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2011 MacBook Pros Confirmed To Crash Under Load
sammcj writes "2011 MacBook crashing under heavy load?... you are not alone. While trying to figure out what was wrong with my fancy new MacBook I soon realized that the issue is very widespread."
You get what you pay for. Oh wait. Defend this one, Apple fans.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Yes, yes it is. I'm running a table with a single-core Pentium 4, 512Mb of Ram, Intel 945gm graphics and Windows 7 on a 60Gb hard drive, and I expect it NOT to crash. Slow down, maybe,churn, make me frustrated (lol), but I haven't seen computers crash and burn without reason (like faulty drivers, hardware fault) for at least 5 years.
So this IS news for nerds, fanboi. As in, it's news when a computer company with margins like Apple lets its customers down in the name of profit, and nerds (who buy computers) need to know about it. News for nerds.
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
First we had people pull them apart and report poor build quality, then we had complaints over the insane price of components in Apple's store, and now we have the machines freezing up? I'm all for people spending a little more and getting a higher quality machine but Apple needs to keep up their end of the bargain.
What does Apple have to say one the build quality concerns? The last thing they need is to be considered no better than HP, Gateway, and Dell. Overall I don't think laptops are built "fit for purpose" and haven't been since the IBM days (although business laptops are better). I love all the Dell laptops with 2 hours battery life out-of-the-bx in particular, very useful concept...
You must be using it wrong.
Mac: Hi, I'm a Mac.
PC: Hi, I'm a PC.
[Mac slows down and starts to crash]
Mac: Hey, what's happening to me?
[PC reaches over and starts tickling Mac]
PC: Stop crashing yourself! Stop crashing yourself!
Mac: This isn't supposed to happen! What's going on?
PC: Been there, done that. Get used to it.
Mac: Save me Stevie Won Kejobsie, save me!
Clearly you have low expectations of your computing system. What is your primary platform?
You should try a VAX running VMS in 1985. VMS has had fine grained per-process resource limits since forever and degrades very gracefully. And overheating? My MicroVAX also makes an excellent space heater, but that doesn't seem to bother it.
You've clearly been reading up on this because that is essentially the opposite of what was concluded on the thread referenced in the initial posting. The only public strip down from iFixit shows ample thermal paste being used (they think it's too much). I've been working with this for the last week and my vote goes to a driver or firmware issue.
-- john
why do I even read /. anymore ... I must be addicted to the internet in an unhealthy manner :(
Look, I severely dislike Apple, their products, their methods, and their policies.
However, this seems to be much ado about nothing. I have actually read the entire thread, and it appears to be a simple software issue that can be resolved by disabling some fan control package. The issue does not occur under stress testing in Windows 7. Put those two together, the issue becomes one or two bad packages, which will be resolved in an update sooner or later (for those that blew $3k on a computer, I hope sooner).
Of course, how Apple has handled the situation is abysmal, and I'm quite surprised seeing the people in the thread defending Apple support as they do.
In the end though: nothing to see here, move along, this is not a reason for major Apple bashing or Apple vs PC debates, and yes, even Apple can and does release bugged software now and then.
I'd say it's more newsworthy because my macbook pro is one version before the 2011 and I can put it under quite a load. To the point I get concerned with how hot it feels but since I'm gaming I find it hard to quit. Anyway, it's never crashed. If the new macbooks are crashed over heavy use then there is probably a flaw somewhere which needs to be resolved.
Do you want a list of Dell models that my employer has concluded have design flaws or do you just want to fling mud at Apple? (here's a hint: Every manufacturer has issues with their machines, including Apple).
Yes every company has the occasional lemon but they deserve to have mud flung at the lemon. It's part of the incentive system to get it right.
Part of the justification of higher prices for Macs is that they are of higher quality than Dells. So your argument is not convincing. Furthermore what percentage of Dell's laptop sales does your list represent? Are they high end models? Compare that to what percentage of Apple laptop sales the MacBook Pro represents and where the MacBook Pro stands with respect to Apple's high end offerings.
In short, IF the reports of problems are bogus then flame on. But IF the reports of problems are accurate why excuse them?
Mod parent up.
I was thinking the same. Article to excessive thermal paste on Slahdot: http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/02/28/233215/New-MacBook-Pro-Teardown-Reveals-Shoddy-Assembly
When Apple switched to Intel, the first MacBook Pro machines had thermal issues due to too much paste. It seems Apple addressed this issue in manufacture in later models, but it has reappeared in the 2011.
iStat menu (most probably).
for those tl;dr:
most of the users report that after uninstalling istat menu pro (and it's "fan control" set to on by default) the problem goes away...
keep panicking...
Ad heavy forum post? There is not one single ad on the website (which happens to be the official Apple support forum) or in the posts I saw. You sure you clicked the right link?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
According to the thread this is software related. Removing smcfancontrol seems to be fixing the problem. I have to wonder how that got out the door.
