Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

Ahh cool righto

Problems resurfaced after the nVidia driver 4.0.21 driver install. My MPB is much more stable in Lion, but not stable enough - it still crashes. Notably, I left it running Tor/Vidalia for 8 hours, unattended. Turned off sleep, put screen to sleep. Machine stayed up and running; however, w/i two minutes of 'using' the computer - it crashed. Of note, when it crashes and automatically recovers, my blueetooth services are all wonky. Only think that fixes that is an SMC reset.

Since I got to use Lion for at least a couple of hours before it crashed (earlier in the afternoon), I am looking forward to being able to use Lion. It's got a few tweaks that I think I'll like.

The CUDA driver (devdriver_4.0.21_macos) definately helps, and I have even been allowing the MacBook Pro to change graphic cards dynamically again.

If the MPB goes to sleep then upon wake ups it gets the loss of Internet connectivity, spinning beachball frequently, hangs completely, and on occasion gets the black screen.

On occasion I have recovered from the black screen by the key combo Ctrl - Shift - CD Eject and then hitting any key. This sometimes revives the MPB, at least long enough to restart it. This makes me think that it's not a kernel panic, just no output to the graphics card (at least  some times).

Internet connectivity can sometimes be restored simply by turning WiFi off for 30 seconds, then back on. Somehow this temporarily restores connectivity (and will unfreeze Mail and Safari if they are hung).

FRUSTRATING!!!

Hi,

Yes, the crash appears on Lion with i5 MPB (Mid 2010) as well. I never experienced this problem on SL. With Lion, I had 1 or 2 crashes a day during normal use (I don't use external monitor).

As a workaround, I'm using gfxCardStatus 2.1 with integrated mode only (no crash in the last 24h since I changed to "integrated" only).

What bothers me is calling Apple support and the "techs" (2 separate instances-3 techs-even a "supervisor" or something like it) tells me they never heard of the problem, anybody had this happened to them?

How could they don't know or I am the only one calling.

Anyway I installed gfxCardStatus 2.1 with Integrated Mode only, will see what happens.

Ok,

So I have the same problem with mid 2010 mbp 2.53ghz and Nvidia GT 330m.

Happened to me in the very past (6 months ago) both on Windows(bootcamp) and snow leopard. I took it to a genius and they replaced the logic board. Everything was normal again.

After a few months I had the same problem on Windows using bootcamp.

Recently I upgraded to Lion and now its back again more frequent. same error with the nvrm kernel panic after the reboot. I would take it to Apple again (still in a warranty) but it is redicilous! What will happen when the warranty end? It seems like there is something bad happening to the chip.

I noticed that this kernel panic start happening after I using bootcamp.

Is there anyone here that has the same problem and does not have bootcamp (windows) installed? it seems like it happend on both bootcamp and OSX as soon as the Nvidia chip exposed to Windows.

Your ideas

Hope we will find a solution, cause it looks like Apple ignoring us. I love OSX, but its too expensive for a non working computer.

Rotem

I have not run windows on my system and I still have the issue. My system is totally stable (for over a week) when running in integrated graphics mode. This is also my second logic board from apple. The fist one gave me a permanent black screen when updating to the last version of snow leopard.

I have the same problems on a mid-2010 MBP. Google Chrome is installed but I haven't run it for ages. I can confirm that the crashes happened during the following:

Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator CS5

iDisk sync (resulted in wiping out my local iDisk)

MacUpdate Desktop (completely uninstalled since)

external monitor w/o clamshell (use only the notebook display now)

MS Office, sorry have to use it at work, especially Outlook (resulted in corrupting my local DB)

App Store downloads

I have deinstalled/ deactivated all processes I don't critically - no help. Whenever I'm lulled into a feeling of security (wow, 2 hours now with no black screen!) suddenly my MBP crashes. Extremely frustrating. In the last week my MBP has crashed at least 5 times a day. And you know the resume feature? When I reboot after a particulary bad crash and I don't quickly force quit all running applications as they restart, you know what happens? Yes, a fresh crash.

Safe Mode helps, but I can't work on a book project in InDesign in Safe Mode.

I read somewhere that InsomniaT could be a problem. I don't use it, but perhaps this helps someone here.

How long does it normally take for Apple to patch a new OS? This just seems to be bad debugging. I thought that my setup is quite normal for a creative professional, can't believe Apple missed this problem.

kitesurfer, not good they don't even know about it. Salt in the wounds. When i took mine to see a "genius", following crashes in SL, i had a bunch of website links (to another forum thread like this) and kernel panics saved on my desktop. I showed the guy and he flatout denied it had anything to do with the nvidia card.

