Q: OS X Lion freezes at login screen + App Store is slow

I don't bother with vinegar or honey.  I'm all about industrial strength pesticide. 

What concerns me now is the new issue where hitting the power button now causes a hard freeze, which has never happened before.  Sigh.  Not sure how that came about, other than maybe the tech accidentally dropped my MacBook or something, but it makes me doubt that my MBP will ever be as rock solid as it once was when I was just running Snow Leopard.  What a nightmare Lion turned out to be.

MacBook Pro, september 2007 issue. Pretty clean, well cared. Was working perfectly until I installed OS X Lion. Same freezing problem since. Grrrrr.... Seems to be solved by repairing permissions. For a little while though... I went to the Apple Store (France, Opera). They checked my MB. Everything was ok, from graphic processor to fans. Reinstall Lion or make a fresh install was their advice. I did reinstall Lion, but it occures again, and freezes again, and again, and... But overthere @ the apple store, nobody told me about what seems to be a well known problem. Hope the day they'll fix it, my MB will not freeze. My question : has anybody downgraded  back to Snow Leopard ? Freezing while you're downgrading must be a pain in the neck... I'm afraid of losing datas by doing it.

For the record, I tried using [F12] (and several other F-keys, to interrupt the SBBoD when it occurred at login on my MBP6,2. It didn't work - I had to force-power-off.

So I boot up Lion when I get home from work today and I get the SBBoD.  I try and work on two word open office documents and open a video file I get SBBoD, followed by temperature rising to 100C on smcFanControl with the fans silent.  Is thing ******* OS gonna fry my logic board?

I've also noticed slow boot up and shutdowns, along with decreased performance overall and shorter battery life.

Off to the Apple Store I go, with my MBP two weeks out of warranty and no AppleCare.

@chairmo: I have the same MBP6,2 and GeForce 330M Revision as you do. And have been troubleshootin all last week as well as hanging on this thread.

Since I turned AGS OFF (in System Prefs > Energy Saver > [uncheck] Automatic Graphics Switching) yesterday, I have not experienced SBBoD at all.

Have you tried that?

It's just a workaround while we wait for Apple to provide the rumored "software fix" that they are working on. :-/

Yes, thanks.  I was aware of that "fix".  Not tried it yet, not quite happy with it either.

There is an Apple Store where I live so I'll see what they have to say.

@psykdelia: I haven't yet downgraded but I was close. Now that I have a workaround and we have heard that Apple is working on a fix, I am leaving Lion in place.

However, to DOWNGRADE, here is what I would do.

(1) I assume you have used Time Machine to back up your HD before you installed Lion? You will need that to restore from

(2) You will need your original (OEM) Installation DVD(s) that came with your Mac. If you don't have them, you can order replacement(s) by calling Apple support - I think the cost is pretty nominal, Say $10 or $15.

(3) You might also want to back up your Lion HD before starting - if stability permits. But another approach is to simply remove the HD with Lion on it and install it in an external HD enclosure - for this I prefer Firewire 800 enclosures. McAlly makes one. THey cost me around $65. Then you can later recover stuff from that drive, using Migration assistant or by simply copying what you want - probably best if you only have a few files to do.

(4) Either install a new HD in your Mac, or else use the old (Lion) one (if you do not put it into an external enclosure), and boot from your OEM installation DVD. You can use its Disk Utility to reformat the HD - use Mac OS X Extended, Journalled format. This will make it bootable.

(5) Reinstall Mac OS X from your OEM DVD. Then run Software Update to bring the installed version of Mac OS X back up to 10.6.8.

(6) Run Disk Utilities (again) and use its option to Restore. It will allow you to browse for the source-drive. Choose your Time Machine Backup drive.

(7) If you've got other stuff on the Lion (now external) HD, you should be able to attach that drive and either use Migration Assistant, or just mount the drive on your desktop copy back the files you need.

Hope that helps.

@Terry Mahoney : thanks. Yes, they're working on it, and maybe it's good to wait. But I'm thinking my 4 years macBook Pro 17" is too old for this young (beta) Lion. So I think I'm going downgrade in a methodical way, I mean after a total check of the  hardware. Someone will do it for me.  Then, your 7 tips will help ! Thanks for your answer.

@psykedelia: This is too late for most folks on this thread but the "duh!" idea for "Beta Testing" Lion is to simply remove your old HD and mount it in a FW800 enclosure, and install a new, fast HD in your Mac. Then install and test Lion from there.

You start by booting from your old, external drive and downloading Lion to install onto your new, internal drive. (It worked for me, but I had another motive for starting out this way).

Anyway - if you decide that Lion isn't ready for you, yet, you simply swap the drives again and you are "good to go". No worries about backups, restores, reformatting drives and reinstalling Snow Leopard. ...

UPDATE:

Senior Apple rep called back and engineering wanted my log files from my machine.  THey sent me an .dmg file which created the file they needed and I Emailed it back to the rep who said, and I quote "The Engineers are aware of a growing problem with these machines." The rep also mentioned potential "Firmware update" as an option.  Once the senior support rep gives me the final answer, I'll post it here.

when you have the file send it to us we make more log files maybe it help them to find fix

I rolled back to Snow Leopard and the freezing at the login screen went away. Then I did a clean install of Lion (10.7.0), erasing Snow Leopard completely and installing Lion from DVD. All was fine for the first three days but then I installed the Lion update to 10.7.2 and the intermittent freezing at the login screen began again. I decided to experiment with the startup items and removed iTunes Helper and the freezing has stopped. Been about 5 days now incident free.

I have a mid-2009 MBP with upgraded 500GB WD Caviar Blue HDD.

Interesting, but doesn't apply to me. My MBP6,2 is mid-2010, updated to 10.7.2 nad there are no Startup items enabled. As mentioned earlier, I've turned off AGS - and had no freezes for two days now. Noticed my laptop is running a bit hotter but nothing to be concerned about.

@Dan Reed1: Thanks Dan - that's encouraging - Re. "growing awareness".

The guy that checked my MBP (by the way, he works twice more since Lion appeared...) is an Apple developer. He told me a 10.7.3 update is coming soon,and as a developer, he has it and he's already working on the 4th.  He told me something about that 10.7.2 update too. It'd implement an extension (more to come) in the logic board. Something my bad NVIDIA 8600 can't endure no more. He's now running too hot. Could be the end of my 2007 MBP. But that makes me think the problem could come from this 10.7.2 update.