My MacBook Pro (Retina) Freeze up Randomly

Yeah you don't have a Retina Macbook Pro and you do have a 13" Macbook Pro. The 13" models do not have dual graphic cards

VeloBeats wrote:

I have tried everything. gFXcardstatus and unfortunatly my Mac doesn't have the ability to Un-check 'Automatic graphics switching'. I even went to the Genius Bar where the idiot told me to "redownload divx"...lolque?!

I still get the crashes...all...the ....time. It is awful. I can't believe how bad it is. I almost don't even want to turn on the computer somedays.

This will be my last Mac.

Anyone know why my Energy Saver doesn't display the Un-Check 'Automatic Graphics Switching' option?

**** back to stage one. I am dumbfounded, but my computer crashes 3 times a day ..at least.

VeloBeats wrote:

**** back to stage one. I am dumbfounded, but my computer crashes 3 times a day ..at least.

Welcome to the world of Apple Mac.

I have been having some issues with my Retina MPB. 16gb ram / 2.6ghz 512gb SSD.

I ordered it on August 14th and got a delivery for around the end of August, so it shipped with 10.8

As I was working on my Win 7 PC during the initial time of owning the new mac, it has only been recently that I have given it some proper intensive usage. Initially I had the occasional weird sleep / wake issue. It can be a bit glitchy after waking up such as temporarily displaying the time from (presumably) before it had gone to sleep as well as the old battery level, before updating its self. There had been times that I needed to force a restart in order to be able to log in.

I have installed the 10.8.2 update which has seemed to make logging in more reliable, but not as solid and reliable as I would like. For instance there have been 2 times since the 10.8.2 update where I have worked the mac up from sleep and the trackpad or keyboard didn't work. Once I was not able to type anything on the keyboard and the other, clicking on the trackpad did not work. Both times I simply had to do a full forced restart (at least the time when I was unable to click!)

This is all up until about a week ago. Another example was when I had it connected to an external display via HDMI. I removed the HDMI cable and it somehow totally freaked the mac out and caused the system to have a serious error. A graphics issue I am guessing on that occasion.

More recently I have been using Adobe CS6 to do some video work and have experienced multiple occasions where the system has totally frozen. I've lost count, probably close to 10 times. I have Premier CS6 with the new Cuda graphics driver. When rendering video the system is totally slow to the the point that I don't dare do anything else. For example I can guarantee that if I try and use Photoshop while Premier is rendering, the system will hang and need a forced restart. I am very tempted to install a trial of CS6 on my 5 year old PC and compare rendering performance and multi tasking. I have all the latest Adobe and OSX updates. I have tried switching off automatic graphics switching without any success. It seems that currently, the system cant handle multiple graphics intensive apps. I would have expected this to be a breeze with the configuration I ordered?

It seems with Mountain Lion or the combination of this version of OSX and the RMBP, it is possible for an app to bring down the entire system with no means to kill the problem app and restore things. This takes me back to Windows 95 as drastic as the sounds. With Windows XP came the Task Manager which gave the ability to take care of problematic apps and kill them without having to do a full system restart and lose precious work. It seems I have taken a massive step back in time with Mountain Lion. Sort it out Apple, please!

This combined with the general bleeding edge nature of the retina display has been making me look into the possibility of returning the machine to Apple - although I don't know if anyone can advise how likely this will be since I bought it over 30 days ago now. Can anyone tell me from their experience? This is my first Mac purchase and at the moment I am really disappointed. Would have expected a lot more considering how expensive the purchase was.

I have the same issue. So far, it is getting worse. Even I do nothing, the system will crash or auto restart in a couple of minutes.

If you run gFXcardstatus, the option will not be shown in the configuration form.

Just wanted to add my name to the list.

I've started experencing these strange freezes on my rMBP 16gbram / 2.6ghz 512gb SSD as well — very frustrating. Giving the gFXcardstatus fix a try.

I have to say - I had actually been experiencing what I'd termed "my normal morning" where I open the clamshell on the 15 rMBP to see it go to a black screen, have to hold power for 5 seconds to kill it, then boot. The latest software update from yesterday has (so far, probably sample size of 8 sleep/wake cycles) completely fixed it. 8/8 worked.

Thank you! That was a PITA, no more.

It may not be related to your particular problem, but I was having crashes on my MBP retina 15" until I uninstalled a 3rd party safari software called Glims. Since then, things have been ok.

Same problem with MC976LL/A, ML 10.8.2. It happens regular 1-3 times at week.

Windows 98 is back! Noooooo!!!!

Having similar issues on my Retina MBP, the high end version (so I'd expect it to be able to handle pretty much everything). Although it isn't occuring as frequently, I do seem to be getting freezes (everything on screen stops working, audio/video in background will keep playing, only solution is to force power off with button) a couple times per day, I think mainly while using Chrome.

I found removing the Silverlight plugin fixed issues regards GPU switching and crashing with Safari.

/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Silverlight.plugin

I also completely uninstalled Parallels 7 (using the uninstaller included with their installation dmg).

GPU dynamic switching is enabled and I have no crashes any longer under 10.8. I have been running issue free for serveral months now.

I hope this helps.

Dear all, I have used the 14 day return policy with my MacBook Pro retina. All because of freezing issues, see my posts. After gaining enough courage to give it another go, I've bought a second one and guess what? It's in use for about three weeks now WITHOUT a single freeze issue. I am happy now, but still guessing what was wrong with the first one, nobody (including the very helpful Apple Genius) could explain. I guess it has something to do with a faulty hardware (RAM?) module. My advice, when this freeze issue occurs with a new Mac, return it asap and get a new one, you're entitled to it.

Thanks. I'll try it out and report back.

I can't speak for your experience, but I ran issue free for a month or so before I installed 10.8 after which I continued to add third party software. After the crashing began, I found that disabling GPU switching mitigated the issue. Later I began to search for answers to make a determination on a permanent solution. I found some postings related to Parallels 7 and crashing. I completely uninstalled it and everything seemed to work well with dynamic switching enabled. Some time later while attempting to view a Silverlight powered site, I was asked to install the Silverlight plugin after which my GPU started switching back and forth sporadically on the web page followed by Safari crashing. I recreated the crash several times and also observed rendering issues in Safari with this plugin enabled. I remove the plugin and my system is completely stable again. In my case I simply do not believe there is a hardware issue. I suggest if you are experiencing issues and have Parallels 7 and/or Silverlight installed that you remove them to prior to exchanging the product as this was a permanent fix for me.