OS X Lion Ships With Faulty NVidia Drivers

TeaCurran writes with this mildly ranty objection to the most recent Mac OS X update; several friends who have made the leap on their MacBook Pros have various other complaints, too, including system slowdowns that resemble crashes (except that their pointers still work) and recurring black screens for some configurations (with or without the kernel panics TeaCurran mentions) — what's been your experience? "Apple OS X Lion shipped with new NVidia video drivers that are causing anyone with a mid 2010 Macbook Pro to get a kernel panic every 5-10 minutes. Apple knew about the issue before shipping lion, hasn't responded to the issue, and is censoring posts in their support forum that mention words like 'boycott' and 'petition.' NVidia has responded that the drivers are the responsibility of Apple so they won't deal with the issue. How a major hardware manufacturer can ship such a faulty product without getting much press about it is completely beyond me."

Comments

Again

[Billly Gates]

This isn't the first time this has happened.

Re:Again

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the Apple-hating begin!

Captcha: 'Inflame' :D

Re:Again

[Greyfox]

You're lucky if it's just an annoyance and doesn't destroy your hardware. I had two ATI video cards burn out on me on my first mac desktop before switching over to their lower-end nivida card. I found that a lot of people were having similar problems on the Internet, and rumors that a faulty firmware on the card kept its fan from spinning up when the card got too hot. Other rumors were that the fan design itself was bad and it became easily clogged with dust. That system is still going strong with its low-end nvidia card as a file server in the basement.

During the process I found a lot of reports on the Internet that their laptops get too hot too, causing a lot of unexplained crashes. And a few unconfirmed rumors that a penis, much like a frog, will not realize its peril until it's already boiling. So if your Mac's video card has not spontaneously burst into flames or given you third degree penis burns (or both,) it's probably not really all THAT bad.

Re:Again

[Anonymous Coward]

You're lucky if it's just an annoyance and doesn't destroy your hardware. I had two ATI video cards burn out on me on my first mac desktop before switching over to their lower-end nivida card.

Was it the X1900XT by any chance? I went through two in my 2006 Mac Pro (the second being a warranty replacement). Those cards just died, period. The second one croaked even though I used SMCFanControl to force the PCI/HDD bay fan to run faster the entire time I had it installed. It just took a little longer to die...

It wasn't Apple's fault, it was a bad generation of chips from ATI. A friend of mine had his PC X1900XT card die in a very similar fashion, and I found at least anecdotal Internet support for the idea that X1900XTs kill themselves routinely. (Yeah, I know, anecdotal... but still.)

I then went through two different Apple branded 8800GTs. Same story, bought the upgrade kit, it died in less than a year, got a warranty replacement, it died in a bit over a year. The problems with that generation of chips from NVidia are a bit more well-documented than the X1900XT, though. Apple's video card upgrade choices for the first two generations or so of Mac Pro were... unfortunate. My video card woes were not solved until last year when I got a Radeon 5770, which appears to be rock solid even though technically it's not supposed to be able to work in a first gen Mac Pro.

(I also have the fanless low end NVidia card you mention, which came in handy while waiting for warranty replacements etc.)

I found that a lot of people were having similar problems on the Internet, and rumors that a faulty firmware on the card kept its fan from spinning up when the card got too hot. Other rumors were that the fan design itself was bad and it became easily clogged with dust. That system is still going strong with its low-end nvidia card as a file server in the basement.

I think the rumors were just rumors. Granted, Apple's aggressiveness with keeping fan speeds low makes them run a bit hot, but not so hot that they should die so predictably, even when you take measures to improve their cooling. And my friend's PC X1900XT was installed in a well ventilated custom built system.

Re:Again

[hairyfeet]

And is yet more proof that without Jobs at the reins the company is going to shit. They burnt the pros with FCPx, aka iMovie Pro, by yanking all previous versions off the shelves and refusing to sell it to those that need to expand their business and need features that iMovie pro doesn't have, they did it again with the "don't say the M word (malware) and whatever you do do NOT admit it or help the customers!" bullshit, now they are sending out OSes with total shit drivers.

This should be proof to most that without Jobs sitting in his chair ready to lay the smackdown on the fuckups that the company is in serious trouble. Like him or hate him you have to give the man credit for always running a tight ship and cutting through the bullshit, and I have a feeling without the big man in charge shit is only gonna get worse.

