Black screen on MacBook Pro running 10.6.8

Maine Islander,

if you boot either from your white Snow Leopard DVD or from the grey installation DVD which has your MacBook Pro’s Apple Hardware Test, does the video appear on your monitor then?

Boot disk on USB Thumb drive - Augusta Maine

I have a mid 2010 15" MBP i5 with 8 gigs of ram running Snow Leopard 10.6.8

Three times in two months it crashes to black screen and the only way back it a hard (power button - off) restart. Then it works fine. I have to pay more attention as to what I was doing at the time, but in all three cases I was actively using the keyboard. I do not have any video games on this laptop. I can't say for sure, but I am thinking it happens when I execute something new, today it happened when using Chrome. I either just launched it, or more likely it crashed when I hit RETURN to initiate a search.

I captured all three error reports, the beginning of each are as follows. Any and all sggestions are appreciated. And if MAINE ISLANDER is reading this, I have a Snow Leopard bood disk on thumb drive that you can borrow if in the Augusta area.

Today:

Interval Since Last Panic Report: 24719830 sec

Panics Since Last Report: 5

Anonymous UUID: 4CC0DEFE-16DA-4707-A8C7-76F2AE0793AB

Mon Apr 28 18:34:56 2014

panic(cpu 1 caller 0xa26c9b): NVRM[0/1:0:0]: Read Error 0x00000100: CFG 0xffffffff 0xffffffff 0xffffffff, BAR0 0xc0000000 0xa6f3c000 0x0a5480a2, D0, P2/4

Backtrace (CPU 1), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)

0x7c552188 : 0x21b837 (0x5dd7fc 0x7c5521bc 0x223ce1 0x0)

0x7c5521d8 : 0xa26c9b (0xc3c28c 0xcac800 0xc4ae60 0x0)

0x7c552278 : 0xb41608 (0xe858804 0xda1b004 0x100 0x124af700)

0x7c5522c8 : 0xb38601 (0xda1b004 0x100 0x7c5522f8 0xa16778)

0x7c5522f8 : 0x17929a6 (0xda1b004 0x100 0x438004ee 0x1)

0x7c552438 : 0xb602b5 (0xda1b004 0xe2df004 0x0 0x0)

0x7c552478 : 0xa2fe7c (0xda1b004 0xe2df004 0x0 0x0)

Exactly 20 days ago:

MAC Shut Down Error – 8 April 2014

Interval Since Last Panic Report: 23762346 sec

Panics Since Last Report: 4

Anonymous UUID: 4CC0DEFE-16DA-4707-A8C7-76F2AE0793AB

Tue Apr 8 07:20:25 2014

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x833b3c9b): NVRM[0/1:0:0]: Read Error 0x0061021c: CFG 0xffffffff 0xffffffff 0xffffffff, BAR0 0xc0000000 0xa6645000 0x0a5480a2, D0, P2/4

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)

0x7a9020d8 : 0x21b837 (0x5dd7fc 0x7a90210c 0x223ce1 0x0)

0x7a902128 : 0x833b3c9b (0x835c928c 0x83639800 0x835d7e60 0x0)

0x7a9021c8 : 0x834ce608 (0xd837c04 0xd37f004 0x61021c 0x83b0df6a)

0x7a902218 : 0x83b10ffe (0xd37f004 0x61021c 0x0 0x0)

0x7a902298 : 0x8338fa9f (0xd37f004 0xd940004 0xc1d00046 0xbfef0034)

0x7a902378 : 0x833901e3 (0xc1d00046 0xbfef0033 0xbfef0034 0x857c)

0x7a9023a8 : 0x8339597f (0x7a902438 0x7a9024ac 0x7a9023d8 0x2aa21d

22 March 2014

Interval Since Last Panic Report: 22842956 sec

Panics Since Last Report: 3

Anonymous UUID: 4CC0DEFE-16DA-4707-A8C7-76F2AE0793AB

Sat Mar 22 23:07:45 2014

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x2abf6a): Kernel trap at 0x005531d5, type 14=page fault, registers:

CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0x00000020, CR3: 0x00100000, CR4: 0x00000668

EAX: 0x00000020, EBX: 0x00944260, ECX: 0x15a4e404, EDX: 0x00000000

CR2: 0x00000020, EBP: 0xa667aa78, ESI: 0xe00002bc, EDI: 0x10d74bc0

EFL: 0x00010246, EIP: 0x005531d5, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0xe0000010

Error code: 0x00000000

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)

0xa667a898 : 0x21b837 (0x5dd7fc 0xa667a8cc 0x223ce1 0x0)

0xa667a8e8 : 0x2abf6a (0x59e3d0 0x5531d5 0xe 0x59e59a)

0xa667a9c8 : 0x2a1a78 (0xa667a9e0 0x15a4e400 0xa667aa78 0x5531d5)

0xa667a9d8 : 0x5531d5 (0xe 0x940048 0xa6670010 0xe0000010)

0xa667aa78 : 0x554316 (0x10d74bc0 0x0 0x0 0x0)

CAPTJON,

some 15-inch Mid 2010 MacBook Pros are known to have defective NVIDIA GPUs; you can read more about the problem at this Apple page. If Chrome uses the NVIDIA GPU to speed up its screen rendering, then that could possibly be the source of your crashes (since you didn’t provide the full crash reports, it’s necessarily a bit of guesswork).

Thank you Melophage, I will check it out!

Maine Islander, email me, and we can work it out.

Melophage,

I followed the link and installed the update. If I already had it installed would I have gotten a message indicating as much? Anyway, thanks. Right now it is no a common occurance (gladdly) so it might be a while to know if it improves matters. I do have the full error reports - three of them. What should I be looking for?

Thanks for your time.

CAPTJON,

no, if you did a direct download of the MacBook Pro Video Update 1.0 (Snow Leopard) and installed it from that disk image, then you wouldn’t receive a message saying that you’d previously installed it if you had previously installed it.

None of three report fragments which you’d previously posted are GPU panics, which would be the most conclusive evidence that you’d need to make an appointment at an Apple store to have them run their Video System Test on your MacBook Pro, to confirm the presence of the GPU defect. You should look at which app was running when each of the crashes occurred, check to see if there are any non-Apple drivers in the “stack” (the list of drivers which the reports print), and confirm that the RAM which is installed in your MacBook Pro is of the right type (i.e. 1067 MHz) and that both memory modules have the same ID.

Maine Islander, email me, and we can connect with the thumb drive.