Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

ayfon, I have the same set up.  And yes, this is my worst Mac too.  Mine too is a Mid May 2010.  Never had crashes before downloading Lion, but now about twice per day.  Bought this in the states, but work in Africa.  I'm headed back to the states to throw this piece of junk at the first Apple store I can find!  Apple has been so unresponsive about this, totally frustrating!

Mine is MBP6.2 mid-2010, Core i7 2.66, 4GB RAM. Here's why I think it's a software issue:

- I was having very rare (maybe twice in a year) kernel panics with unknown cause, probably unrelated to this, which I was happy to live with on Snow Leopard. About 6 months ago (probably after some SW update) I started getting kernel panics when starting MS Powerpoint in slideshow mode. I wrote about it in https://discussions.apple.com/message/15164809#15164809 I installed latest OS updates, MS Office updates, and never found a solution. I tried using gfxcardstatus in all setting but was able to crash OS X by slideshow regardless. I was hoping clean install of Lion and Office would solve this. Things got only worse.

- I erased my HD and installed Lion. I didn't even get as far as testing my MS Office problem as I can't work on my MBP for longer than 60 minutes without getting a black screen and hard reset as the only way out.

- As suggested by this thread, I'm using gfxcardstatus on "integrated only" for most stable results, however I can not go through a day without crash (usually after sleep.) Using external monitor via HDMI and "discrete only" is pretty much unusable for me, as it crashed within an hour or two.

- I just ran the full hardware diagnostics by booting from the Snow Leopard Application DVD and selecting the Extensive (long) test options. NO FAULTS FOUND.

The only link I see between my SL problem and what's happening in Lion is the Nvidia graohics, or more specifically its drivers.

I am holding off with reverting to Snow Leopard and hoping for a quick fix, but as this is my work machine, I have to make it usable by bootcamp and Windows 7.

Same problem here. After updating to Lion, my Macbook Pro 15" i7 Mid 2010 keeps crashing randomly. Sometimes every 10 to 20 minutes without a reason. Screen just goes black and you have to do a hard reset as nothing else is working anymore.

After reboot with this method, it works again until suddenly the screen goes black again. It is not possible to use the Macbook Pro anymore for work with this problem .

The error message i get after rebootng is the same others have allready posted here. Seems to be related to the nvidia card.

Same problem here. Macbook Pro 15" mid 2010 8 Gb 2,66 Ghz Core i7

Mac OS X Lion 10.7 (11A511)

Blackscreen all the time. I have to work with a LED cinema display and it only works with it if the nvidia card is displayed. So Apple have not left me any options.

I know it doesn't really fix the problem, but for those of you who want to have a working computer back asap, here are the "good" news:

- You revert to snow leopard (time machine or clean install)
- The problem WILL STILL PERSIST

  - You download the Nvidia 330m driver from the Nvidia website
- When you will launch the Nvidia driver installer, it will not work (for some reason)
- Right-click on it, and click "show opackage contents" and launch each package 1 by 1

  - YOU WILL HAVE A WORKING COMPUTER AGAIN

Hope this helps some people, especially those of us who ACTUALLY NEED THEIR COMPUTERS TO DO ACTUAL WORK, HEARD APPLE?

Having all of the same issues, though my hardware seems to be different than anyone else I have seen with problems.

I have an older Macbook Pro 15" 2.33 Core 2 Duo Processor with ATI Radeon X1600 Graphics Card.

So my problem is obvioulsy not related to Nvidia graphics drivers.

I do however mostly run in to problems with video related issues (Importing footage in Final Cut, Encoding, or even just playing back files, flash videos online included) but the symptoms are exactly the same as people here have described. I have also noticed however that in addition to the freezing and black screen I sometimes get some weird visual distortion at the time of the crashes. Its kind of hard to describe but usually only happens around applications dealing with video.

I also have noticed that I only have problems when it is pretty warm.  It was overcast since I installed Lion but then yesterday afternoon the sun came out and my laptop was running quite a bit warmer.  Today it is cool again and I have had no issues despite intentionally trying to recreate the problems I had yesterday.

This would certainly indicate some sort of temperature control issue...

Hoping for a fix soon

Sadly it appears I spoke too soon, just crashed and neither weather nor laptop are particularly warm.

Here is an example of what the distortion during the crashes I was talking about looks like.

Should be a normal hulu ad playing full screen.

Alexsaleh, i wonder if this will also work within lion? Ie, right click on the nvidia package (show package contents) install 1 by 1?

http://www.macworld.com/article/161371/2011/07/infoworld_lion_review.html

All wins my ...

I can't believe that this problem isn't getting more publicity. I paid for a new stable OS, but apparently I have to go back to SL, which was working fine for me since launch day. Apple has to handle a dozen different hardware variations and it apparently didn't bother to test their older MBPs? If there had been a warning on the App Store regarding MBPs, I would have waited before upgrading and spared myself the problems.

