2010 MacBook Pros i5/i7 Having Freeze issues

[lightworker]

I must be the exception whoo hoooo, since you seem to be all knowing what are the lotto numbers for tomorrow?

"Yeeeeesss! Yaaaaayyyy! Yuuuhuuuuu! I really LOOOVE my MAC BOOK PROOO!!! Ieeeeeeeeeeee ^___^ Mine iss puuuurrrrrfffeeeecccctttt"

( you got it? )


Come on man! Just wait your time. It's not about me or someone anymore. It's just about Apple and making it official.
I really hope nothin' happens to you (I'm tired to say this, but I've to find the "equilibrium" in the scales), cause I'm gonna get mine soon (rebuying).
But I'm really worried to get a new one, cause the same problem.



edit:

Oh! I forgot!
Come, take this:

http://www.random.org/

Right upper corner, choose a range of numbers and push "Generate" as many times as you wish!
...
Profit!

 

[SchneiderMan]

What? She is hot

Anyway.. Seems like even since I took out one 4GB stick and left the other inside I have had no freezes. Maybe I got a bad stick?

 

[Hal Itosis]

try disabling the sudden motion sensor

Re: freezing for 30 seconds (or perhaps 15 seconds in 64-bit mode)​

I'm getting the freezes on my new core i7 MBP (7200 rpm Seagate), and disabling the SMS (not a good thing btw) seems to work. It can be disabled permanently as shown here, or temporarily using this method:

pmset -a force sms 0

That variation does not require sudo and it does not write to any plist. It merely sets the value in RAM and forces the OS to acknowledge it immediately. The setting only persists for the current login session, and I think it even reverts upon waking from sleep.

Try it out and report results.

We can verify the current SMS setting by looking at:

pmset -g

...where sms 1 (one) means on, and sms 0 (zero) means off.

Of course, this is not a "fix". I'm not sure if a firmware update can cure the issue, or if we will need to replace hardware or what.

 

[dr4g0n]

As I promised screenshot of pixels corruption:


I got this line by moving parallels window in last second before freeze. I remember that when i launched my mbp for the very first time i got sound but only black screen while playing the "Welcome" animation and afterwards. Reboot helped. I'm wondering if I'm having only the freeze problem or something else... Although on bootcamp everything seems to work fine.

 

[Hal Itosis]

Re: freezing for 30 seconds (or perhaps 15 seconds in 64-bit mode)​

I'm getting the freezes on my new core i7 MBP (7200 rpm Seagate), and disabling the SMS (not a good thing btw) seems to work. It can be disabled permanently as shown here, or temporarily using this method:

pmset -a force sms 0

That variation does not require sudo and it does not write to any plist. It merely sets the value in RAM and forces the OS to acknowledge it immediately. The setting only persists for the current login session, and I think it even reverts upon waking from sleep.

Try it out and report results.

We can verify the current SMS setting by looking at:

pmset -g

...where sms 1 (one) means on, and sms 0 (zero) means off.

Of course, this is not a "fix". I'm not sure if a firmware update can cure the issue, or if we will need to replace hardware or what.

Anyone with the 30-second freezes try this yet?

FWIW, this is a real problem... so, less off-topic and/or clownish posts would be helpful.

 

[nonforma]

Anyone with the 30-second freezes try this yet?

FWIW, this is a real problem... so, less off-topic and/or clownish posts would be helpful.

Yes, and it didn't help. First time posting here about the issue, I'm currently working with an Apple tech to try to troubleshoot the issue. I have a 15" i7 with 500gb 7200rpm drive.

I'm able to consistently recreate the freeze while copying files over the network on gigabit ethernet. I've done transfers with different servers and network hardware, all same result. And I'm getting the freezing outside of the transfer, it's just a way to recreate.

So copying a 3.5GB DMG over afp, transfer time on status window is 3 minutes. Time never changes, but within a minute a freeze will occur. First indication is that the bytes transferred stops going up, as well as disk IO activity and network activity in Activity Monitor bottoms out to 0. Kernel_task process jumps to about 30% for a few seconds, and then goes down to 4-5% along with WindowServer. Any other apps using the CPU at the time will stop during the freeze. A few seconds later, if I click to another app like Safari, it will also freeze and beachball. I can also click to start an app on the dock, it'll shadow the icon as when you always click, but no bouncing and a few seconds later beachball on Finder and the dock as well. 15-30 seconds after it all starts the freeze ends, anything done during the freeze is immediately processed (like starting app, scrolling in Safari, etc.) The file transfer just picks back up where it left off, never changing the time estimate.

