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10.6.1 Snow Leopard Hangs and blue horizontal lines on screen?

C

christall109

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 15, 2007
351
5
Over the past month I have encountered a number of bugs with Snow Leopard on my MacBook Pro (mid 2006). Ever once in a while, usually during high performance task (like watching flash or encoding with handbrake) the temperature of my cpu will spike to 85-90 degrees celsius and then the system freezes.

During this freeze, I can still move my mouse, but I am unable to click on anything on the dock or any program. Moving the mouse over the dock does not invoke the magnification either. I have to do a hard reset to fix the problem.

Also every once in a while, a long blue horizontal line will appear in on the screen. (sometimes their in iChat windows, sometimes safari, and sometimes the desktop as shown in the photo).

Does anyone know what is happening? Has anyone out their encountered this problem before?

I have been unable to use handbrake at all. I will start encoding, then CPU spikes and then the system "freezes" as explained above, forcing me to do a hard reset to fix the issue.
 

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Sounds like a dying graphics card. Or maybe problems with your logic board, but mostly like the graphics card is choking.

I don't know if you have AppleCare (because it should be over soon since it's an '06 machine) but I would get it to Apple ASAP. Either way, I'd get it to an Apple Store or authorized Apple service center.
 
FSMBP said:
Sounds like a dying graphics card. Or maybe problems with your logic board, but mostly like the graphics card is choking.

I don't know if you have AppleCare (because it should be over soon since it's an '06 machine) but I would get it to Apple ASAP. Either way, I'd get it to an Apple Store or authorized Apple service center.
Click to expand...

I had a power issue back in June, and promptly brought it to the Apple Store. (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/728716/)

They did a full diagnostics test and determined everything was working fine, but gave me a new power cord. I told them I was worried about future issues and they documented the problem, and said if anything went wrong in the future that was caused by this issue, they would fix it under AppleCare even with it expired.

I also upgraded the harddrive and reinstalled OS X then restored from a Time Machine Back Up. Would this have anything to do with it?

On another note, today my MacBook Pro froze during a Netflix Watch now movie and the screen went white with random white blotches, my 2nd monitor's screen went blank (I have my MBP hooked up to 24"Samsung Monitor), and everything locked up.

Is this still a graphics card issue? I read that it could be heat, but I have SMCfancontrol at 2700rpm.
 
Have you upgraded your ram by any chance. I had the same problems with the same mac only they occurred because of the new ram stick. Solution: I removed the ram stick. Dont know anything other than that, although I dough anything is dying. Do you have windows, can you test to see if the same happens in windows. If not, then its OSX. With mine, it never did that in windows only under OSX.

*Reseting the Pram/Nvram and the SMC helped a lot but only for 2 days when the problems came back.
 
Upgraded Ram about 2 years ago. No problems when they were upgraded.

The issues don't happen with day to day use. I'm going to hold out as long as I can before buying a new Mac.
 
It happened again. This is what happened.

What do you guys think hardware or software?
 

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christall109 said:
It happened again. This is what happened.

What do you guys think hardware or software?
Click to expand...

I definitely think it's a hardware issue. But if you're able to, try a fresh install of OS X. I HIGHLY doubt it is software but there is a chance I could be off.
 
Thanks for help diagnosing the problem.

Right now I think it is hardware, but it doesn't happen all the time. I just think this going to become more frequent.

I know the GPU are soldered right to the motherboard. How much (since it is out of AppleCare) will this cost to fix? Or is it just better to get a new mac?
 
Based on the release notes of the latest Snow Leopard 10.6.2 build, I think this is a software issue. It describes my symptoms perfectly.

I'll see what happens when the update hits.
 
This looks like what happened to my mid 07 MBP running leopard. I ended with a new computer because they couldn't figure out what was wrong. I had the display changed twice and the logic board three times, nothing worked. the issues started with the right fan dying and than the graphics problems. I wasn't doing anything specific when it happened, sometimes it would show and startup and sometimes it would pop randomly. Sometimes shaking the screen lightly made it go away. My problem definitely wasn't software related.

here's a pic.
 