Extremely. Disappointing.

********** POSSIBLE SOLUTION **********

I have the same issue (crash to black screen within 1 hr) on my 2010 27" iMac. I quickly figured out that the crash can be triggered by taxing the graphics system, it would already crash within a few minutes when browsing YouTube (every time).

I then installed smcFanControl, it's not really up to date (and I can not get it to launch on login), but it works. I set all three fans to 2000 rpm (about 2/3 of max. possible rpm and x2 from the initial settings). The GPU diodes show decreased temperatures, which never rise above 60°C even when playing three 1080p clips at once (use iStat Pro to monitor your fans/temp). Before I ran smcFanControl, I had 64°C at the GPU when idling only - and maybe Lion has issues with fan control?

I taxed my system very much during the last 6 hrs and I haven't had a crash.

Good luck in trying this.

Is everyone reporting this to Apple? I had a length chat with online support and they were telling me it's likely a hardare issue.

Do not exect a software fix. I urge everyone to call and report this issue to Apple. Even if you're outside your 12 month warrany!

After installing Lion, I was getting the force restart screen every time I did anything graphic (web browsing, videos etc...).

The failure report indicated the first back trace problem was: com.eltima.elmediaplayer.kext

I looked up the elmedia player, it has a uninstall app.

Once removed, I have not experienced the force shutdown in 4 days.

Hope this helps...

Bofromtemecula, someone else mentioned that same error regarding elmediaplayer. Thats great you've figured out the source of your KP's but that is a different issue. I've mentioned this a few times but this thread is relating to issues of the nvidia GPU. You should see a kernel similar to whetty101 above.

within Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/ the kernel panic log should be named something like: "Kernel_2011-07-28-104230_<computer name>.panic"

Kernel panic should contain something like this :

      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:

         com.apple.NVDAResman(7.0.2)[7E65ECA2-D3A1-35F8-B845-C975FB531E7E]@0xffffff7f808 b2000->0xffffff7f80b88fff

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6.5)[95ABB490-3AB5-3D5E-9C21-67089A9AE6A1]@0xffff ff7f8083e000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(2.3)[E99C8907-946D-3F1A-A261-4C0F2D5D0451]@0xffff ff7f808a0000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.3)[897EB322-FD55-36D7-A68E-9E9C34A74A84]@0xf fffff7f80868000

         com.apple.nvidia.nv50hal(7.0.2)[2E84958C-1EEC-316B-9F7A-68C368F83476]@0xffffff7 f80b89000->0xffffff7f80eaafff

            dependency: com.apple.NVDAResman(7.0.2)[7E65ECA2-D3A1-35F8-B845-C975FB531E7E]@0xffffff7f808 b2000

Here's the top portion of my particular crash report. Also showing NVDAResman. I have an NVIDIA GT 120 (I think)

Interval Since Last Panic Report:  259136 sec

Panics Since Last Report:          3

Anonymous UUID:                    00F2AE8F-739F-4290-AFE9-46EE48A1195E

Sun Jul 31 00:17:40 2011

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff7f8093d2bf): NVRM[0/2:0:0]: Read Error 0x0061002c: CFG 0x28ece227 0x02123f94 0x00000000, BAR0 0xd2000000 0xffffff80f31de000 0x096a80a1, D0, P3/4

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address

0xffffff80f1a73c80 : 0xffffff8000220702

0xffffff80f1a73d00 : 0xffffff7f8093d2bf

0xffffff80f1a73d90 : 0xffffff7f80a2d3fc

0xffffff80f1a73de0 : 0xffffff7f80c2e534

0xffffff80f1a73e00 : 0xffffff7f809f603b

0xffffff80f1a73e20 : 0xffffff7f80a9e376

0xffffff80f1a73e90 : 0xffffff7f8092a18e

0xffffff80f1a73f40 : 0xffffff7f808e423d

0xffffff80f1a73f70 : 0xffffff800023db2c

0xffffff80f1a73fb0 : 0xffffff8000820057

      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:

         com.apple.NVDAResman(7.0.4)[7E65ECA2-D3A1-35F8-B845-C975FB531E7E]@0xffffff7f808 dd000->0xffffff7f80bb3fff

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6.5)[95ABB490-3AB5-3D5E-9C21-67089A9AE6A1]@0xffff ff7f8085a000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(2.3)[E99C8907-946D-3F1A-A261-4C0F2D5D0451]@0xffff ff7f808cb000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.3)[897EB322-FD55-36D7-A68E-9E9C34A74A84]@0xf fffff7f80893000

         com.apple.nvidia.nv50hal(7.0.4)[2E84958C-1EEC-316B-9F7A-68C368F83476]@0xffffff7 f80bb4000->0xffffff7f80ed5fff

            dependency: com.apple.NVDAResman(7.0.4)[7E65ECA2-D3A1-35F8-B845-C975FB531E7E]@0xffffff7f808 dd000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task