Q: New Retina Macbook pro 13 Haswell system hang/unresponsive

Davikoz wrote:

 

Ok, so I installed the EFI Update yesterday, everything was working fine, but I just had my first freeze. Exactly the same issue as before, not even closing the lid for 30 seconds worked this time. I am returning it and buying it again next year. I do not want to keep worrying about this issue anymore. I have followed this thread since day 1 and I read every every single message in all 156 pages.

 

Hope you do not get the same issue and actually get to enjoy your rMBPs. Cheerz!

Sorry to hear that, man.

Seems you're the only one though.

Before the EFI update, we had 10 to 20 new people come to this thread every day, reporting "me too".
Since the update: nothing.

I think it's safe to say people can relax by now, as the issue seems to be fixed. Of course, with hundreds of thousands of devices sold, some of them will have problems.

Reading what you posted so far, I can tell you have a 2011 MBP, a 2012 MBA and a 2012 MBP, so I guess you have at least some computers left and will not be lost.

zpimrdas wrote:

 

Well I'm not returning mine because of the EFI issue, that was at least fixed; so the most basic function works.  Congratulations Apple!  I'm returing mine due to the unstable OS, Networking, and application functions; core functionalities have declined in these products over the past several years, and I'm convinced it's due to hiring practices that have evolved over the past 5-10 years.

 

I'm returning mine due to WIFI dropouts (connection still there, but no data gets sent or received, my MBA sitting right next to it on the table and doing fine) and image retention on the display.

But I do give Apple another chance. My exchange device is in production already. I'll see if they do better this time. If not, I'm not sure what I will do. I'm really really satisfied with my 3 year old MBA, so a Haswell MBA could be an option as well ...

Just wondering if you could provide a few details on the image retention? How bad is it? And when and where is it most noticable?

Also how long do you have to be on the same screen or whatever for the image retention to occur?

Thanks

thats interesting i photoshop all day on mine and never have this issue you speak of? do you have any pictures of it happening im curious?

Oli, sorry to hear that. You * at least * deserve a flawless device ;-)

Well, since the MBA was pretty often praised as a good and reliable machine I was thinking about this one to be an option, too. However, 11 inch, 4 GB RAM and 128 GB SSD would not have been acceptable for me, so my personal minimum configuration ends up at 1399 €. Now what happened is quite clear - my benefit-aware brain kept knocking: "Hey wait, don´t be a close-fisted fool and add another 200 bucks to the budget and you will get a more powerful CPU and a retina display!" ;-) To be honest, this not quite wrong... 200 bucks? .... Deal!

Just a bit of fireside chat (sorry for getting off-topic):

Personally, I don´t care too much about battery life, 256 GB capacity should be fine, 16 GB RAM would be rocking, but 8 GB also serve any of my purposes well. And the real "WOW"-effects as for CPU power should not appear too much within the "model lines" but rather in the major steps like

" MBA -> rMBP " and of course " Dual Core -> Quad Core ". The retina display, however, is always a winner. So I think the 13 inch rMBP mid range device comes closest to a good price/performance ratio. Not outstanding, but still good.

I hope, particularly for you Oli, that the reordered devices will not disappoint their owners again in some way... Maybe I will take a last look at the MBA/rMBP here at the local Frankfurt store but I will most likely place my 13" rMBP order on this year´s black friday... hoping Apple is going to be generous ;-)  

13/8/256 2wks old. How my daughter loves her new laptop... Thanks Apple! Good job.

I have the same freeze when CPU/GPU is overloaded for longer period, no keyboard/trackpad issue - this is different

Returning this machine, i'm curious how they will fix it

Would be interesting to know if those selling now have the same errors in the console...

almost 3 days without a shutdown no lock-ups here. I think its safe to say this update has fixed the issue for me to say the least.

RP. wrote:

 

Just wondering if you could provide a few details on the image retention? How bad is it? And when and where is it most noticable?

 

Also how long do you have to be on the same screen or whatever for the image retention to occur?

 

Thanks

After noticing it from time to time, I did this as a test and for reproducing the ghosting:

1.) Set the background of the desktop to single color "solid dark gray" (the darkest gray available)
2.) Boot up rMBP (warmer CPU/GPU seems to enhance the ghosting. In my case the ghosting still occured with a "cold" rMBP)

3.) Open a window/program that will have white background mostly. (I used safari with the google startpage)

4.) The window should cover around 50% of the desktop. So have some gray space to the left, right and bottom.

5.) Do not touch the rMBP for about 10 minutes. (Of course, the powersavings should not kick in and shut of the display during that time, so adjust them as step 1.1) if necessary

6.) After that 10 minutes, close or minimize the safari window and look at the grey background of the desktop.