He really should have set up a solid line of succession after the first health scare and been putting someone in the spotlight that shared his drive and vision for the company. Maybe he couldn't find the right person, maybe after getting burned by the Pepsi guy who couldn't stand the thought of risking being back stabbed again, who knows. but it looks like without Jobs driving the company things are going downhill quickly. Get better Steve, your company needs you. And this is from someone who has never owned any Apple products other than a G3 to play with the PPC arch. I just hate to see a company the man has worked so hard to build go downhill like that.

Re:Again

[GizmoToy]

Nope.

My late 2009 27" iMac has faulty video drivers to this day, and Apple's acknowledged as much. A secondary display will display digital static every third or fourth time you wake it up. I gave detailed bug reports, and worked endlessly over a period of a year and a half with Apple engineers to track down the problem and get it fixed. I spent countless hours helping them track down the problem, going back and forth on the issue at least 10 times.

I got a notification two weeks ago that the problem was fixed, and updated drivers were released in the latest version of Snow Leopard (and Lion as well, I assume), but only if your hardware was manufactured after December 2010. They had the nerve to ask me to try it on new hardware to see if the problem is resolved.

So I spent all that time helping them, and they screwed me. This issue is a bigger problem than mine is, but I wouldn't expect anything but the very minimum possible to appease customers on anything but the absolute latest equipment.

Re:Again

[tyrione]

Nope.

My late 2009 27" iMac has faulty video drivers to this day, and Apple's acknowledged as much. A secondary display will display digital static every third or fourth time you wake it up. I gave detailed bug reports, and worked endlessly over a period of a year and a half with Apple engineers to track down the problem and get it fixed. I spent countless hours helping them track down the problem, going back and forth on the issue at least 10 times.

I got a notification two weeks ago that the problem was fixed, and updated drivers were released in the latest version of Snow Leopard (and Lion as well, I assume), but only if your hardware was manufactured after December 2010. They had the nerve to ask me to try it on new hardware to see if the problem is resolved.

So I spent all that time helping them, and they screwed me. This issue is a bigger problem than mine is, but I wouldn't expect anything but the very minimum possible to appease customers on anything but the absolute latest equipment.

A secondary display? Guess what? Nvidia's proprietary 280.13 drivers still flake out quite often with multi-displays for the Linux Platform. This is an Nvidia issue and OpenGL accelerated environments.

Re:Again

[mjwx]

This isn't the first time this has happened.

Lies,

Mac's "Just Work(TM)"

The reason for having limited hardware is that Macs dont have driver issues like Wintel boxes.

Re:Again

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the touchy and delusional Mactard faggot who can't bear anything bad, no matter how truthful, to ever be said against his beloved corporate god come out of the closet.

Re:Again

[mug funky]

reaping what he's sown?

his reality distortion field only works if he's there to steer all the yes-men out of the fire.

you can't micro-manage such a big company.

Apple have always been greedy fuckers though. i'm not at all surprised that the standard tech support response is "replace the logic board", even though it's been demonstrated to be ineffective. Apple are a hardware company.

Re:Again

[mug funky]

the latest iMacs don't support secondary monitors, do they?

Re:Again

[CharlyFoxtrot]

These things happen which is why everybody will advise you to wait until the 10.7.1 release which is coming soon. Don't be an early adopter if you you can't stand the pain. For god's sake some of these people don't have sense enough to even have a backup.

Re:Again

[mjwx]

These things happen which is why everybody will advise you to wait until the 10.7.1

They dont happen to Macs because Mac's Just Work(TM).

Mac users dont need to wait for a stable update like Wintel users.

Re:Again

[CharlyFoxtrot]

It 's not friggin' magic. While being a lot better than Windows things fail, nothing has a 100% success rate and nobody will claim that. Even iOS upgrades fail from time to time or have bugs and they are as braindead as you you can make an OS upgrade. But hey, enjoy that straw man you got there.

Re:Again

[mjwx]

It 's not friggin' magic.

As I'll remind you the next time this comes up. Macs do fail and dont always work, next we'll deal with the myth of inherent security.

