Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

It seems that the AppleCare lady fixed my problem. It was static electricity accumulated on my iMac. So she asked me to unplug all USBs, unplug the power cord from the computer, wait 20 secs, keep pressed for 20 secs the power button, re-plug everything, when turning on keep pressed simultaneously ALT CMD P and R till computer was powered on. FIXED!

My son's MacBook Pro 2010 had this problem this past summer and a logic board replacement fixed it.

For about two months. The problem is back again so we will bring it in again for another replacement so that he can get through the rest of the semester. It isn't clear to me that Apple has found or fixed the actual hardware issue here.

BTW, he had the problem in both Mac OS X and Windows in BootCamp. At the moment, he's running the program that forces Mac OS X to use the Intel graphics but he can't do this on Windows and Windows is unusable. We had two MacBook Pros from 2007/2008 that required three logic board replacements to get working again because of the nVidia 8600 failures. I am disappointed that we now have a similar situation today.

It appears that Apple tried to implement a software fix but it appears to us to be a gradual hardware failure and fixing it via software would seem to be a challenging proposition. Son is an MSCS candidate and I have computer science degrees and have been a software engineer since the mid-1980s so we have pretty good hardware and software diagnostic skills.

I installed the update 2 days ago and it seems to be working for me. But i'm not keeping my hopes up. It's almost like i'm waiting for the black screan to appear again. But till now it works perfectly as before.

Has anyone seen what kind of Apple Diagnostic software is run when you check the computer out in the Apple Genious Bar?

Anyways, my issue is seen in this third party video. Look on the computer labeled Snow Leopard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgv9KI_zgz8

In my case the issue is present in Mac OS X Lion.

@c0state  So far this has worked from me too.  The ~20 hours (maybe 9 hours of active use) without a crash since I decrypted is by far my longest since installing lion.  (Knock on aluminum).  Will see how it goes, but it seems you may have found something.

I'm still going strong on day ~3 after the decrypt as well.  Are you using an SSD BTW?  I'm wondering if it's filevault and SSD related.  I don't see many other people mentioning filevault.  Not sure if that's due to low usage of this feature or that others don't have a problem.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20125460-263/apples-macbook-pro-graphics-up date-offering-mixed-results/?tag=contentMain;contentBody;1n

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20005830-263.html?tag=mncol;txt

If you are still experiencing the black-screen issue even after installing the video update, you might consider running a general maintenance routine on your system. This update did install new drivers, and a general maintenance routine will clear hardware settings and system caches so you can ensure they're rebuilt off the current drivers and OS configuration.

Interestinly, my video update didn't take effect until I rebooted the computer a couple of times...there were erros in the Console.app until I performed the reboots. the suggestions listed in the above links may help, but I would definitely steer clear of MacKeeper...

Michael Moy2 wrote:

 

My son's MacBook Pro 2010 had this problem this past summer and a logic board replacement fixed it.

 

For about two months. The problem is back again so we will bring it in again for another replacement so that he can get through the rest of the semester. It isn't clear to me that Apple has found or fixed the actual hardware issue here.

 

BTW, he had the problem in both Mac OS X and Windows in BootCamp. At the moment, he's running the program that forces Mac OS X to use the Intel graphics but he can't do this on Windows and Windows is unusable. We had two MacBook Pros from 2007/2008 that required three logic board replacements to get working again because of the nVidia 8600 failures. I am disappointed that we now have a similar situation today.

 

It appears that Apple tried to implement a software fix but it appears to us to be a gradual hardware failure and fixing it via software would seem to be a challenging proposition. Son is an MSCS candidate and I have computer science degrees and have been a software engineer since the mid-1980s so we have pretty good hardware and software diagnostic skills.

I set up an appointment @ the Genius Bar and they sent my MBP in to get checked.  They replaced the logicboard.  No problems so far.  I still have issues with automatic switching between integrated and discreet graphics but gfxCardStatus is working for now.

vea1083 wrote:

 

Has anyone seen what kind of Apple Diagnostic software is run when you check the computer out in the Apple Genious Bar?

 

Anyways, my issue is seen in this third party video. Look on the computer labeled Snow Leopard.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgv9KI_zgz8

 

In my case the issue is present in Mac OS X Lion.

Does anyone want to help me with my black screen issue at log in...

Message was edited by: vea1083

I'm still getting BSOD after installing the fix, i'm going to call Apple Services demanding a permanently solution for this trouble

They might not have a permanent solution yet.

When my daughter's 2007 MacBook Pro video card died, they just replaced the motherboard. They found out a few months later that it was bad nVidia discrete graphics solutions and then had to wait for nVidia to provide them with fixed chips. So a year later, my daughter's (and my son's) laptops died and they put in fixed discrete graphics solutions which resolved the problems permanently.

It seems that it's still relatively early with the 330M problems - it seems that problem reports have only accelerated recently. Of course I think that the real solution would be to provide replacements with ATI discrete graphics but I don't think that they're going to do that. In the meantime, just keep bringing them back for new motherboards when they fail and hopefully they will bill nVidia for their repair costs.

OK, this fix did not help. It was running fine for 24 hours and this morning I was just running Safari and put it into Mission Control and it crashed. I'm at a loss for what to do because this machine was itself a replacement for the ill-fated Macbook Pros with nVidia's 8600. The only thing I can imagine that will fix this is an ATI card, but I doubt Apple will give us all new laptops. I just want something that works.

The update fixed the issue. If you're still having trouble with this you should go to a repair centre or call Apple. There's an extra year of warranty for MBP's with this problem.

Update fixed the issue for me too. It's working fine although sometimes coming out of sleep mode, graphics get messed up. You have to move cursor and wherever you move it, screen will become partially visible. So sometimes, I need to guess where my login icon is and where is guest icon. Once I enter my password, then it works fine.

Just got back from the Genius Bar here in San Francisco. The guys there still haven't even heard of this issue, which was a big concern to me. Thankfully I printed out the KB article that explained the issue and brought it with me and explained that I had done everything I could including the latest update.

After some research on their part, the solution is to order a part that is "specific to this machine and issue." While that sounds unique, it's too bad I have to wait. I still have my machine but it might not be until next week that the part comes in. My biggest fear is that I'll be doing a back and forth and getting the mobo replaced several times like others have reported. My patience is really starting to thin out.

Good luck to everyone else.