On my rMBP right after step 6.) I could clearly(!!) see the borders of the closed window as a ghost image on the gray screen. It went away after a couple of seconds. (maybe 10 or 20 sec.)

I described this procedure to toher people and they tested this as well. They reported to have no ghosting after doing this procedure or very very little.

So I figured I do not want to spend 2000 Euro (almost 2800 USD) on a device that seems to have less quality as the rest of the bunch. Also, I still have my good old MBA for work, so I am not much in a hurry.

ReMo77 wrote:

 

Oli, sorry to hear that. You * at least * deserve a flawless device ;-)

 

Well, since the MBA was pretty often praised as a good and reliable machine I was thinking about this one to be an option, too. However, 11 inch, 4 GB RAM and 128 GB SSD would not have been acceptable for me, so my personal minimum configuration ends up at 1399 €. Now what happened is quite clear - my benefit-aware brain kept knocking: "Hey wait, don´t be a close-fisted fool and add another 200 bucks to the budget and you will get a more powerful CPU and a retina display!" ;-) To be honest, this not quite wrong... 200 bucks? .... Deal!

 

Yep, that sounds familiar to me.

Of course, it didn't stop there .... A rMBP i5/8/256 is a very good device, no doubt, but hey - for a little more, I can get the 512 SSD. It's never bad to have some extra storage space. And once we're at it ... for a little more, I can get the 16GB RAM ... Well, you know ...

Pableke wrote:

 

Would be interesting to know if those selling now have the same errors in the console...

My replacement device is scheduled to arrive around November 20th. Of course, I will let you all know, whether this has the EFI fix already applied (I'd be very surprised if not) and whether the kernel messages still show up in system.log (I'd be very surprised if they don't)

And of course, I will let you all know about IR/ghosting on the new device and I will let RIVERSTALKER know about the keyboard ...

Thanks

Thanks for the info on IR/ghost. There is another *massive* thread on here about it dating back to the first retina displays and right up to the present. And another useful thread on "macrumours" http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1662379&page=8

Still deciding between this 13" and a samsung book 9 plus (haswell, HD screen) at the moment. Having read this long long thread and all the other threads and reviews on ghosting etc. I'm still having a hard time deciding whether or not to buy the macbook. From these reviews forums I've read, among various other things, the following "stuff" (and as usual it's hard to decipher the truth, from the speculation, from the wild guesses, etc etc):

Image retention/ghosting is an inherent issue in display technology no matter what (with technical reports available from tech. companies eg. NEC etc.).

"Burn in" is a similar but different issue (which isn't relevant to the retinas).

There are LOTS of reports of image retention on previous retina models (seemed to be a pretty major issue)

There are quite a few reports on new 13" retinas (late 2013) ghosting.

There is a standard "checkerboard test" http://www.marco.org/rmbp-irtest.html

The test gives positives on both new and old systems, as reported by users

The level of ghosting varies a lot.. some get it after 1 minute of the test.. some after the full 10 minutes.. some only on parts of the screen.. some not at all!

Reports are that it shows up only after a certain use period (depending on the particular case in question) e.g. a few weeks.. or a number of months

The LG displays were the main culprits on previous generation retina macbooks (as they came with both LG and Samsung made screens)

Samsungs don't ghost but have a variety of other problems and according to some people the samsung doesn't look as good (brightness etc etc)

According to the macrumours forum the people posting in that forum aren't sure if the 13" late 2013 has samsung or LG displays, or both such as in previous models

Apple has a standard test program that they run on your computer themselves if necessary with a "postive" result meaning they replace the screen as a matter of standard procedure (I believe this is different to the "checkerboard" test from marco.org)

Some people get positive results from the "checkerboard" test i.e. they can see ghosting but don't notice it in daily/normal use

People buying 13" retina pros now still have screens manufactured in late 2012

So yer as usual when you delve into these issues on forums there is a lot of vastly varied information and user experiences to sift through. And it's hard to guage the overall problem when really, even if a forum has thousands and thousands of views, you can't really tell how widespread the problem is compared to total production etc.

Warranty should solve but I guess it's an inconvenience I would personally prefer not to have to worry aboutand with a significant number of reports in forums etc. it makes it a hard decision to buy one or go with another windows laptop of which there are some perfectly suitable ones for my purposes out there.

Thanks again Oli.

The problem of Retina displays is that they are very expensive due to the low yield in production so the company (LG, Samsung) has to enlarge specification limits to sell big quantities to Apple and we can see the results.

So if you are lucky enough you can find a good display inside your MBP otherwise...

The rMBPs 15 have also a lot of issues, for example LG panel  has IR problem and Samsung panel shows yellow tint. I saw the 15 rMBP late 2013 of my friend with the bottom part  of display with a yellow tint.

I am relatively happy that we are not speaking about Keyboard/Trackpad freezing anymore but of other issues well known in the rMBP world.