It really sucks when your own propaganda is used against you.

BTW, Windows updates dont fail as badly as this. Have not done so for years. The difference is when an update with Windows or Linux buggers up the drivers, I can get the original driver from Nvidia/Inte/AMD and fix it myself.

Re:Again

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your deal? Did a Mac kill your father or something??

Re:Again

[Alex Belits]

Let the touchy and delusional Mactard faggot who can't bear anything bad, no matter how truthful, to ever be said against his beloved corporate god come out of the closet.

gb2/g/

Re:Again

[LynnwoodRooster]

You don't understand Apple - it's not about keeping last year's gear working, it's about getting you to upgrade hardware this year. Product churn is the name of the game, and anything that allows you to keep your older hardware working properly is simply not in Apple's best interests...

Re:Again

[GizmoToy]

Well, first, a Mac isn't Linux. Apple's in charge of making sure the drivers work with their limited hardware configurations, rather than Nvidia trying to support all hardware and all flavors of Linux.

Second, the iMacs use AMD/ATI graphics cards (mine's a Radeon HD 4850).

Re:Again

[GizmoToy]

iMacs have supported secondary monitors since at least 2009 when I got mine. They may have supported them prior to that, but I couldn't say for sure.

Re:Again

[GizmoToy]

My post showed pretty clearly I understand, and I was simply conveying my story to illustrate it to others.

Re:Again

[CharlyFoxtrot]

As I'll remind you the next time this comes up. Macs do fail and dont always work, next we'll deal with the myth of inherent security.

Again with the straw man arguments.

It really sucks when your own propaganda is used against you.

Propaganda ? Get some perspective. Take a deep breath and repeat: we're discussing a preference for certain technical solution, not a religion. Don't project your attitudes onto me.

BTW, Windows updates dont fail as badly as this. Have not done so for years. The difference is when an update with Windows or Linux buggers up the drivers, I can get the original driver from Nvidia/Inte/AMD and fix it myself.

Well here's the driver for Snow Leopard for the GeForce GT 330M that's in that Macbook, that might work. Of course once Nvidia releases a driver for Lion you could try installing that but once they do Apple will just distribute it through an update so there'd be no point looking for it yourself. You seem kind of ill informed, you really think there's no downloadable drivers on OSX ?

Re:Again

[davester666]

I guess I'm one of the few people with a layer of insulation between my penis and my laptop. Several layers in fact, as I'm not even going commando...

Re:Again

[beelsebob]

Just so you know – that isn't a driver issue – I have one of the exact machines you're talking about. I use it with an external display. I have never whitenessed what you're talking about. My guess is, the reason apple haven't fixed it after you filed the reports... They can't duplicate it.

Re:Again

[beelsebob]

The latest iMacs have two thunderbolt ports for plugging extra monitors into, as well as daisy chaining other high bandwidth things on.

Re:Again

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a mid-2010 MBP with an Nvidia graphics chip and I've only had one display related problem. I lost acceleration when I undocked without sleeping. Once. I rebooted to fix it (probably could have just logged out). I certainly don't have kernel panics ever 5-10 minutes.

This article is pure sensationalism, and utterly crap. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Re:Again

[macs4all]

And is yet more proof that without Jobs at the reins the company is going to shit. They burnt the pros with FCPx, aka iMovie Pro, by yanking all previous versions off the shelves and refusing to sell it to those that need to expand their business and need features that iMovie pro doesn't have,

You have absolutely no clue at all, do you?

Just how long do you think the development cycle was for FCPX? Given that Jobs himself mentioned it in at least one Keynote, I would venture to say that he had some real input on its feature-set.

Second, You do realize, of course, that Apple responded to their pro users, and allowed companies with "site licenses" (can't remember the exact term Apple uses) to continue to purchases licenses for the previous version of FCP, thus completely eliminating the "What if we hire more people?" objection to FCPX.

they did it again with the "don't say the M word (malware) and whatever you do do NOT admit it or help the customers!" bullshit

Interesting that there hasn't been another word in the press or the street about the MacDefender or any other "malware". I agree that the "don't admit it" stuff was some middle-manager's dumbass mistake; but what really matters is that Apple got on it, and got on it promptly, and evidently, quite effectively, too...

ey are sending out OSes with total shit drivers

Gimme a break! HOW many drivers do you think OS X ships with? Can you name a SINGLE OS that hasn't shipped with a bad driver or two? I can't. Not one.