Rotem and Jedifish, wow thats worrying. All along i've been expecting that a new logicboad/GPU will fix the problem. Seems thats not a certainty. Also, Yes i'm having the problem and don't have bootcamp installed (never have), I originally had crashes while using parallels + windows 7 though.

i found this interesting:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/06/10/12/apple_macbook_owners_organizing_cl ass_action_lawsuit.html

Well, my bug report is still open, so no one seems to have looked at it. Meanwhile, I've rolled back to Snow Leopard for now.

For those of you who have this problem and YOU ARE CONNECTED TO WIFI, please read this below and check your error logs for the keyword I'm mentioning below:

I am having Kernel Panics as well.

According the report, THIS is the common problem I am seeing:

   Kernel Extensions in backtrace:

         com.apple.driver.AirPort.Atheros40(500.55.5)[01000ACB-C064-3F42-820F-BDE2008267 25]@0xffffff7f80eeb000->0xffffff7f8102afff

Notice keywords: AirPort.Atheros40(500.55.5).

If you check everyones errors, most are everyone who has upgraded to Lion and it relates to AirPort.

I called AppleCare Support & my local mac store and they say run the disc that comes with the iMac and it will check the hardware and see if there is any faults with AirPort as it appears to be.

They also suggested a reinstall (but that is pointless if you having this issue and want to use WiFi, so if you plug it in and/or tether with your iPhones *like I am doing now haha* then you should be fine to reinstall Lion and hopefully not have that issue.).

I am going to reinstall Lion and see if I have the issue. I was going on 4 days of enjoying Lion problem free up until yesterday when I started having Kernel Panics. It's isolated down to the WiFi.

Only solution at this point is to take it in or reinstall Lion and see if it resolves the issue.

robhole, just checked logs, no mention of "airport". just to clarify for any others in here. This thread is only relevant to kernel panics with similar info such as below.

Note "NVDAResman". This is relating to the nvidia GPU. If your experiencing issues regarding wifi (which i've read about elsewhere) then this is not the correct place

      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:

         com.apple.NVDAResman(7.0.2)[7E65ECA2-D3A1-35F8-B845-C975FB531E7E]@0xffffff7f808fe000->0xffffff7f80bd 4fff

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6.5)[95ABB490-3AB5-3D5E-9C21-67089A9AE6A1]@0xffffff7f8087e000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(2.3)[E99C8907-946D-3F1A-A261-4C0F2D5D0451]@0xffff ff7f808ec000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.3)[897EB322-FD55-36D7-A68E-9E9C34A74A84]@0xf fffff7f808b4000

         com.apple.nvidia.nv50hal(7.0.2)[2E84958C-1EEC-316B-9F7A-68C368F83476]@0xffffff7 f80bd5000->0xffffff7f80ef6fff

            dependency: com.apple.NVDAResman(7.0.2)[7E65ECA2-D3A1-35F8-B845-C975FB531E7E]@0xffffff7f808 fe000

         com.apple.GeForce(7.0.2)[18E50F21-1E7F-3FFE-B298-7CD7A11879F8]@0xffffff7f817890 00->0xffffff7f81845fff

            dependency: com.apple.NVDAResman(7.0.2)[7E65ECA2-D3A1-35F8-B845-C975FB531E7E]@0xffffff7f808 fe000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(2.3)[E99C8907-946D-3F1A-A261-4C0F2D5D0451]@0xffff ff7f808ec000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6.5)[95ABB490-3AB5-3D5E-9C21-67089A9AE6A1]@0xffff ff7f8087e000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.3)[897EB322-FD55-36D7-A68E-9E9C34A74A84]@0xf fffff7f808b4000

Same thing here!

I have only had my MacBook Pro 15" with 5 days.  It's my first Mac.  The DVD player didn't work and after fixing that problem, got the frozen black screen.  After several attempts, the hard shut down finally worked.  I am returning mine and purchasing new one. 

this my 4th mac laptop and it is the worse.

i bought it may 2010, did not crash for about 6 months, after that, it started crashing to black screen 1-2 times a week. after installing lion, it now crashes 4-5 a day! also magic mouse not scrollling, jumping around, etc..

MPB i7 15inch 2.66 ghz

Memory  4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Graphics  NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB