OS X 10.9 freeze when WiFi is turned off (POSSIBLE SOLUTION)

I'm afraid to say I can't say the same thing.

I initially thought the problem was fixed after updating, but unfortunately, it just took (much) longer to freeze; about 20min as opposed to immedately.

This is a real problem when you're trying to work off the corporate LAN!

Well, my company have turned against Apple, and it looks like the next laptp will be a Lenovo. I've been trying to hold on to this one for a long time, but as Apple doesn't seem to bother getting it fixed, there will be no way convincing my boss to get another Apple...

hi tobythetenor!

I'm sorry to hear that. In my case, I kept the WiFi turned off for 30 minutes without any issue. As I said before, I have a MBP late 2007. What hardware do you have? Perhaps your issue has a more complex source.

After update to 10.9.2 problem solved.

Hi AlfaMikeDelta,

it does take a lot longer now for it to happen - maybe 30min rather than 1min - but the issue still occurs. Perhaps you are right and it is a problem, but I can work away for many hours with WiFi on and never see it freeze.

It is a MacBook Pro 3,1 with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT and the 2.4GHz C2D; the top model at the time. It's had the screen, logic board and touch pad replaced all within 18 months of purchase, but ever since the new Logic Board was in, I've not seen any problems until upgrading to 10.8 (now 10.9.2).

Afer updating to 10.9.2 (laes) i hav muliple frzeezes, strange behavior and simple hangs for couple of seconds in apsolutely different scnarios. Never seen nothing like this since Windows 95. Even pages at safari can freeze my MacBook pro with 6 gb RAM freeze for 10 or more seconds. Shame on you, apple! I'm going back to 10.8

With 10.9.3 same problem or fixed it?

On my MBP 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo which is getting on a bit and upraded the system to Mavericks 10.9.3. Then it started to freeze when on the internet, getting hot and fan whirring and gradually got worse until no wifi access at all then froze when trying to turn wifi access on or off. Then problems with starting and would only start with cmd R and couldn't locate any networks. Tried all suggestions here but problems persisted. Turned off wifi deleted the services in Network and all worked well again apart from not having either wifi or ethernet access. So, replaced wifi card thinking that was the problem and fine for a week then problems started again. Eventually in desperation erased drive and did fresh install of Mavericks and was fine for a couple of hours.

Rebooted and looked into Activity Monitor and saw iPhoto and Safari activity and thought perhaps iCloud could be the problem so turned them off in iCloud prefs (left Calendars, Contacts and Reminders on) and now working perfectly! And very stable after 3 days now.

I suspect it could have been iPhoto trying to upload photos in the background into my iCloud account that was over working my laptop - I don't know, but if you are also having similar problems this is another solution to try.

I wonder if this was the problem on a friend's iMac that was overheating and freezing?

Hi johnflann,

what you described is likely a different issue.
The issue described here manifest itself that - on a 2007/8 MacBook Pro with 10.8 or 10.9 - everything is working fine until such moment that the WiFi is turned off.
So without making any interventions, the laptop will run fine indefinitely with the WiFi turned on.
However, when you turn the WiFi off (eg use an Ethernet cable for network connectivity), the laptop will freeze, such that the screen image is retained, but there is no mouse movement or any input possible, and any output (say you're watching a movie) will stop, too.

I've tried switching off iCloud syncing myself, and that doesn't make a difference. What works for me as an intermediate solutions is to 'forget' the WiFi network, but leave WiFi turned on (so the laptop doesn't connect via WiFi). You can also change the service order to give Ethernet (or other adapters) priority.

The problem you're describing is more reminiscent of dried-up thermal paste.
Does it remain stable when you watch an HD movie for example? It is possible that by turning off iCloud syncing, you have reduced the demand on the CPU / graphics chip so it simply doesn't get hot enough anymore to freeze during normal working tasks.

That particular line of MacBook is not known for best thermal management, the fans will only speed up noticeably when the CPU reaches over 85Cº I believe. If the thermal paste is dry, this is too hot to save the laptop from thermal shut-down (symptoms as you describe above).

The good news is this can be fixed, the bad news is it's quite an involved process. You have to remove the keyboard and upper cover, take the optical and hd drive out, and lift the logic board out of the casing. On the underside of the logic board you'll see two chips, cpu and graphics, whereas the heatsink remains in the bottom of the housing. Clean the copper-colored contact surfaces with isopropyl, apply a thin layer of thermal paste (Amazon) and put it back together.

Good luck!

Is it possible the problem is AirDrop? By default it's not activated on old Macs...

Ifter update to 10.9.3 freezes continued and seems that it stared occuring more often, i switched back to clean 10.8 and everything working fine and smooth as before for months. The problem is 100% not in my hardware.

p. s. the absolutely same behavior on my uncle's old iMac, i was forced to rollback it too.

Go back and reinstall 10.9.3 and then see if there is a firmware upgrade. I believe the current vrsion is 1.1

Thanks, but i'm not fixing thigs that are not broken. Anyway after what the showed up at WWDC im seriously thinking about going back to PC.

Well, I see your point. Apple's laptop line-up is quite disappointing at the moment, particularly compared to something like to Lenovo Yoga Pad (flip & touch screen).

September is traditionally the time to announce new hardware, so let's see what happens then.
Part of the reason why I'm hanging on to my 2007 model is of course the lack of innovation 😟

My MBP is about 2010 so this solution might not be relevant to older MBPs. I agree the problem I was having could have been old thermal paste, failing fans or creaking joints but by changing the settings in iCloud my MBP works as before without crashing. I've watched the BBC online for over 2 hours now and no freezing which I couldn't do before. (I could watch movie downloads perfectly fine from my drive but it would freeze if they were streaming on wifi through Firefox, Chrome or Safari.)

So just by changing the settings in iCloud my MBP now doesn't crash and starts up without cajoling. Many thanks for the advice - perhaps I've been really lucky in finding a solution and I'm very happy that I don't have to replace the thermal paste!

Agree about your comment in your more recent posting about wanting to hang on to your MBP.

Well I had the macbook pro 3,1 freeze on 10.9-10.9.2 when turning it off. The only solution was to boot into repair or root mode and trash the network prefs as somebody else described. (well, using defaults one could turn it back on supposedly but I never got to that point.)

The solution that worked best for me was to install an old version of the driver (system--Extensions) which somebody else posted about (which was found in a combo updater I believe... and took a while to extract and find it.) That worked until recently.

10.9.3 came out and I updated. They replaced the driver/kernel extension. I totally forgot about the issue; but I just turned off wifi and it hasn't frozen. I'm thinking 10.9.3 may have finally fixed the driver.