This should be proof to most that without Jobs sitting in his chair ready to lay the smackdown on the fuckups that the company is in serious trouble. Like him or hate him you have to give the man credit for always running a tight ship and cutting through the bullshit, and I have a feeling without the big man in charge shit is only gonna get worse.

I notice this is your latest tactic, hairyfeet. You damn Apple with faint praise of Jobs, and spread this FUD regarding "Apple slipping in the absence of Jobs." Fact is, every single thing that has recently shipped, or will ship in the next year or so, was done under the auspices of Steve Jobs. R&D cycles for this stuff are measured in calendar YEARS, not weeks or months. And Apple is a large enough corporation (and has been for quite some time) that Stevie doesn't have to stamp his approval on every little initiative, initial every memo, or plan every project on a day to day, or even month to month, basis.

He really should have set up a solid line of succession after the first health scare and been putting someone in the spotlight that shared his drive and vision for the company.

I guess you don't keep up on Apple news (and yet still feel compelled to comment on it).

Ever heard of Tim Cook? He is as close to Steve Jobs ver. 2.0 as it gets. And he has run the company TWICE now (and I think is actually doing so right now). So, SJ and Apple HAVE been grooming an heir-apparent for over two years now. As you (rightly) note, they are big shoes to fill; but Tim seems to be up to the challenge, and the public and the press seem content with Tim's abilities in that regard.

But, I sincerely thank you on behalf of Steve Jobs for wishing him better health and a long life. He can use all the positive energy the Multiverse can send his way, and that is in very short supply here on Slashdot...

Re:Again

[macs4all]

I got a notification two weeks ago that the problem was fixed, and updated drivers were released in the latest version of Snow Leopard (and Lion as well, I assume), but only if your hardware was manufactured after December 2010. They had the nerve to ask me to try it on new hardware to see if the problem is resolved.

So I spent all that time helping them, and they screwed me. This issue is a bigger problem than mine is, but I wouldn't expect anything but the very minimum possible to appease customers on anything but the absolute latest equipment.

Have you ever stopped to think that maybe they couldn't solve it on earlier revs. of the hardware? Keep in mind that we are now talking about the PREVIOUS version of iMacs. Did you buy AppleCare? If so, I'm pretty sure that Apple will make it good. If not, well, I'm not at all sure that any other computer company would give you a whole new machine at a year past the warranty period.

Re:Again

[macs4all]

the latest iMacs don't support secondary monitors, do they?

They actually have TWO Thunderbolt ports, although only one of them supports DisplayPort, IIRC.

Re:Again

[macs4all]

You don't understand Apple - it's not about keeping last year's gear working, it's about getting you to upgrade hardware this year. Product churn is the name of the game, and anything that allows you to keep your older hardware working properly is simply not in Apple's best interests...

Then why did Apple fix the problem at all?

Re:Again

[macs4all]

These things happen which is why everybody will advise you to wait until the 10.7.1 release which is coming soon. Don't be an early adopter if you you can't stand the pain. For god's sake some of these people don't have sense enough to even have a backup.

Having been a Mac user since they were called Lisas, I recommend to everyone, that with OS X, unless you just MUST have something in a new version of OSX, then you should wait until about 10.x.4 before it is fairly safe to upgrade. Apple makes some pretty sweeping changes from one major release to another, and there simply ain't no change without pain.

Compared to the rest of the OSes, Apple has a pretty good track record on updates; but modern OSes are phenomenally complicated, and there is simply no way that any OS will launch a new version without a few problems, period.

Re:Again

[the_B0fh]

Really? A number of laptops I have used have the "please download from your manufacturer and not us" page displayed when I try to download the latest and greatest video drivers.

Re:Again

[Bert64]

Why does your fileserver require a video card?

Re:Again

[Kashgarinn]

You probably don't realize how tinfoil-hattish you sound. They found a glitch with a graphics driver for an old macbook, they will probably fix it Soon(tm) with assistance from Nvidia engineers, it won't be today or tomorrow though, and if you want to call that evil, as well as deleting stupid "THEY WPNT FIX IT TOOOOODAAAAAAYYYYY, BO0O0o0OYCO0O0O0OTTTTTT!" threads from their own forums.. good on ya mate.