Seems to be just a 500GB 7200RPM issue, I know people who got the same laptop but with the 512GB SSD and the 128GB SSD and have no freeze issues, I've done the same file transfer in the same environment with no problems.

And in case anyone is going to comment, I've done several fresh installs, zero-out secure wipe to detect bad sectors, Apple hardware test, etc. Even on a fresh install without any updates installed, the freeze eventually occurs with nothing but Safari running.

 

[iBunny]

Does the freeze issue happen with Graphics switching disabled?

 

[Hal Itosis]

Yes, and it didn't help.

Sorry to hear that. For me it at least reduced the severity from 2 or 3 per hour down to 1 or 2 per day.

Seems to be just a 500GB 7200RPM issue, I know people who got the same laptop but with the 512GB SSD and the 128GB SSD and have no freeze issues, I've done the same file transfer in the same environment with no problems.

I'm not sure myself, but the posts around Discussions (at Apple) seem to have it spread out more than that. [i.e., there are some users with the 5400 rpm drive who get the freeze and also there are 7200 rpm users who don't.] The common factor seems to be >Snow Leopard<-- note that thread there started last Fall, and the new MBP posts enter on page 31.

It must be pretty low level and tied to the disk controller somehow. Sometimes the clock on the menubar stops (with seconds display), sometimes it doesn't. Weird. I haven't tried this yet —but reportedly —if we install the OS on an external drive and boot from that, the problem disappears.

And in case anyone is going to comment, I've done several fresh installs, zero-out secure wipe to detect bad sectors, Apple hardware test, etc. Even on a fresh install without any updates installed, the freeze eventually occurs with nothing but Safari running.

Yeah, i know that for sure too. I partitioned my HD and installed a totally clean OS with every custom option turned off and nothing from disk 2 added. Same deal. From there i ran DiskWarrior on the main partition and the freeze kicked in several time during the DiskWarrior scan. At the time i didn't know this bug was so widespread... so when DiskWarrior displayed the "speed inhibited by disk malfunction" message, i thought ***** no: i've got a disk with bad blocks. But perhaps that's just how "low" this problem goes. It stops everything.

That's what it reminds me of anyway... bad blocks. If it ain't that, then it's something that simulates bad blocks very closely. But after witnessing how turning off the sudden motion sensor made such a huge difference, it seems maybe the surface of the disk is fine... and it's just some other kind of flakiness.

Here's another link to add to the mix: MacBook Pro (April 2010): Frequent Stalls/Hangs Caused by Hard Drive Issue

 

[nonforma]

So a bit more troubleshooting. I used SuperDuper to copy the existing install to an external USB drive and booted off it. The steps to recreate I talked about above work fine when booted off the USB drive, no freezes or pauses in the transfer. Booting back to the internal drive, issue still occurs. So problem is either with the drive itself or the SATA interface. Only other thing to try is using a different internal drive, I'm going to try to borrow a different 2.5" SATA to test with.

 

[nonforma]

Does the freeze issue happen with Graphics switching disabled?

Yes, used gfxCardStatus to monitor that. Tried both when running apps that cause the graphics to switch as well as that utility's manual toggle. Also tried with SMS on/off, AC vs. battery power, different file systems, etc. No difference from any of those.

 

[davidjearly]

Gutted: this just happened to me on my new 17" i5 MBP. Display froze, then mouse and keyboard (bluetooth and built-in k/board, trackpad).

Had it since launch week, and this is the first time it happened. I was running Pages at the time, with Safari and connected to a 23" Apple Cinema Display.

 

[rikscha]

problems when decoding video

i have a 15' i7 hr and when ever Im decoding a video in handbrake or Toast I get the grey screen of death - always! Ive had my new macbook for 7 days now and had to restart it several times. I once had a freeze when I was just surfing the web.

I will try decoding now with automatic switching turned off. lets see if thats helps but will go to my Apple store anyways and probably bring it back. Im quite disappointed. My Dell machine I used before for over 6 years ran windows 7 without any issues.

EDIT: with graphic switching disabled I could decode my video. just luck?

 

[dr4g0n]

EDIT: with graphic switching disabled I could decode my video. just luck?