I bought top of the line 2010 17'' Macbook Pro fully loaded with matte screen too. Loved the machine (it was almost as fast as my 8 core Mac Pro), but it would freeze unexpectedly, and not necessarily under load either. So, after some research I found similar killometer long thread on apple discussions forum. So, I reluctantly and sadly returned it to Apple for full refund. I'm extremely happy with the customer service (they didn't ask me any questions or pressured me to keep it or anything, just said "So, what do you want to do?", i.e. attempt a replacement or refund). But, I'm not happy with the fact that you can spend $4000 on a computer and have it not working. Now I'm scared to even attempt to buy another one. It's somewhat of a disappointing experience.
I should also mention that I have 7 other Macs (of which only one portable - 2008 Aluminum Macbook) that all worked out of the box without a single issue. So, I don't know if only their top of the line Macbook Pros have these issues due to heat dissipation or something else?
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Last time I went and customised a laptop to have everything my macbook pro like a lit keyboard and bluetooth (yes Dell considered that an extra) it was reach the same price.
This type of argument has been bogus for *many* years, ie "but Macs have SCSI drives" of decades past. Its not the features present its the features actually needed/used. Macs have often been "gold plated" to a degree, including features only a small number of high end users needed/wanted. It is honest to say this inflates the price for more ordinary users. Last time I took a close look, a few years ago, the MacBook looked like to be a better deal than the MacBook Pro due to the "gold plating". The ordinary MacBook would have made a better comparison against Dells.
So true... recently a friend of mine asked on Facebook for advise on buying a new computer because hers was always giving her problems. Many people advised her to buy a mac. She then asked if macs have no kind of problems, crashes or malware, and people unanimously answered "not at all".
As I used a mac at work for many years, I wanted to add my two cents, and I commented that macs, as every computer, do have problems, malware and security issues, but are in general great computers. Surprisingly I was crucified by the applebois, even though I provided links to every issue I referred to (most of it directly from apple.com), and even though I said apples are great computers. They will accept not even the least criticism. It's a religion.
No, not fanbois. Wankers. Dickheads. Poster included. I have an iMac pro. It overheated, it froze. I thought, wow, a CPU in need of heatgooze. Took it in as I didn't want to open it. One day later, yup, gooze. What makes me really puke about apple fanbois is they think henny penny's world is crashing down with every minor issue. Apple will save me. Apple will pull my stupid worthless ass out of a sling. I won this as a prize, and love the hardware (runs ubuntu) but the starry eyed doe featured flat faced awe of apple schmucks makes me want to call them naughty words. No brains all of them.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
ATI graphics. I havent heard of any 13" crashes yet. Have you heard of any multiple problems with the older, nvidia macbooks? I thought not.
Several thoughts in response to this:
1) The percentage is useful in determining whether this is, indeed, a "very widespread issue," or whether it represents a small overall failure rate due to a bad batch of thermal paste or components, damage during shipping, or perhaps somebody at the assembly line having a bad day and crossing a couple wires;
2) You will never get failures (or murder rates) to zero. It will never happen. At some point, it becomes too costly to prevent every possible failure. So, again, you look at rates of failure per units shipped, and drive that as low as you can. If you ship only 1000 units, and 500 of them fail, or you ship 1 million units, and 500 of them fail, there is a VAST difference in quality implied by those numbers.
3) Since any murder is apparently "significant" to you, would you then conclude that Detroit, MI (murder rate of 19.67 per 1,000 people) and Plano, TX (murder rate of 1.7 per 1,000 people) are equivalently "safe" cities? Obviously, the answer is "no" - this is why it helps to understand the rate of failures, so that we can compare whether or not the actual number of failures are similar to, better than, or worse than industry averages.
This happened to select 2010 models as well - the problem is that the video card overheats and tries to switch back to integrated and the machine barfs all over that. (If you use a laptop cooling pad, this tends not to happen, although there are still some non-heat-related "hangs" in switching between integrated and discrete graphics). If you have ssh enabled, you can indeed see that the machine hasn't crashed, it just isn't drawing to the display (because the display is now connected to the other video card, but something - OpenCL, CoreGraphics, whatnot - didn't get the memo to write to a different display).
If you can make your machine do this reliably, you can take it to an Apple store, show it to them (being able to ssh helps), and they will replace the machine for you. You may of course get another machine with the same problem, but you also might not...so you have the option of rolling the dice on a new machine until someone comes up with a software fix. (You can also go into the Energy Saver control panel and force the discrete graphics to be used all the time, at the expense of your battery life, which tends to resolve the problem).
Seriously, i don't get all the fuss. I got about 8 applications open, iLife stuff, Garage Band with a work in progress containing 42 audio tracks, word processing, and a few terminals compiling GNU stuff. No cra
Dude please, Chinese motorbikes are awesome. They just keep going and going..
True. The brakes do nothing.