Re:Again

[Kashgarinn]

Actually it is in the best interest of Apple to make good on any promises with the equipment they make. If they didn't say that they supported multiple monitors this wouldn't be an issue, but they dom, and as a company who wants to be taken seriously, they should then uphold that promise for the lifetime of the product (up to some standard of maximum).

If you can't trust equipment to do what it promises to do, that's important consumer knowledge, but that will only hurt the company if you, the consumer, then decide not to buy based on the apparent breakage of those promises.

Re:Again

[LynnwoodRooster]

Did you read the GP post at all? They didn't fix the problem. Of course, with a handle of "macs4all" I'm pretty sure the cognitive dissonance has a bit of sway with you understanding his post...

Re:Again

[AmiMoJo]

You can't argue that things were better with Jobs running the show, because they weren't.

The iPhone 4 death-grip, iPad 1 curved back, early Core 2 Macbooks having far too much thermal paste on them and overheating, 16 bit screens in various laptops, the iPod Color which was replaced after being on sale for only 3 months, the various App Store and iTunes music store bullshit, the bloated crapware that is iTunes for Windows, the Mac Cube...

Not that I am necessarily blaming Jobs for all of that, my point is that Apple were just as prone to cock-ups and screwing customers all the time he was sat in that chair.

Re:Again

[Anonymous Coward]

RIP Richard Simmons

Re:Again

[Relayman]

Mod parent up. Your response is well written and must have taken at least a few minutes to write.

Although I laugh at the blind enthusiasm of the Apple fanboys, I worry about the mental health of the Apple haters. Do they need professional help?

Re:Again

[ifrag]

early Core 2 Macbooks having far too much thermal paste on them and overheating

To be more realistic, this isn't really a problem specific to Macs. Damn near every NVidia card I've dismantled has been oozing thermal paste and causing higher temps than it has any right to (and yes sometimes crashing as well). Fortunately I've dismantled and re-pasted all my cards in use but it's still ridiculous quality control any time I've bothered to check.

Re:Again

[Dog-Cow]

What happens when a hater doesn't put forth an argument?

Re:Again

[Sponge Bath]

Do they need professional help?

No, there's an app for that.

Re:Again

[Sponge Bath]

...a glitch with a graphics driver for an old macbook

You consider a one year old macbook (from summary: mid 2010) too old to properly support? The reality distortion field is clouding your vision.

Re:Again

[Coren22]

Servers require video cards. You haven't had any post issues, or needed to setup a RAID array I am guessing, as both of those operations require video cards.

Re:Again

[MrAngryForNoReason]

Gimme a break! HOW many drivers do you think OS X ships with? Can you name a SINGLE OS that hasn't shipped with a bad driver or two? I can't. Not one.

I am sure a lot of OSs ship with a few less than perfect drivers but you do have to admit this isn't a driver for a random printer or something. The vast majority of Macs shipped in the last 10 years use either Nvidia or ATI graphics cards, both companies have combined driver packages which cover their entire range of cards so it isn't like there are thousands of distributions of drivers that have to be kept current and tested.

Also Apple only ship a very small sub-set of hardware. In this instance we are talking about Macbook Pros, laptops which only have a tiny choice of graphics hardware which is extremely unlikely to be changed after purchase. In fact a quick look at the different Macbook Pro iterations shows that to cover all of the graphics combinations since the Macbook Pro was released you would still only be looking at 7 different bits of graphics hardware*. It is hardly unreasonable to expect Apple to test a major OS update on the main hardware configurations that they ship.

* Nvidia GeForce 9400M
Nvidia GeForce 9400M with Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT
Nvidia GeForce 320M
Intel HD Graphics with GeForce GT 330M
Intel HD Graphics 3000
Intel HD Graphics 3000 with AMD Radeon HD 6490M
AMD Radeon HD 6750M

Re:Again

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem must then be that his reality distortion field is weakening...

I suppose he's too busy using his reality distortion field on his liver or something.

