Q: MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) freeze with Yosemite

went into the apple store last week.

couldn't reproduce the fault at the genius bar, but the guy took my word for it.

I got it back a week later with a new logic board, and since then, I haven't seen any crashes.

I really hope the problem has been fixed, but we'll have to wait and see

Today Apple announced a repair program for qualifying MacBook Pros.

http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

Apple has determined that a small percentage of MacBook Pro systems may exhibit distorted video, no video, or unexpected system restarts. These MacBook Pro systems were sold between February 2011 and December 2013.

Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider will repair affected MacBook Pro systems, free of charge. See below for details on affected models and service options.

As of February 20, 2015, the repair process will be available in the U.S. and Canada. In other countries, it will be available as of February 27, 2015.

BOOM finally! That restored some faith in Apple again

Thanks for posting this! I posted a thread earlier today in the MacBook Pro forum because I'm having tons of freeze-auto-restart crashes without crash logs on my early '13 rMBP.

My model is one of the affected ones, so I'm taking it in to the Genius Bar tomorrow.

Do we have more details on the reparation that will be done?

I got my logic board and SSD replaced few days ago because of this issue, and, unfortunately, my macbook pro continues to have freezes.

Not sure exactly what they're going to do, but I've already made a Genius Bar appointment for this evening to take my suffering MBP in. 

What about those of us who have a MacBook Pro 15" Mid 2012 without Retina? I am having all of these issues but that specific model isn't listed.

I'll tell you later today, because that is exactly what I'm taking to the Apple Store.

Mid-2012 non-retina MBPs are NOT covered under this recall/warranty extension.  The folks at the Willow Bend Mall Apple Store were not even able to pull the correct diagnostic down because Apple's servers don't include this model and serial number range. 

Guess those of us that bought a new computer in 2012 are up a creek without a paddle.

Do you think this will fix the issue when the mouse still moves but the computer is seemingly frozen?  If you look at their description it says:

Symptoms

An affected MacBook Pro may display one or more of the following symptoms:

• Distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen
• No video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on
• Computer restarts unexpectedly

Well apparently Apple has listened! https://www.apple.com/ca/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

I originally saw the piece here: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/02/apple-launches-repair-program-for-longstand ing-2011-macbook-pro-gpu-problems/

I took my rMBP (Mid 2012) in on Friday (2/20) evening; it has been suffering from occasional hard freezes (nothing moves and nothing works, not even the small LED on the caps lock key which is how I define hard freezes) after which it would restart itself after maybe 20 seconds. This has been the case since Yosemite; prior to that, the screen would occasionally do this very subtle flicker once in a while but never crash.

The Apple Store had the diagnostic test available, and their software flagged my laptop as recommended for a VST3 (video stress test) (because it was eligible under the new program). It is a 12+ minute test where all you see is a countdown bar on the screen. However, my laptop passed that test, hence, there was nothing I could do without paying $310 for a logic board replacement. I thanked the guy and left.

Thanks. You saved me a trip to the Apple Store. I had the exact same problem as yours with my Mid 2012 MBP Retina. Oh well, looks like disabling the automatic graphic switching is still the way to go for now.

I am running a mid-2012 macbook pro (non-retina).  I have found that any app that pushes the graphics over to the nVidia card immediately causes a blue tint on the screen.  I upgraded the drivers (http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-cuda-6.5.25-driver.html).  Although after installing the problem persisted I went ahead and rebooted and I am not having any further issues.  Curious to see if this will work for all of the other users having issues.

TP

I took my 2012 rMBP into the Apple Store today. It had been having the problem where everything would freeze except for the mouse pointer, and then the machine would restart (in addition to the occasional graphics distortion in Finder and Safari that I'm pretty sure everyone sees occasionally). This would happen about once a week on average and only started happening to me with Yosemite.

Luckily, I got a great "genius" who clearly knew what he was talking about and seemed to be pretty senior among the other geniuses. I explained the problem and showed him the kernel panic logs showing a GPU hang/restart. He ran the VST3 on my machine as the other poster described above, and it passed. It seems that Apple's procedure dictates that if it passes this test, it is not eligible for the repair program. The genius also said that Apple is telling the stores to send the machines to a central repair center instead of doing it in-house if they fail the VST.

However, the genius said he was going to send it in anyways, and if they refused to repair it and sent it back, then he would just order the part and do the repair at the store. He seemed to know that this is a long-standing issue with these machines and acknowledged that the kernel panic logs show that the GPU is regularly causing the machine to restart and that there is clearly an issue, even though it passed the VST.

Overall the experience went quite well - I was expecting to face much more resistance with attempting to persuade them that there was a problem with the machine. Based on past Apple repair experiences, I knew that there would be some sort of 'test' that the machine would go through, and if it passed whatever this arbitrary test was, then clearly there wasn't a problem with the machine and you are SOL. I was very lucky to get a genius who knew this was BS. They even replaced my MacBook power adapter which had some serious fraying/strain on the MagSafe end just from normal use. So, serious praise for Apple for the excellent customer service (or at least for this specific genius at this specific Apple Store). Faith in Apple restored.

It seems like if you have this problem and your machine doesn't fail the VST, then technically Apple will consider it ineligible for repair. So hope you get a genius who is knowledgeable who you can show the GPU Restart logs to. You can access these by opening Console and browsing to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter (I think - can't remember exactly since I no longer have my machine on hand). If the genius isn't buying it, then you will be forced to pay for the logic board replacement (similar to the poster above, the work order that I got emailed quoted $310 for the repair). I would like to point out, though, that there are several people in this thread who have already gotten a logic board replacement and said that they are still experiencing hangs and restarts (which would imply that it is at least partially a software issue). So, if Apple won't cover it, you may want to wait to see if Apple comes out with a software fix to help alleviate the problem before you decide to spend money on the repair.

I'll update on whether the logic board replacement fixes the problem when I get it back (I was told 10-14 days for the repair). Good luck!