this problem, but surely they have received quite a few complaints in absolute numbers, do they not pass this information around or have it available for tech support to reference when a support request comes in? I'm an Apple user since the Mac Plus somewhere back in the early-mid 80's but this is by far the worst experience I've had. Well now I can relate to what our Windows brethren have lived with all these years. How disappointing! $2300 machine with $350 Applecare and it just stops working randomly and regularly, but the manufacturer hasn't heard about it...?

Just...wow.

I think the most disheartening thing about this issue is that every Genious Bar has a different way of handling the situation. If there was an official announcement and that the Apple stores have all been notified to do the exact same thing with every 2010 MacBook Pro that exhibits these issues, then it would make me feel better.

But no. That's not the situation. Some Geniuses replace the mobo 2-3 times before it's fixed. Others say "no way is it hardware, wait for the official fix from Apple", while some lucky few get a brand new 2011 MBP.

I'm affraid to take my MPB in right now because I need it for my work and can't be without it for more than a day. If Apple comes clean and says, "yes bring it in and have it fixed in a day", then I would do it. Or if they say, "wait for the next update, it will fix the problem." Then I'll wait. But no, there's none of that and the future of our machines is left in the hands of "Geniuses" that are either cool or uncool depending on their mood.

It's ******* ludicrous.

Mine is 2010 Week 46, which appears to be later than most others posted here recently.

I'm still running 10.6.7; haven't tried Lion at all yet.'

Now I had a black screen again. I just was in Mail and read an email. No photoshop or another grafic intensive app was running.

Slowly I hate Lion and Apple! -.-

Reports, advice and practical suggestions regarding this issue can be found at http://on.fb.me/mY9jYK

I also had the famous BSOD since July, and was waiting for the update to the issue, and also have keept me updated to this thread, How ever, i really gets annoying the BSOD, so i called in for applecare and did the workaround as described in thread over 3 days with the support. And for now the support took contact to the senior genius, and asked me to rollback to SL and give them a call back again how it works, they want to see if it's HW / SE issue.

Now i was running SL 10.6.3, and no crashes at all just working fine, and i have now SW upgraded to SL 10.6.8 to see how it works.

I'll call in to Applecare tomorrow and give them the update to my problem, after that they will decide the next step for my MB pro, 2,66 I7 (June 2010).

Same problem since July with Mid 2010 2.66 I7.

To be honest, I am a little more then angry with this issue as well as my treatment by Apple. After calling Applecare (who were totally unaware of this problem) and trying two fixes, I was instructed to bring my MB Pro into the store. Did so, only to find them also totally unaware of the BSOD problem. I told them about this discussion as well as numerous articles on the internet suggesting it was a logic board issue.  The genius suggested it was my harddrive... I am thinking to myself, I doubt it, but you guys must know what you are doing. In lookng at the error reports, he says it "might be" the graphics card, but quickly dismisses this thought and sticks to the original hard drive explanation. In an effort to appease me, they decided to do test my machine anyway. I leave my machine and head home.

I later get a call saying they won't test my machine unless I have to the original ram. I have third party ram (Corasiar 8gb) which I told the genius about prior to testing.Talk to them on the phone...don't they have ram they can just throw into the machine? Of course not and give me some BS line about RAM only ever working in one machine. Bring my original ram in (45 minute drive). By this time I have the head genius. I was like, can't you just test my 8gb of Ram...only to hear "no, that is garbage, it won't pass anyway."  They swap out my ram and begin testing, so I wait. In the meantime, head genius comes out and says they actually did test my ram and it failed. I again inform them of this discussion and the various articles, only to have him say that he couldn't rely on anything like this for information. New test results come back, original ram passes. The Head Genius says it was clearly the original ram since it failed. I told him about his faulty logic, that if the third party ram would have failed regardless of whether or not their was a problem, then this test did not elimante my third party ram as the problem. The whole time, I feel completely patronized.

Needless to say, I decide not to go home. Bounce into Starbucks, and get into my normal work routine. Open chrome with gmail and grooveshark. Open pages and open the App Store. Black Screen of Death in 5 minutes. Walk back in with the BSOD as proof. They are now ordering me a new logic board. I honestly hope they can get my machine fixed in a short period of time as I am on the job market and teaching with multiple deadlines looming. Anyone know an ETA on repair time?

While I would consider rolling back to Snow Leopard, this does not appear to solve the problem in 100% of the cases. I am also a little concerned that the new Logic Board won't fix things. If it doesn't, I am demanding a new comp, one that "Just Works."

Hi,

I discovered that if you hit your screen dim/brightness key it comes back to life.

Problem just started with this last security update.

At least it does on mine.

MBP Late 2010