Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

Resetting the SMC, disabling the sudden motion sensor and disabling gfx switching using either the intergated or the dedicated card has so far eliminated the problem for me.

turning off your machine and putting it in the cupboard will also eliminate the problem. sorry couldn't resist

For me IT IS THE TRACKPAD used together with the nvidia card!!!!

I open iTunes or AppStore and in a few seconds BSOD (using nvidia card, no bsod with integrated).

But if I use an external mouse, the macbook doesn't crash at all!!!

Has anyone else experienced this?

No other choice for me really. The only authorized Apple dealer where I live refuse to do anything, but they did give me a free iPod. Apparently $3000 MBP = $400 iPod Touch...

There's a thread over at MacRumours(I believe it was there) where a few users get the BSOD simply typing.

Hi everybody here,

I had this problem with my MBP bought on march '11, so brand new, when updated last night. I didn't update last 3 months so thought it was the time. At restart the crash. Today I've taken my mac to rep. center and said prob. is the logic card. However, didn't think any body who had this problem that maybe is given by software uncompatibility with Lions? Eg. I use Parallels 6, Office 2011, mac speech, wave pad, 3d connection mouse... Interesting is that when upgraded to Lion became problems with office...

For me, It looks like firefox was the culprit. Crashes always happened when I was on any flash enabled page on firefox. I've removed some flash blocker and going to switch back to safari if this continues on firefox. Usually it always happen for me when I leave my macbook run through the night and youtube songs are being played, it runs out of battery. In morning, I plud the power back in and try to boot it up. Then i get BSOD not anytime else. I will keep folks posted if I experience the same with safari.

Just went to the Apple store on Ste-Catherine street in Montreal yesterday with my mid-2010 MBP 15''.

I told them I had that BSOD since I'v upgrade to Lion.  The genius told me Apple is aware of this problem and they are working on a fix.  He net-booted my MBP, ran a diagnostic, collected info about it and he told me that since my warrenty was expired I had no choice to wait for a fix from Apple.  For the moment they collect info and send them to Apple.

He also stated that I could pay for a repaire and hope Apple give me a refund if and when they ever declare a recall or something...

Meanwhile I must live with it.

After three replaced logic board Apple have this morning given me a brand new 2011 Macbook Pro I am just restoring my backup on to it now. Still kind of expecting the worst...

Having freezes / panics with Safari or another browser?  Check what version of Flash you're using..

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/155/tn_15507.html

If you're not using the latest, which was just released a couple of days ago, upgrading will certainly help.

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Also check this link out...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2791949?start=0&tstart=0

Also, if you've been carrying around your Safari cache and history since SL, clear them out and reset Safari

I have Istat Pro installed and noticed that Safari was hogging 300 - 400 MB of Ram and couldn't figure out why there was such a memory leak. I updated Flash, and now I see no more than 120 MB Ram usage, even after extened browser use. Even tho Safari operates on integrated graphics, there are webpages, etc that call for the dedicated graphics card... and IMO, this is where the hangup is with the NVidia graphics card...it's being accessed improperly through Safari / Flash and freezes... I think Flash is crappy software. I haven't noticed any more issues since upgrading...hope this helps someone else.

Same issue here!

I have MacBookPro6,2 with gForce gt330 512MB  running on Mac OS 10.6.8 The problem I am running into is that, several times every day, the built in display  just goes blank. As if someone had pulled the power plug on it. I can still hear the laptop's hard disk running and the key board lights are on but am unable to get the display to come back. The only way to get the display working again is to do a hard reboot. This happens when I'm using video adapter intensive apps like iPhoto, Need For Speed Underground, etc. I completed AHT which returned 0 problems found. Although under Boot Camp (Windows 7) I have no troubles at all. Under Windows I started Video Card stress test as well as Video Memory stress test each one runs just fine. To me it seems to be a problem with nVidia drivers under Mac OS

Just recently I was only having problems with Safari...only the last week or so...no black screens, only freezes. I had this issue in Snow Leopard once as well, and it was also Flash related. Once I took care of Flash, the problems went away in both cases. When I first upgraded to Lion I had the BSOD with the lit keyboard but only when coming out of sleep. After unloading a few programs that I didn't need, and were throwing tons of errors to the console app, the black screen problem just went away...I have the same configuration as you do, but I am running Lion.

The problems you are having sound more severe than what I ever experienced...I use tons of highly demanding graphic programs like Photoshop, Aperture, DxO, iPhoto, Perfect Resize, and don't really have any problems with black screens. Facetime and full screen photobooth with all effects are also OK...If I were you I would try to see what's going on by examining your console app. the system logs, etc. Maybe you can get a clue from this. For now, I would also turn off the screen saver and automatic sleep, just to keep things simple. If you want to put your computer to sleep, just access the command from the Apple logo or close the lid. I hope you get to the bottom of your problem.

dihris wrote:

 

Same issue here!

I have MacBookPro6,2 with gForce gt330 512MB  running on Mac OS 10.6.8 The problem I am running into is that, several times every day, the built in display  just goes blank. ...

Ehmm, it's almost three months since we all upgraded to lion. Should we go back to snow leopard now or wait a little longer? I'm confused because there is some serious time passed by and still nothing to fix this.

Then I'll say it again : I have the same gear (MBP6,2 i7) and the same problem although I NEVER UPGRADED TO LION !
Still running 10.6.8.

In this forum, it's also been said that going back to SL didn't solve anything.

Just so you don't bother...

I'm back to snow leo and now I have BSOD now on it... before installation of lion everything worked perfect, but now I dont know... I hope apple will make some firmware update after launching ios 5/10.7.2/icloud etc. I dont want to believe that they do not care about us.

Interesting Cheesebelt! You have been suffering the BSOD just in the last couple of months even though you never updated to Lion. Two possible explanations:

1) the same faulty graphics firmeware update in Lion is now in the latest version of Snow Leopard

2) the new RAM you installed pushed your graphicsprocessor over the edge.

I wonder if anyone has the BSOD who still uses an older version of Leopard or who has not hotted up their RAM?

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