Re:Again

[AmiMoJo]

I was referring to the CPU. Someone leaked an Apple assembly manual that told staff to put far too much paste on, and sure enough that was what people found when they dismantled their overheating Macbooks. By cleaning it up and putting the right amount in they dropped temperatures from 80C+ to under 60C IIRC.

Re:Again

[pckl300]

Get some perspective. Take a deep breath and repeat: we're discussing a preference for certain technical solution, not a religion.

Not a religion? Some might disagree.

Re:Again

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Yeah, tech "journalists" and scienticians. To go from "lighting up the same are in the brain" to "being a religion" is ridiculous. Page filler and link bait.

Re:Again

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously do not have a mid 2010 macbook pro then... I for one do not like having eight kernel panics in the first week I have had os x lion. All because of the crap drivers it shipped with. I should have waited until at least 10.7.1 before upgrading. Definitely rolling back to snow leopard. Thank god i had enough foresight and common sense to clone my hard drive before upgrading. For others having this same problem I have found that repairing your disk permissions seems to hold off regular kernel panics by a few hours.

Does it now?

[bonch]

Apple OS X Lion shipped with new NVidia video drivers that are causing anyone with a mid 2010 Macbook Pro to get a kernel panic every 5-10 minutes.

Oh, yeah? I'm posting this on a mid-2010 17-inch MacBook Pro with an Nvidia card. I've been running Lion developer previews for months, and the only time I've ever have graphics problems is when I'm playing a game and the system gets too hot because my room isn't well-ventilated. In fact, Lion could be the most stable first release of any OS X operating system. I regularly play World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2, and Team Fortress 2 without issue.

Nvidia isn't saying that nothing will get fixed. Apple works with Nvidia on their drivers. What Nvidia is saying is simply that they can't provide technical support. Removing posts about goofy boycotts and petitions is just clearing out nonsense posts in what is supposed to be a support forum. Apple's support forums are some of the silliest, whiniest forums on the web, and you'll rarely find useful information from the users there.

I also question the claim that "Apple knew about the issue before shipping Lion," as if there's some big conspiracy that Apple knew it was going to cause your machine to black-screen but didn't care. Give me a break.

How a major hardware manufacturer can ship such a faulty product without getting much press about it is completely beyond me.

Because the issue only affects a tiny segment of customers. If, as you claim, every single person with a mid-2010 MBP was getting kernel panics every 5-10 minutes, that would be major news. Like most customers with technical problems, you're acting like it's a bigger deal than it is and that it's affecting more people than it is. Installing a new operating system is a major procedure that can uncover previously invisible problems lurking on a person's computer. That's why, every time there's a console firmware update, you'll see a bunch of posts from people claiming the updates ruined their machines.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

my mid-2010 15" MBP w/nvidia graphics has been running lion for several weeks now with no issue.... I can only conclude that I am not anyone.

Re:Does it now?

[myurr]

Wow, one laptop makes a trend true now does it. Well I have upgraded to Lion as well and in the last week or so since I jumped my previously fine 2009 17" Macbook Pro has crashed out completely twice. One second it's running, the next it's totally powered off. This has happened once on battery power, once whilst plugged in.

So there are some problems out there, just because it hasn't affected you doesn't mean it ain't so!

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure Apple sees your post. They'll send you extra kool-aid this month...

Re:Does it now?

[rgomezc]

Agreed. I also have a mid-2010 Macbook Pro 15" and I have not seen one kernel panic. The only ones I got were on my Mac Pro, and that was because I had some old m-audio drivers for my FW410. Other than that, Lion has been pretty solid. The only thing I do have, and could be related, is when going fullscreen mode on VLC (haven't tried Quicktime) and playing a movie. It looks for a moment bad (blocks of different colors, etc.) But it's only for a moment and later the movie keeps going ok.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple OS X Lion shipped with new NVidia video drivers that are causing anyone with a mid 2010 Macbook Pro to get a kernel panic every 5-10 minutes.

Oh, yeah? I'm posting this on a mid-2010 17-inch MacBook Pro with an Nvidia card. I've been running Lion developer previews for months, and the only time I've ever have graphics problems is when I'm playing a game and the system gets too hot because my room isn't well-ventilated. In fact, Lion could be the most stable first release of any OS X operating system. I regularly play World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2, and Team Fortress 2 without issue.

