Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

Just got off the phone to apple. The first level guy didn't know anything about it and the next level support guy didn't lead on that he knew anything about it either. After quite a while on the phone he said that he really needed to go through a few steps to isolate whether its a software or hardware issue. One way to do this is by installing a fresh installation of Lion on a external HDD. If without installing anything but lion + updates the problem persists by doing normal web browsing etc then we know its a hardware issue or lion driver issue. Once that is established then he can raise it as a problem with the "engineers" to progress the issue.

To re-install Lion on an External HDD he told me to follow these steps: restart holding cmd+R then click, the 2nd option "reinstall OSX". Then for target choose the attached external HDD (i have a little Western digital 2.5" drive).

He appreciated the fact that its my work machine so suggested in the day continue to use gfxCardStatus + integrated with my internal Lion install but at night reboot and use the external HDD ie : restart holding option key. Choose External HDD installation.

He also gave me his extension number + voice mail so i can update him with my findings.

Anything that could potentially advance this issue i'm happy to do. I suggest you all call through to apple and explain the problem too if anything it will further raise the priority on this to an "Engineer level issue". (of course once it reached engineers they will may then just refer to the bug some of us know about via the duplicate bug response @ bugreport.apple.com)

I too had the Black screen of death issue on my Mid 2010 15" Macbook pro i7 when the Nvidia 33om was in use after upgrading to Lion. It was definatley the problem. Switching to integrated only prevented the issue, bt I did not want to be stuck with Intergated graphics. After some research, I installed the Nvida CUDA drivers, and switched my settings back to dynamic switching, and now it has been over 7 hours and not a single crash. I suggesed everyone having the issue try the Nvidia CUDA drivers and see if it helps you.

I have the Geforce 120 GT card in my iMac and the NVIDIA site says the newest driver update is for 10.6.8, so should i update to that or what? Not sure what to do.

Hi Cockyjeremy,  if you've already updated to lion (10.7) then that driver update won't work as its for 10.6.8 (i've already tried!) it will say "incorrect OS" etc

Thanks for the fast reply. I was afraid of that. I might send my error report to NVIDIA and see what kind of reply i receive. Maybe they can push out a driver update or something.

Another. I installed smcFanControl, and it does seem to help, but i still got another crash.

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

Mon Aug  1 02:08:39 2011

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff7f8093d2bf): NVRM[0/2:0:0]: Read Error 0x00070000: CFG 0x000006e0 0x00000000 0x00001101, BAR0 0xd2000000 0xffffff80f31ec000 0x096a80a1, D0, P2/4

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address

0xffffff80f2392ee0 : 0xffffff8000220702

0xffffff80f2392f60 : 0xffffff7f8093d2bf

0xffffff80f2392ff0 : 0xffffff7f80a2d3fc

0xffffff80f2393040 : 0xffffff7f80bc5975

0xffffff80f2393060 : 0xffffff7f80bccd0a

0xffffff80f2393130 : 0xffffff7f80bc750e

0xffffff80f23931d0 : 0xffffff7f80bc79ee

0xffffff80f2393230 : 0xffffff7f80c89875

0xffffff80f2393280 : 0xffffff7f80c8ac5c

0xffffff80f23933d0 : 0xffffff7f80a1b88e

0xffffff80f2393410 : 0xffffff7f80a9ad45

0xffffff80f23934f0 : 0xffffff7f80a9c495

0xffffff80f23935e0 : 0xffffff7f80c87893

0xffffff80f2393670 : 0xffffff7f80c93f45

0xffffff80f2393800 : 0xffffff7f80cce000

0xffffff80f2393920 : 0xffffff7f80a4c519

0xffffff80f2393950 : 0xffffff7f80946c4a

0xffffff80f2393a00 : 0xffffff7f8094254c

0xffffff80f2393bf0 : 0xffffff7f80944088

0xffffff80f2393cc0 : 0xffffff7f81813a95

0xffffff80f2393d40 : 0xffffff7f81814826

0xffffff80f2393d80 : 0xffffff7f81812173

0xffffff80f2393da0 : 0xffffff7f81815123

0xffffff80f2393de0 : 0xffffff7f8181559b

0xffffff80f2393e00 : 0xffffff7f818123e2

0xffffff80f2393e20 : 0xffffff7f81828da9

0xffffff80f2393e40 : 0xffffff7f81828ef4

0xffffff80f2393ea0 : 0xffffff7f8183a964

0xffffff80f2393ec0 : 0xffffff7f8183addc

0xffffff80f2393ef0 : 0xffffff80006396f6

0xffffff80f2393f30 : 0xffffff8000638470

0xffffff80f2393f70 : 0xffffff8000638314

0xffffff80f2393fb0 : 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

         com.apple.GeForce(7.0.4)[82A5749F-B199-3A17-840C-4EDAB152C6CA]@0xffffff7f817d00 00->0xffffff7f8188cfff

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

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

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

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

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

I also have the exact same problem, MacBook Pro 15" i7 from mid-2010. However, my problems only started when I stopped using my external monitor, never had an issue before that.

In my case I think the issue is that since graphics are always on 'high' when there's an external monitor connected, there wasn't any graphics switching going on. And I think that's the problem on my machine - the switching is causing the issue.

I've just turned graphics switching off, so I haven't fully tested that theory yet.

Another thing that might be interesting is that the problem is much, much worse when I'm on battery instead of power supply. Which, again, probably has to do with battery preferring low graphics.

Hopefully there's a patch soon.

