Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

Same problem. Black Screen of Death - usually happens when logging a user out and then putting MBP to sleep. When re-opening lid, nothing.

Mid-2009 MBP 13"

2.26GHz Core2 Duo

4 GB DDR3 RAM

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB

Mac OS X Lion 10.7 (11A511)

Hello Community,

same Problem here with the BlackScreenOfDeath at a MackBook Pro6,2 / i7 / 2.66GHz.

The hint to delete the "windowserver.*" did not work, the Mac crashes a few minutes after reboot

The only fix that works is to use the Mac with the integrated graphics card. Without gfxCardStatus my MBP on Lion is a 2000Euro unseless pice of aluminium.

Nice work Apple.

MacBook Pro 2010 with the nvidia graphics card and the black screens have been an utter nightmare.  Have submitted endless crash reports and all of them have the same kernel panic details.

This started when in Snow Leopard and got monstrously worse with the Lion install. 

Bought AppleCare so I could have this sorted (though still under warranty) and they told me to wipe and reinstall. I did that and no improvement.

I really hope Apple digs deep for a resolution on this.  My machine is stuck with the local service provider and has been for two weeks while they 'investigate' the issue.

I really need my machine back and working - quick.

PK

I have the same error. When I brought my MBP (15inch - 2010) to the Apple Store they replaced the Logic Board, but that didn't solve the problem. Now they reinstalled Snow leapard and then Lion again, but this also didn't solve the problem. My MB is now still in the Apple store but I emailed them this article. http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/08/buggy-nvidia-drivers-giving-2010-macbo ok-pro-owners-lion-upgrade-headaches.ars

I have the same MB as you, and the fact that the Windowserver delete thing doesn't work is a huge problem. This MB is my main PC and it Black screens constantly while gaming or doing other stuff. So if Apple doesn't solve thiss problem this is the last Apple pc I'll buy. There shouldn't be any problems with a piece of hardware this expensive.

Same here just randomly when the MB is using the Nvidia GT330m card.

@wood-stock - same problem here.  The windowserver "fix" did not help my mb pro at all...  The only stable Lion configuration on my mb pro is with integrated graphics only.

A buggy program I understand; an errant driver that effectively kills the OS I do not. 

I would like to make it clear that my mb pro crashes with a clean install of Lion.  No additional software loaded and the machine was rock-solid on 10.6.x with uptimes measured in weeks.

Guys i had the same issues with the balck screen of death ever since i upgraded to lon. I couldnt run any app decently without the system crashing within minutes of opening the app. I checked my hard ware, all fine, i even tried to downgrade, but couldnt do it on a new partition...for some reason lion wouldnt let me install snow leopard on a different partition. I finally went to the genius Bar and the Genius actually did some Permission repairs, went into Disk Utility, clicked on the hard disk and then clicked on Repair permissions. It seemed to work. Now when i sync my iphone in itunes, the system doesnt crash. Still have to do a full stability test, but this is definitely some route to go from what it seems. Ram was fine.

I had one crash later after i started downloading something from the appstore..it crashed the system...seems like the storeagent process which runs in the background isnt compatible with LION...however closing the appstore solved the issue...and my computer has been running with me actively using the system for past two hours. Finally!! Such a simple solution as well

I noticed that if I close up my MBP after I get a black screen and wait till the light pulses that the machine will work again. It takes considerably longer that SL did to go to sleep after closing the lid.

I had this issue on the second day with Lion.  Twice in a row my MBP (2.2 GHz Intel Duo - 2008) just clicked and went black.  It booted up once, then immediately went black and was a brick until I pulled out the battery and waited about 35 minutes.  It has not done it since, but I am rather freaked out by the issue.

Wow I thought I was going nuts!  Guess I'm not.  Black screen of death plaguing me ever since my upgrade to Lion.

Playback.app also crashing since the upgrade making me guess that the graphics issue might also be related.

Hope Apple is being really proactive about this issue.

MBP 2010 Core i7 2.66GHz 8GB RAM

I've had the same problem with my Mac Mini, late 2010 model. It continued for several days, though I couldn't pin it down to specific activities. Did too many things trying to fix it to know what worked, but it's been fine for the past three days. (zapped the PRAM, booted from a LION backup disk and did a disk repair and permissions repair. The permissions repair had a big long list of stuff, all of which involved "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/.....". When I ran permissions repair it a second time, it repeated the same list, even though the first time had reported that all items except "Warning: SUID file “System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent” has been modified and will not be repaired." had been repaired.

The disk repair didn't report any problems.

I have seen the black screen of death a number of times since upgrading to Lion.  A workaround that sometimes has helped  me is to simply hit either F1 or F2 to alter screen brightness.  I have also had a couple of system hang ups that required a hard reset.  Hopefully the team at Cupertino will address this as soon as possible as it is starting to get annoying.

MBP 2010 Core i7 2.66GHz 4GB RAM

Original post on page 2, seeing multiple black screens of death.

Okay, just recieved my MacBook Pro Mid 2010 with i7 and nvidia  NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB with Lion

Mac OS X Lion 10.7 (11A511) back from AppleCar Service where they replaced my main logic board 2.66Ghz (605-2314) and Connector (631-0959) - so far so good. No crashing when switching between integrated and nvidia. Have attached it to an external 27" cinema display.

I have played Hulu on full screen. Used photobooth with multiple effects in full screen. No issues.

Willing to try any tests people have.

Just thought that I would add that I have had this problem on both a 2008 MacPro 3.0 w/ GTX 285 and a 2009 MacBook Pro with the the 9600/9400.

I will also add that the problem seems to be mitigated by quitting any network activity before putting the computers to sleep. This includes quitting applications like Mail, Safari, etc. I have also disabled Wake for Network Access in Energy Saver Preferences.

Since doing so I have not had a kernel panic on either computer (since July 21), although the MacPro does take longer to enter sleep mode than it did in Snow Leopard. The behavior is acutally quite odd really. When I put the MP to sleep via keyboard shortcut or menu the sleep light starts to snooze (pulse) immediately, but the computer takes at least 10 seconds to sleep the display and 30 - 60 seconds before the fans stop and the familiar "click" is heard where I know the MP is actually asleep.

I did reset the PRAM and SMU prior to the above solution that is working for me, but that didn't appear to have helped in the slightest.