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The symptoms you describe are exactly those which have plagued my system since I upgraded to Snow Leopard. The lines and the lockups are same for me, occuring at frustratingly inconsistent intervals.

I also have a mid-2006 MacBook Pro Core Duo. I have 2gb of RAM, neither of which is Apple-branded. Another factor for me is that I most often use an external monitor - an HP w2408h - but the lines on the screen are the same no matter whether I'm using the external monitor or my laptop's display. That, combined with the fact that I never had this problem in 10.4.x or 10.5.x, leads me to believe it's a software issue, but there seems to be nothing I can do to ameliorate the problems. I tried reinstalling the entire system to no avail.

Yet another factor for me might be that my battery (the second one I've owned for this machine, btw) is shot to the point that I almost always have to have it plugged in, and 'Service Battery' appears in the Energy Saver menu bar item. I'm planning on buying another battery soon, since it's cheaper than buying another laptop, so I'll see if the problems persist when after that.

I've been searching high and low to find an answer to this, but have come up empty. I also haven't brought my laptop in to the Apple Store due to the fact that the issues are hit-or-miss, and I'm not sure I'll be able to recreate the problems for them.

Honestly, I can sort of live with the lines, but the hangs are really frustrating. I have noticed that the hangs frequently occur when I'm invoking expose (I have a hot corner set for it, and I also utilize 6 different simultaneous Spaces), or sometimes when I invoke the Dock, which hides automatically.

Given what I've read on this thread, I'm guessing that no one has yet found a cause and/or solution for this. But if anyone has, I'm all ears!
 
CWFreeze said:
The symptoms you describe are exactly those which have plagued my system since I upgraded to Snow Leopard. The lines and the lockups are same for me, occuring at frustratingly inconsistent intervals.

I also have a mid-2006 MacBook Pro Core Duo. I have 2gb of RAM, neither of which is Apple-branded. Another factor for me is that I most often use an external monitor - an HP w2408h - but the lines on the screen are the same no matter whether I'm using the external monitor or my laptop's display. That, combined with the fact that I never had this problem in 10.4.x or 10.5.x, leads me to believe it's a software issue, but there seems to be nothing I can do to ameliorate the problems. I tried reinstalling the entire system to no avail.

Yet another factor for me might be that my battery (the second one I've owned for this machine, btw) is shot to the point that I almost always have to have it plugged in, and 'Service Battery' appears in the Energy Saver menu bar item. I'm planning on buying another battery soon, since it's cheaper than buying another laptop, so I'll see if the problems persist when after that.

I've been searching high and low to find an answer to this, but have come up empty. I also haven't brought my laptop in to the Apple Store due to the fact that the issues are hit-or-miss, and I'm not sure I'll be able to recreate the problems for them.

Honestly, I can sort of live with the lines, but the hangs are really frustrating. I have noticed that the hangs frequently occur when I'm invoking expose (I have a hot corner set for it, and I also utilize 6 different simultaneous Spaces), or sometimes when I invoke the Dock, which hides automatically.

Given what I've read on this thread, I'm guessing that no one has yet found a cause and/or solution for this. But if anyone has, I'm all ears!
Click to expand...


This is really freaky. Let me explain:

I too have an external monitor I use it with. 24" Samsung
I too have 2GB of Ram, neither of which is Apple-branded.
I too am on my 2nd battery and get about 1-2 hours and 'Service Battery' appears in the Energy Saver menu bar item from time to time.
I too find the hangs frustrating.
I too notice that it hangs more often than none when invoking actions in the dock.
I too did not have this problem in 10.4 and 10.5
I too have not brought it to the Apple Store yet.