Hi guys, I've been searching for answers to similar problems with my mid 2010 MBP.  It ocassionally crahed since purchase running SL and I couldn't figure why but suspected graphics subsystem based on kernal panic reports. Tried hardware test with no problems reported.

1. Called Apple and they gave some boot-up hotkeys that were to reset parameters.  Didn't work.

2. Installed Lion when it came out and got 20 crashes in one and one-half days of usage.

3. Reported all online to Apple, copied and saved all panic logs, when into Apple store for support. Stated I think it's hardware. (I am a EE familiar with computers since 1979.)

4. Got MBP back after six days without report of what's done. When asked Genius looked up report and said configuration settings were changed.

5. Got home and so far have several crashes still in two days.  So started doing more research. Punchline so far:

Crash is REPRODUCABLE by launching several apps in sequence, e.g. XCode, then MS Word, Keynote, Numbers, Pages, Excel, Powerpoint.  Note: not using the apps, just launching them. Crashes about 6th/7th app.

Hi Guys, following up on my earler post, I can reproducibly crash my MBP by sequentially launching several apps (i.e. simply loading the system).

I then read the wiki at    http://mbp-freeze.wikispaces.com/   whose copyrighted suggestions include:

1. Download gfxcardstatus (http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus)

2. Set mode to integrated only

After I installed gfxcardstatus and set mode to integrated only (Intel graphics) I can launch 12 or more apps, no crash.  If I set the mode to discrete only (high-end NVIDIA graphics) as soon as I launch one app (XCode) I get a crash. I repeated this test a few times and it's repeatable.  It seems to pretty much prove the problem is the NVIDIA graphics subsystem, either hardware or drivers or both.  Lion may just exacerbate the problem.

Anyway guys, please try it and let us all know how it works out.  (No exotic terminal mode debugging is needed.)  I am still going back to Apple to see if they can fix or replace my high end graphics.

extrainfo wrote:

 

Hi Guys, following up on my earler post, I can reproducibly crash my MBP by sequentially launching several apps (i.e. simply loading the system).

 

I then read the wiki at    http://mbp-freeze.wikispaces.com/   whose copyrighted suggestions include:

 

1. Download gfxcardstatus (http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus)

2. Set mode to integrated only

 

After I installed gfxcardstatus and set mode to integrated only (Intel graphics) I can launch 12 or more apps, no crash.  If I set the mode to discrete only (high-end NVIDIA graphics) as soon as I launch one app (XCode) I get a crash. I repeated this test a few times and it's repeatable.  It seems to pretty much prove the problem is the NVIDIA graphics subsystem, either hardware or drivers or both.  Lion may just exacerbate the problem.

 

Anyway guys, please try it and let us all know how it works out.  (No exotic terminal mode debugging is needed.)  I am still going back to Apple to see if they can fix or replace my high end graphics.

You know this is exactly what's been suggested and discussed on this thread from the beginning? Amazing how many people post before reading...

And a reminder to everyone with this problem: Make sure to go to bugreport.apple.com and log this as a bug, and if possible, call Apple support and ask them about it. The squeaky wheel gets the oil!

This is driving me insane.. Was doing something in iPhoto when you guessed it.. The POS black screen crashed it - upon restarting I now cant access my iPhoto anymore - Saying its no longer compatible with my iphoto library!

Thank you apple for screwing my macbook pro. When its not busy crashing (Total of 11 times today) its to busy screwing my iphoto up beyond repair.

Fix this FFS.

Same prob with my 2008 Macbook Pro.  Upgraded to Lion, when it was restarting (and ever since) all I get is black screen. Have never seen anything else.  This needs fixing by Apple ASAP. I can't get anything with Command-R either (to reinstall).  Just black screen all the time.

@wired00,

I guess I should have tried that when I was still on Lion

I reverted to Snow Leopard so theres no way for me to check in the near future, since I really need my computer to work for the next couple days.

Can anyone try Wired00's suggestion and let us know if it works?

AKA,

- You have to be running Lion

- Download the Nvidia 330m driver for 10.6.8 (SL)

- Right click --> SHow package contents

- Install packages 1 by 1

- Disable gfxCardStatus (if you have it)

- LET US KNOW IF IT WORKS!

The same problem for me.

I carried my MBPro to the Apple Store last week and they changed me first the motherboard and after my HD and the problem is still happening so i think it's a software issue.

Anyway, i tried to install gfxCardStatus and set to Integrated Only and the issue seems to be dissapear.

I hope Apple fix this BUG as soon as possible because i have been stopped for 2 weeks because of this.

Yeah i tried it. As a result my Lion was trashed completely. The boot progress indicator kept moving and moving but nothing happened.

  So i was forced to clean install the OSX. The curious part is that i tried to clean install the Snow Leopard using my retail CD and.... nothing! the boot from the CD does not work. Apparently, the Lion seized my system forever. The only way was to burn a Install CD of the damned Lion and clean install the Lion OS X.

  Ok, new system, clean and beatiful, quick as a new OS but... the same black screen of death.... AGAIN!!

  When i'm not using my LED Cinema Display external monitor, i can opt to the integrated GPU, but if i want to use it, it's a pretty certain crash again.

  These guys did not tested the Lion with their own hardware from barely a year ago? It's unbelievable!!

  Bando de irresponsáveis!! (how we would scream here in Brazil).

My system:

Macbook Pro 15" mid 2010 8 Gb 2,66 Ghz Core i7 - Mac OS X Lion 10.7 (11A511)