Nvidia isn't saying that nothing will get fixed. Apple works with Nvidia on their drivers. What Nvidia is saying is simply that they can't provide technical support. Removing posts about goofy boycotts and petitions is just clearing out nonsense posts in what is supposed to be a support forum. Apple's support forums are some of the silliest, whiniest forums on the web, and you'll rarely find useful information from the users there.

I also question the claim that "Apple knew about the issue before shipping Lion," as if there's some big conspiracy that Apple knew it was going to cause your machine to black-screen but didn't care. Give me a break.

How a major hardware manufacturer can ship such a faulty product without getting much press about it is completely beyond me.

Because the issue only affects a tiny segment of customers. If, as you claim, every single person with a mid-2010 MBP was getting kernel panics every 5-10 minutes, that would be major news. Like most customers with technical problems, you're acting like it's a bigger deal than it is and that it's affecting more people than it is. Installing a new operating system is a major procedure that can uncover previously invisible problems lurking on a person's computer. That's why, every time there's a console firmware update, you'll see a bunch of posts from people claiming the updates ruined their machines.

im on a mid 2010 with nvidia graphics. lion works just fine. havent had a single crash for 3 weeks.

Re:Does it now?

[CJSpil]

Same here, my 15" MBP with nvidia hasn't crashed on me since installing Lion... maybe I'd better reboot it every 5-10 minutes just so I get the correct user experience ;-)

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

While Apple sucks I do think agree these problems exist and can be specific to some environments. For instance if you buy certain wifi cards they work fine with some drivers/routers. If you use them with other configurations (different routers) they don't. But if you switch the driver they do. It isn't necessarily the card that is the problem. A failure for a wifi router to comply with standards can cause issues or the implementation of the specs where no standard yet exists (802.11N draft).

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, here is a second vote for not having an issue with a Mid-2010 i7 MacBook Pro.

Also, according to the article, the issue is with Mid-2010 MacBook Pro laptops, not your 2009 Macbook Pro. Maybe you should open a ticket with Apple...

Re:Does it now?

[walternate]

Apple OS X Lion shipped with new NVidia video drivers that are causing anyone with a mid 2010 Macbook Pro to get a kernel panic every 5-10 minutes.

Oh, yeah? I'm posting this on a mid-2010 17-inch MacBook Pro with an Nvidia card. I've been running Lion developer previews for months, and the only time I've ever have graphics problems is when I'm playing a game and the system gets too hot because my room isn't well-ventilated. In fact, Lion could be the most stable first release of any OS X operating system. I regularly play World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2, and Team Fortress 2 without issue.

Nvidia isn't saying that nothing will get fixed. Apple works with Nvidia on their drivers. What Nvidia is saying is simply that they can't provide technical support. Removing posts about goofy boycotts and petitions is just clearing out nonsense posts in what is supposed to be a support forum. Apple's support forums are some of the silliest, whiniest forums on the web, and you'll rarely find useful information from the users there.

I also question the claim that "Apple knew about the issue before shipping Lion," as if there's some big conspiracy that Apple knew it was going to cause your machine to black-screen but didn't care. Give me a break.

How a major hardware manufacturer can ship such a faulty product without getting much press about it is completely beyond me.

Because the issue only affects a tiny segment of customers. If, as you claim, every single person with a mid-2010 MBP was getting kernel panics every 5-10 minutes, that would be major news. Like most customers with technical problems, you're acting like it's a bigger deal than it is and that it's affecting more people than it is. Installing a new operating system is a major procedure that can uncover previously invisible problems lurking on a person's computer. That's why, every time there's a console firmware update, you'll see a bunch of posts from people claiming the updates ruined their machines.

Everything you said could have been repeated for most similar reports at about Windows stability problems. People who have problems will of course complain, and get unfair attention vs all the users that don't have problems. If anything, welcome Apple to the reality of having more than a few users and system variations to care for.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

herp a derp derp!

thanks for your anecdote fanboi!

Re:Does it now?

[bonch]

Wow, one laptop makes a trend true now does it.

