Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

I'm glad I found this thread.  I'm averaging about 4 blackouts a day.  =( 

MBP 2010 15"

My girlfriend had this problem (although rarely) on her MBA 11" 2010 model, so it is plattform/make independent. So far no issues with Lion.

I am experiencing B(lack)SOD issues with my MacPro as well, and I think the symptoms are the same for all machines. The problems are for me seemingly all connected to for me is seemingly connected to Power Managment and sleep/resume:

1. Screen goes black on sleep, but Mac does not turn itself off. On my laptops, this is particulary evident, as the battery runs out and the console.log displays lots of activity. On my MacPro, it is evident due to the fan not turning itself off.
   
   
2. Mac refuses to turn back on on resume, but after a time of 5-15 minutes, it might. Laptops seem to rejoice on being to connected to their charger, but that could just be me. I have never gotten my MacPro back on track after a freeze.

So it has been over 48 hours since Apple replaced my logic board and no black screens of death (MBP mid 2010 i7 nvidia 330). This was definitely hardware for me and I only had issues after upgrading to Lion - no problems with Snow Leopard. Btw, Apple's hardware diagnostics did not find an issue, they believed it was the GPU based on the logs that were presented when I rebooted my computer after a black screen.

I highly recommend that folks with this issue not assume it is software and not assume that a Lion fix will solve your problem. That is what I thought and now it seems I was wrong. Lion seems to expose faults in the GPU that Snow Leopard did not.

Will report back if the black screen of death rears its head again.

Good luck.

My MacBook Pro is now in with Apple to get a new logic board for this problem.   Before bringing it in, we tried reinstalling Lion - didn't work.  Then we Erased the hard-drive and did a fresh install of Lion so that the only thing on the computer was the O/S - same problem.   So with the only thing on the computer being the O/S, can anyone suggest which applications or steps I should take in front of Apple (when I pick it up), to assess whether or not the problem is now gone?  I thought of plugging in my iPhone (always caused a crash with Lion before), but I'm hoping for something without plugging anything in.

verbaL123 wrote:

 

So it has been over 48 hours since Apple replaced my logic board and no black screens of death (MBP mid 2010 i7 nvidia 330). This was definitely hardware for me and I only had issues after upgrading to Lion - no problems with Snow Leopard.

Hardware AND software. An interaction. Or you would've had the problem with Snow Leopard. Which means it could be fixed entirely in software, without requiring a very expensive (for Apple) board replacement (though possibly sacrificing some feature or performance).

For those with an NVIDIA 330M GPU who may be out of warranty (and don't have AppleCare), Apple may choose not to replace the board for you, so if you don't want to spend a lot of money getting that board replaced, you have to hope that they do something to the software.

My MPB has a 9400M GPU, and a software fix (simply removing smcFanControl) completely resolved the problem for me.

There was no change in my software. No new install of Lion. No removal of any of my software. I think it is possible that a piece of software can be push a piece of hardware more than other software. I think lion pushed more than snow leopard and revealed a defect that snow leopard did not reveal.

verbaL123 wrote:

 

[…]  I think it is possible that a piece of software can be push a piece of hardware more than other software. I think lion pushed more than snow leopard and revealed a defect that snow leopard did not reveal.

Agreed - this seems the most logical conclusion based on the experiences in this thread.

So many GT330M logic board replacements reported here … I wonder what percentage of the chipsets are without issue.  I'm speculating here, but Lion's higher demand for GPU muscle could serve to reveal another batch of stinkers from NVIDIA …

In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected. If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within four years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

- http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2377

I had my board replaced ~6 months for the same sort of black screen/kernel panics under Snow Leopard.

No mystery why new Macbooks ship w/ AMD chips.

So, my mac was sent for a logic board replacement today **for the SECOND time**. The first logic board they put on my mac (1 week ago) did not fix the issue at all in Lion and it actually caused more frequent black screens when I rolled back to Snow Leopard (always erasing the HD before the reinstallations).

I asked for a computer replacement (at least temporary while they replace the logic board) and talked to the manager of the Apple Store for an hour about it (since I felt that my computer was actually in worse conditions after sending it for a repair -before I could use it in SL at least-). I would have just rolled back to SL with my old logic board and got some work done at least (that's what I was trying to do after seeing that a logic board replacement did not fix the issue). But it seems that now, because of the new logic board that they installed, I cannot even go for that option, since it's almost impossible to get work done without the system crashing, even in SL.

I am very upset for having to go through another week without my mac because it's my only computer and it's disrupting my deadlines. But I am actually even more angry that they replaced the logic board in the first place and shipped it back without even testing that the same issue I described could still be reproduced (and it's not that random, the crashes in Lion can actually be reproduced with minimal effort, just following simple steps that I listed for them).

The manager made it sound like they were doing a favour to me, because the mac (that was render unusable because of something that THEY did to them) was out of warranty now and they are still doing it for free and actually shipping it with priorty status. So yeah, thank you Apple...

CollinMel wrote:

    ... No mystery why new Macbooks ship w/ AMD chips.

I'm sorry to diappoint people, but (as I have reported earlier in this thread) I have a very new MBP (mid 2011) with an AMD Radeon HD 6750M an I get the Black Screen Crash between 1 and 10 times a day.

Recently the situation appears to have improved a bit after I increased my fan speed using the smcFanControl tool. But it's too early to have conclusive evidence of this.

@sherlockfrommaple

If you have Lion and just only what it comes with it after the installing in a clean system. You can go to photobooth, go to effects and then try to go to the 2nd tab of effects.

This is how I showed it in the Store.

If you have a clean instlallation of Snow Leopard: go to the Application Folder, select all and then open. If it still doesn't crash, just with as many apps open as you can, look for PDF/text documents on the computer, select one, press space bar and you'll see quickview. Try to flick through different documents with quickview open and the system will crash.

Just curious, I turned on FileVault and the crash happened every time I close my MBP's lid. Now I turned the FileVault off, it seems fine now. Do any of you have FileVault truned on?

yeah. hardware and software, software and hardware issues.

and im VERY disappointed with apple.

mid-2010 MBP ..

some crashes with snow leopard ,, i mean 4-5 in 6months,

essentially related to safari+flash content. stopped using safari. _never had

a crash.

lion now crashes A LOT ,,in a bunch of conditions. 

disabled the nvidia CRAP w/ gfxcardstatus ,,

no crashes in 3 days ,, and the whole system is even snappier!

so dear apple,

what about a REFUND for what i bought and i cannot use??

(my GT330M chip for example ..)

I'm sorry to diappoint people, but (as I have reported earlier in this thread) I have a very new MBP (mid 2011) with an AMD Radeon HD 6750M an I get the Black Screen Crash between 1 and 10 times a day.

Sorry to hear :/  Though from what I've read, it does appear AMD chipsets experience the issue much more rarely.

In any case - hope we all find a fix soon.

Well I'm affraid that none of the proposed workarounds in this thread really worked for me Tried everything in multiple scenarios, gfxcardstatus DOES help when I'm just on my macbook, but when I've attatched an external screen all weird kind of things start to happen. Random crashes and black screens as mentioned in this thread, but the last few days also my bluetooth mouse start acting up (repositioning the cursor all the time, vertical scroll not working, etc.). So it's back to Apple I guess.

Really a shame though that they put it all on warranty etc. when in fact they just shipped a mailfuntioning product ...

@hayafirst I also activated filevault full disk encryption for my Intel SSD and experiencing those kind of issues - I do not know how it was without it because I activated it the day after installing Lion - maybe I decrypt it again to check that