Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

Hi all!

Installed cuda 4.0.50 here (mid 2010 mbp i7).

No bsod after 24 hours. Coputer with hi graphic work and 3-4 sleep. External display working too. Hope it will work.

Anyone else?

Ciao,

Lorenzo

Does not work here... Have called Apple and they told me they did not know about the problem (in France) and that my warranty was passed over. Thank you guys from Apple to help me so much. I am a student and I don't have enough money to buy a new MBP !! And I can't sell a computer that does not work.

I was wrong.

Bsod just happened.

I am very sad.

Why anyone from Apple can tell us how we can solve the problem?

This is a real problem (and i think we are many people, we need an answer).

yep.. me too. Lion, Mid 2010 15 inch 2.66 ghz..  When are Apple going to fix this!!

That's the strange thing! I went to an Apple Care Service. The first thing the guy said was: it's de logic board. So, confirmed: MBP 13" early 2011 has almost the same problem. I'm waiting for the diagnostic. Meanwhile I'm working with a late 2006 Macbook black and, you know, it's absolutely functional! Come on, Apple try hard!

Same **** problem on mid-2010 MBP core i5 8GB of RAM... Hope Apple will soon take this problem seriously and fix it. Having a one year computer and not being able to use it properly, that's a shame!

I just got home from my appointment at the Genius Bar of my local store.

I was helped by a very kind and understanding person who said (among other things) "We have seen the black screen problem." It was very encouraging to finally get someone at Apple that didn't treat my problem as if it were unique, or deny that it was widespread.

The first person who helped me actually showed everything to another person there as well, and they collaborated a bit.

I was able to reproduce the BSOD to show them.

They told me that they think it is a software issue with Lion that will eventually be fixed by an update. They said that they suspect the reason the errors seem to be hardware specific is because the error is deep inside the code somewhere and relates to how Lion is interacting with the specific hardware. (They said it differently - like they knew what they were talking about. This is just my layman's interpretation.) I suggested what I posted here several days ago about the OS issuing a call to the GPU that it should be able to handle, but can't ... They said that was certainly possible, but they didn't think so based on what they were seeing. They said they think it is all software that is causing the problems.

It was especially refreshing to hear them say, "The honest answer is we just don't know, and we are hoping that the engineers can solve these issues and tell us about them." I thanked them specifically for saying that.

They ran several hardware and software diagnostics, and then (finding no problems) presented me with these options:

1. Replace the logic board. They recommended against that option, because they had no confidence that this would actually solve the problem. I agreed. I would be without the computer for an extended period of time and would have no guarantee whatsoever that it would fix things.

2. Erase and install Snow Leopard. They admitted up front that this was not really a solution to the problem, but presented it to me just in case I didn't wan to deal with the problems anymore.

3. Keep everything the same, and have them send a report (don't remember what they called it) to Apple Engineers requesting a solution from them based on the specific error codes they pulled from the logs on my machine.

Since I have already migrated to a 2011 MBP as my primary working computer, I don't need 100% day-to-day reliability on the 2010 MBP; and it is relatively stable for how we are currently using it ... so I chose #3.

They said that if the Engineers respond to my specific case, they will contact me. I hope they do.

Following this thread for a while now. I got a MBP 2010 i7 as well. I think there are a lot of people (like me) who didn't dare to upgrade to the new Lion OS after reading all this messages. It's the first time in my long Apple user history that I definitely will not upgrade until Apple got this properly solved.

Shame on Apple for being so late with a solution.

Would really love to use the new features in Lion, but for now I wait... and wait... and wait...

Am I the only one who already got some (but less) BSOD with Swow Leopard ?

Nope.  I'm on snow leopard also having the problem.  However, I've not been able to make it fail using the Photobooth test like many others have noted here.  Not sure if that only works on lion.

Alex_French wrote:

 

Am I the only one who already got some (but less) BSOD with Swow Leopard ?

Nope, same thing for me too.  The SL BSOD only seemed to occur after the most recent update.  SL vs. Lion BSOD occurance for me has been once or so a week for the former and several times per day for the latter.

I have tryed to make a fresh install of 10.6.3 and its still crashes!

Also it crashes under bootcamp.

So thats a hardware error. Go to your local apple store and ask them to replace ur logic board.

Mozart wrote:

 

I have tryed to make a fresh install of 10.6.3 and its still crashes!

Also it crashes under bootcamp.

So thats a hardware error. Go to your local apple store and ask them to replace ur logic board.

Maybe you have a different problem. I have only had BSOD in Lion. Besides that, you need to read all the posts of people who have had their logic board replaced (sometimes as many as four replacements) with still no resolution to the problem.

Before Lion, no BSOD. After Lion, BSOD. Fault? Lion. Software.

Ok, so I'm not the only one. I never had a BSOD on bootcamp. With SL I had maybe 2 BSOD/month, with Lion it's 10/hour. The problem is that a big part of 2010's MPB are out of warrenty... Actually, I have a Warrenty from the store where I bought It (FNAC), but to have my computer remplaced, they have to find a hardware problem, but now, we still don't know if it's a hardware or a software problem.

Apple is hidding something, first problems were 2 month ago and we still don't have any solution. In France they " didn't heard about that problem ". And in the mean time " you can buy an Applecare for 'just' 380€ ! " That's a big, big shame...

@ RichHolland and Mozart:

Its not a software issue. As many have speculated its a problem with hardware occuring due to different drivers/firmware in Lion accessing a part of the GPU not previously used and is faulty. This could be because when chips are made they are benchmarked for good/bad yields etc they will be graded and certain features may be disabled (pixel pipes etc). Lion drivers possibly unlocked features previously disabled but which were faulty in some (many?) GPU's.

As people have stated again and again:

1) Some people already experienced intermittent BSOD issues in SL due to a faulty Nvidia GPU. These same people experienced extreme crashing prior to a Lion upgrade.

2) Other people experienced BSOD ONLY in Lion but then began also crashing in SL after downgrading because (as people speculate) lion updates the firmware in your motherboard/GPU. As you know firmware updates will then persist back even with SL installed. People assume this is a software issue purely because it only started happening with Lion but I think what really happens is Lion unlocks previously hidden faults in your GPU.

Replacement of the motherboard/GPU will fix the problem but because Apple cannot yet test for the fault there are still faulty boards sitting on shelves.

"4 replacements" sounds like hyperbole and is missleading. If its true there's the possibility this person was experiencing some other issue... Lets face it, of all the people having MB replacements I'd say a vast majority  are now satisfied and running with a trouble free $2000+ machine. Also they are no longer posting on this thread (i'm not sure why i still do!)

Also regarding your previous post above RichHolland. The time to have the MB replacement only takes 2 or 3 days. it is a very quick replacement and then your problems will be solved. I really suggest not waiting for this to be fixed. For all we know it could be a year of crashing before its fixed. In that time your machine has devalued substancially