I've also replaced the internal harddrive to 500GB, 80 GB was just not cutting it!:)

Just another note, have you ever had any electrical problems? I once had the plastic on the charger plug melt.
I ended up getting a new charger and Apple documented my Case number should any problems arise when it came out of warranty. I think I will be taking it to the Apple Store this week or next as I am home from school now. I will be sure to let you know.

What are the chances we have the almost the identical configuration?
 
got the same issues, though I don't have hangs that often, or at least I wouldn't link them to the blue lines.
Though I run 10.5.8 on a 2006 2.16GHz C2D, having 2GB of RAM, which aren't originally from Apple.
I've been seeing the lines for a while now, though I can't tell if they happened after a specific upgrade.
And I too use an external (24" Dell) monitor.
 
Thought I'd come back and post an update...

My computer is still symptomatic, as described above. In fact, the freezes and graphical distortions have worsened, in my estimation. So I finally broke down and took my MBP in to the Apple Store. I described my situation, the genius booted my laptop off of his "fixit" drive, and he ran (I assume) Disk Utility on my hard drive. It found and repaired some errors, one of which was reported to be graphics-related. He then said to take it home and see if the problems persist (which, unforunately, they have). He told me the following:

(1) He doesn't believe that the issue is related to my ill-performing battery. He said that the symptoms aren't consistent with that type of problem.

(2) The issues I described indicated to him that the problem was either (a) a failing hard drive, or (b) a failing logic board.

So now I'm trying to decide the next step. I might swap out the hard drive to see if that's the problem, since it's the cheapest fix. If that doesn't work, I can send the MBP in to Apple for a mere $310, and they'll fix the issue no matter what the it is. On one hand, $310 is still cheaper than a new logic board. On the other hand, this is a 4 year old laptop that's showing its age, and it probably won't be too long before I start computer shopping again. So I have some decisions to make, obviously.

Just thought I'd share what I learned for the benefit of anyone who might also be experiencing these issues.
 
Possible Safari interactions?

Hi,

I too have been irritated by frequent, yet irregular, hangs in SL. They mostly occur when I swap between apps and when Mail gets active.

Is it possible that you have two separate problems, a video-related one and an OS one? In particular, I have noticed that Safari would frequently hang for 5 -- 30 seconds. I started monitoring the console log and saw that *many* of the hangs correlated in time and duration to an "INTERRUPT <something...somethng> event associated with Safari. The event line contains a duration, such as 17.2 seconds, that closely matched the hang time I'd see. I'd recognize the hang condition when background apps, like iStatMenus, would stop updating.

I've since switched to Google Chrome (Firefox seems to be getting ponderous lately) and don't notice as many hang times--although they are not gone by a long shot! I'm anxiously awaiting 10.6.3.

Kevin
 
CWFreeze said:
Thought I'd come back and post an update...

My computer is still symptomatic, as described above. In fact, the freezes and graphical distortions have worsened, in my estimation. So I finally broke down and took my MBP in to the Apple Store. I described my situation, the genius booted my laptop off of his "fixit" drive, and he ran (I assume) Disk Utility on my hard drive. It found and repaired some errors, one of which was reported to be graphics-related. He then said to take it home and see if the problems persist (which, unforunately, they have). He told me the following:

(1) He doesn't believe that the issue is related to my ill-performing battery. He said that the symptoms aren't consistent with that type of problem.

(2) The issues I described indicated to him that the problem was either (a) a failing hard drive, or (b) a failing logic board.

So now I'm trying to decide the next step. I might swap out the hard drive to see if that's the problem, since it's the cheapest fix. If that doesn't work, I can send the MBP in to Apple for a mere $310, and they'll fix the issue no matter what the it is. On one hand, $310 is still cheaper than a new logic board. On the other hand, this is a 4 year old laptop that's showing its age, and it probably won't be too long before I start computer shopping again. So I have some decisions to make, obviously.

