Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

No, but just installed it, have tried all the things that crashed it before but OK so far.

A combination of three things seem to have fixed this issue for me.

1) 10.7.2 beta (I have an early beta)

2) smcFanControl

3) I'm running a very small fan and having it blow on the back of my iMac.

Temperatures stay down, freezes some to be ALMOST gone entirely. Down from 5+ per day to less than 1-2 per week now. Another, software issue i had that caused random restarts with fixed when i upgraded Boom from 1.1 to version 1.2.

If 10.7.2 fixes the issue when it's released I hope Apple documents exactly what they fixed...

Count me too as someone affected by the Kernel Panics. I have had ten of them over the past few weeks.

This week I replaced my SO-DIMM RAM, replaced the HDD and did a fresh install of 10.7 after I upgraded firmware on my MacBook5,1...and I still had a black screen happen.

As this thread is now 64 pages long, I guess Apple know about all our problems

As this thread is now 64 pages long, I guess Apple know about all our problems

Yeah and Apple support is living a lie, they resemble the three legendary monkeys who see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.

A short statement like "hey.. we heard you.. we are working on this issue!" would make our lives much easier.

My mid-2010 MBP is being serviced for 10 days now, by a local authorised service center (no Apple Stores here.)

I was told they could easily reproduce the problem under Lion and Snow Leopard (on external drive)

I was told that that a logic board replacement or even all components replacement would NOT fix this, as it is likely a Lion introduced firmware issue.

I was also told (unofficially) that Apple and the service center are aware of this problem, just no official acknowledgement has been made and no solutions offered.

In short: my laptop is unusable (in SL, Lion or Windows) and no fix is available. All I can say is that if this computer would not be only a year old, i'd be throwing it away and going back to Windows.

Good job Apple!!!

martin_apple wrote:

 

My mid-2010 MBP is being serviced for 10 days now, by a local authorised service center (no Apple Stores here.)

I was told they could easily reproduce the problem under Lion and Snow Leopard (on external drive)

 

Ha. How do they then explain why so many people have had motherboard replacements which have fixed the issue?

I just got my i7 2010 MBP back from MB replacement and its working 100%. I don't even have gfxCardStatus installed anymore no crashing from random use, no crashing from photo booth 2nd tab effects, no crashing from quick view of document directories. I also have no overheating, which some people noted after MB replacement. Its working as I'd expect from a $2000+ machine.

I suggest you call apple support explain the case and get checked into another apple store or registered repairer. A MB will fix the problem. Its quite dodgy how they tell each person a different story

I just uninstalled Lion to be back to Snow Leopard. I have an iMac 2011.

Lion is not a revolution. SL is very stable. I will wait 10.7.8 to rethink if it worth the move. I still have Lion purchased via the App Store. I wonder whether the future iCloud is compatible with SL.

Will all the kernel panic and the wheel running, I gave up Lion, a really unfinished product.

Same for me.

Good bye Mac OS X Vista Lion.

Have you tried the new firmware update? Or it did not help?

I reinstalled SL before the firmware. I do not want to test anymore. There are more benefits to stay with SL than Lion. I like full screen and gestures but it is not a must.

Hi wired...thanks for keeping all of us updated, and I'm glad that everything is working great now.

I have just one question. The usual configuration for the MBP 1%" i7 is 388 MB of integrated Intel graphics and 512 MB of NVidia descrete graphics, plus whatever amount of Ram you opted for .. 4 or 8 MB. When you look in the---About this Mac / More information / System Report area, do you see the exact same configuration that you saw before your MB replacement regarding the Intel graphics and the NVidia graphics? Did Apple perhaps change one of these components for AMD or a different Intel configuration? If everything is the same as before, it is possilbe that somewhere down the line....in a month or two of heavy usage that the same problem will reappear. While I do believe that there are faulty MB, I don't believe that they are all faulty. From day one I've said that this is a firmware / driver issue and that MB replacements are just buying Apple some time to fix this issue.  Thanks...

wired00 wrote:

 

martin_apple wrote:

 

My mid-2010 MBP is being serviced for 10 days now, by a local authorised service center (no Apple Stores here.)

I was told they could easily reproduce the problem under Lion and Snow Leopard (on external drive)

 

Ha. How do they then explain why so many people have had motherboard replacements which have fixed the issue?

 

I just got my i7 2010 MBP back from MB replacement and its working 100%. I don't even have gfxCardStatus installed anymore no crashing from random use, no crashing from photo booth 2nd tab effects, no crashing from quick view of document directories. I also have no overheating, which some people noted after MB replacement. Its working as I'd expect from a $2000+ machine.

 

I suggest you call apple support explain the case and get checked into another apple store or registered repairer. A MB will fix the problem. Its quite dodgy how they tell each person a different story

I have also returned to SL.

I liked the functions and gestures that lion had integrated were great but the unexpected crashing made the computer unworkable and has put me a few days behind with my work.

Steps I took to prevent crashing:

1. Turned off automatic graphics switching in system preferences > energy saver. This helped the computer from crashing so quickly but was not a fix.

2. PRAM reset: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

3. Opened the computer isn safe mode

4. Reinstall of Lion CMD+R on login

5. Apple store genius said to wait for firmware or software update. State that a new logic board would not fix the issue.

Good luck everyone.

Hey guys, just an update on my side. For me, it was all hardware, though I was SURE it was software related. I took my MBP into the Apple store and they replaced the logic board. After I got it back my keyboard and trackpad stopped working so I took it back again. After looking at it for a few minutes, the Genius Bar guy and the managers agreed that a full replacement was the best option.

I really recommend that anyone having continuous issues or black screen crashes take their computer into an Apple store. They're really understanding and helpful and it's entirely possible that there will never be a software fix.

Cheers and good luck.

An update on my experience with this... 2010 MBP was experiencing the BSOD problem. Applied 10.7.1, am using gfxCardStatus set to dynamic switching. Seems like the problem went away. I have "seen", I think, maybe two black screen events but figured out if I hit the disc eject btn, Lion comes back to life.

Def not a scientic approach to identifying the root cause... but if all I have to do is hit the eject btn, then, I'm good to go. Will update if this turns out to be totally wrong. ;-)