Try it for couple of times.

 

[rikscha]

yep I tried it and happened again. definitely not the graphic switching function. could it be that the machine simply gets too hot?

 

[MBHockey]

Anyone with the 30-second freezes try this yet?

FWIW, this is a real problem... so, less off-topic and/or clownish posts would be helpful.

It's not the SMS.

I got 1 or 2 freezes and have an SSD. I turned off the SMS in terminal the first day I got my MBP.

Interestingly I haven't had any since I disabled automatic graphics switching. But it seems like that isn't working for some people.

I've encoded movies with Handbrake and ScreenFlow and played hours of Starcraft 2 on my machine without so much as a hiccup. At least in my case it has nothing to do with overheating. It did freeze when coming out of full-screen in Youtube though, and I know that causes a switch from nvidia to intel.

 

[Hal Itosis]

It's not the SMS.

I know, but (for some people at least) disabling SMS makes a big difference. [i can live with 1 or 2 freezes per day until Apple fixes it... but 2 or 3 per hour is too irritating.]

The problem has something to do with the drive function, and disabling SMS is related to that at least.

 

[MBHockey]

I know, but (for some people at least) disabling SMS makes a big difference. [i can live with 1 or 2 freezes per day until Apple fixes it... but 2 or 3 per hour is too irritating.]

The problem has something to do with the drive function, and disabling SMS is related to that at least.

Then I guess we're talking about two possibly unrelated issues here causing freezing. I missed your post saying how much more often you were getting freezes with the SMS on, sorry about that.

That complicates things :\

 

[dr4g0n]

Then I guess we're talking about two possibly unrelated issues here causing freezing. I missed your post saying how much more often you were getting freezes with the SMS on, sorry about that.

That complicates things :\

I think you can split them:
- freezing AND UNFREEZING after some time caused by something with HDD.
- freezing and only restarting manually helps, which is related to switching between GPUs

 

[ubercool]

Unfortunately, I spoke prematurely. I got my first freeze today! Had to restart completely. It was during a Growl notification. Think that could be the problem?

 

[Quicksilver867]

Anyone think this could be the drive's motion sensor accidentally thinking it's been dropped, and therefore parking the heads for a bit so 'save' itself? Just a wild prediction. My i7 15 is arriving tomorrow and I'm not too pleased about this issue

edit: either that, or Seagate is providing a ****load of bad drives. I read a 15-page thread on Apple Support, and switching to at least a Hitachi drive seems to have solved this for many people.

 

[MBHockey]

I think you can split them:
- freezing AND UNFREEZING after some time caused by something with HDD.
- freezing and only restarting manually helps, which is related to switching between GPUs

My freeze, that was not related the the SMS, did unfreeze itself. So it's not that unfreezing and the GPU issue are mutually exclusive.

 

[xaquaticx]

I have this problem i5 MBP 15" HiRes. I put my own Seagate 7200 rpm 500 gig in.

I just saw it happen in WINDOWS XP! I simply had iTunes open playing something, I went to the Boot Camp quicklaunch and chose Restart in OS X. It froze. It also started looping one second of the song like a broken record.

W.T.F.?????!!!! This better get fixed fast in an update. I'm assuming 10.6.4 will fix this. Whatever this is. Otherwise I have to have Apple swap this for a MacBook.

 

[xaquaticx]

Wow awesome. It has hard crashed on me twice in an hour in Boot Camp in XP SP3. I have a virgin install I just finished setting up. (Enterprise version).

It has to be crappy MacBook Pro hardware somehow. My hunch is still on the crap NVIDIA driver.

I was doing work. I am now officially pissed. I just lost an hour of work.

 

[SchneiderMan]

Mine froze again today while playing Portal on OSX.
Screen turned into this.

 

[Quetsche]

I have this problem i5 MBP 15" HiRes. I put my own Seagate 7200 rpm 500 gig in.

I just saw it happen in WINDOWS XP! I simply had iTunes open playing something, I went to the Boot Camp quicklaunch and chose Restart in OS X. It froze. It also started looping one second of the song like a broken record.

W.T.F.?????!!!! This better get fixed fast in an update. I'm assuming 10.6.4 will fix this. Whatever this is. Otherwise I have to have Apple swap this for a MacBook.

Why would you be assuming 10.6.4 will fix this if it happens on windows too ?