Just thought I'd share what I learned for the benefit of anyone who might also be experiencing these issues.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the update - however I had these problems before and after I upgraded my harddrive to 500GB. Sounds too me like it's the logic bored going. I absolutely cannot convert any video type. I cannot rip DVDs anymore and I can no longer convert videos for my iPhone. The hangs have definately gotten worse and the lock ups more frequent. All during heavey processor activity, which means logic bored.

I think I'm actually going to be getting am iPad this week and an iMac later this summer/year or when my laptop finally goes. I think the iPad will sqeeze that much more life out of my MBP.
 
Can confirm that issues persist in Windows XP on BootCamp.

It's in the hardware.

Looks like I will be getting a new computer this summer. Four years isn't that bad for a Mac right?
 
CWFreeze said:
The symptoms you describe are exactly those which have plagued my system since I upgraded to Snow Leopard. The lines and the lockups are same for me, occuring at frustratingly inconsistent intervals.

I also have a mid-2006 MacBook Pro Core Duo. I have 2gb of RAM, neither of which is Apple-branded. Another factor for me is that I most often use an external monitor - an HP w2408h - but the lines on the screen are the same no matter whether I'm using the external monitor or my laptop's display. That, combined with the fact that I never had this problem in 10.4.x or 10.5.x, leads me to believe it's a software issue, but there seems to be nothing I can do to ameliorate the problems. I tried reinstalling the entire system to no avail.

I've been searching high and low to find an answer to this, but have come up empty. I also haven't brought my laptop in to the Apple Store due to the fact that the issues are hit-or-miss, and I'm not sure I'll be able to recreate the problems for them.

Honestly, I can sort of live with the lines, but the hangs are really frustrating.

Given what I've read on this thread, I'm guessing that no one has yet found a cause and/or solution for this. But if anyone has, I'm all ears!
Click to expand...

I too belong in this camp. Early MacBook Pro, 2G just upgraded to Snow Leopard from a very stable Tiger. I was worried from the get go when I booted from the Snow Leopard DVD and the install window had a line through it. Not just the whole screen, but a window. I proceeded anyway. Now two days later I am back on Tiger. I even went as far as a disk wipe, original RAM and clean install of Snow Leopard. But when you see those black lines or in some cases several lines of dark color, you know a lockup is not far behind.

I need to get work done so I had to reinstall my Tiger backup. Now the iLife which I bought as part of the Mac Box Set can't be installed since I am not running Leopard or Snow Leopard. Arrghh.

Not to be paranoid, but just going to this forum to find souls in the same depressed state to have for company, I saw a blue line on a window similar to the prevalent lines in SL. Since this computer is long in the tooth, my solution is to crank up the fan control setting and keep the computer as cool as possible. With the fan at 3500, my temperature is 52C. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't a bug in Snow Leopard. Time will tell. SL runs fine on my Mac Pro. I will either find the money to replace the laptop or have to wait for 10.6.4 and hope this issue is addressed. My pet theory is that it has to do with the graphics system, hence the lines, and the graphics chips. If you have a newer computer, then the graphic chips are used, but with an older computer, software has to render and perhaps has a leak.

Even though the apps locked up in SL, I could still sneak in the ssh back door and shut down properly. One fella even posted his black lines on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMY4b6LmCYg). So we are not alone.

Will Apple help us? I doubt it. I feel kind of like a person with a rare disease which the drug companies will do nothing about since there is no money in it for them.

In the attached photo I am running from the Snow Leopard DVD using disk utility to reinstall my Tiger system. Note that there are 3 lines across the window. Initially there was 1. I left it alone and it did complete the restore and now I can use the computer from Tiger.
 

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I thought I would mention to everyone Apple did replace my video cards I had in the office. All 11 of my Intel Mac Pros were having the lines accross the screen. It was the ATI X1900 video card that went bad. Apple replaced it with the NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT card. You may want to check to see if your machines qualify for the warranty exchange. Just mention the "Quality Progra(E1)" and they should take care of it.

Good Luck!
 
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