Exactly the same thing could be said to the submitter claiming every single person with a mid-2010 MBP is having kernel panics every five minutes. Do you realize how many customers that is? It would have been huge news the day Lion was released. My point is that the issue obviously only affects a small segment of customers, like most hardware and software issues.

The submitter also claimed Apple "hasn't responded to the issue," but the linked article says they have said that they are looking into it and are taking crash reports.

I see this kind of exaggeration all the time when dealing with technical support issues. Everyone thinks their issue is also affecting everyone else and that there's a conspiracy on the part of the evil company not to help them.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sick of Lion failures, it crashes very often and I've seen a lot of error screens. For first time since I bought the MacBoock one year ago I had to restart if several times from the power button because Finder was not responding. So yes, it is not working properly and believe me I'm missing Snow Leopard a lot.

Re:Does it now?

[sco08y]

Same experience. I like Lion, it's just a ton of nice little tweaks and everything else just works. Spaces... it actually works *and* I can set different desktops. Hidden scrollbars... awesome, my monitor is bigger.

And regarding the censorship, you're absolutely right.

From TFS:

Apple knew about the issue before shipping lion, hasn't responded to the issue, and is censoring posts in their support forum that mention words like 'boycott' and 'petition.'

Yeah, because here on /., posts that are hopelessly offtopic are never modded down to death. Are you fucking kidding me, you're really whining that idiotic comments were deleted? Let's do a test, I'll go to CBS news (a typical news site with unmoderated comments) and click the first story I see. Yup, sure enough, the comments are completely fucking retarded.

Re:Does it now?

[bonch]

They're out of grape this month.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just another idiot who probably has a lot of unnecessary junk installed in your system, a leftover from your Windows days.

The only sad thing about Mac being so popular now is the incredible amount of morons who made the switch.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a 2010 MBP 15" and have never had a kernel panic, either with Snow Leopard or Lion. WTF is this guy going on about? I use my Mac heavily every day and it's been rock solid.

Every 5-10 mins, pff, bite my shiny metal ass.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it does. I have a 15" MBP mid-2010 and I'm having the same problems discussed in the article and on Apple's discussion forums. When I disable the NVidia GPU and use the integrated graphics only, along with disabling computer/monitor sleep, the problem goes away. The problem is repeatable on my MBP with Lion. It never occurred with Snow Leopard.

The linked discussion on the problem at the Apple support forum was actually very helpful. While it may not affect some it certainty has been affecting others but at least there are some workarounds.

By the way I installed Lion new & clean and not over Snow Leopard, so I seriously doubt it uncovered previously invisible problems lurking on my computer as you said.

You know, your entire post is full of unsubstantiated assertions and in fact some very misleading information.

Re:Does it now?

[TheLandyman]

Steve doesn't care if you're a moron, your money spends the same. I switched in 2008 and he never complained.... oh wait :(

Re:Does it now?

[fusiongyro]

I think the OP is questioning the choice of the word "anyone." There are two 2010 MacBook Pros in my house, and neither one has the issue either. Sounds to me like a bad batch rather than an epidemic.

Re:Does it now?

[517714]

Flavor-Aid, if you please.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and on the flip side, apple has a ton of fanboys like yourself who will defend corporate policy no matter how censorious and anti-consumer it is. Gotta love that religious fervor apple instills in people..

Re:Does it now?

[d3vi1]

My Mid 2010 15" MBP (Core i7, 8GB, SSD) has no problems on Lion. My girlfriend's Late 2009 15" MBP (Core 2 Duo, 8GB, SSD) did occasionally lock after upgrading to Lion. What I've done to solve that was to disable HDD sleeping since it's pointless on SSDs anyway. I noticed that it happened only when the computer was idle for some time (at least enough for the screen to go blank) and when it did resume, I got a black screen with the rainbow spinning wheel.
The results are mixed, as can be expected with a brand new OS, but it's not a tragedy. You can always restore to the pre-upgrade backups that you should always make as a responsible admin.
All new OS versions have bugs, that's why we get the first 1-2 fixes quite soon after the release. Apple is already working on 10.7.2, as 10.7.1 is in QA by now.

Re:Does it now?

[Ossifer]

Mid-2010 15" MBP here. I use it to develop and test 3D visual analytics software. Neither the kernel nor I have yet to panic...

Re:Does it now?

[roscocoltran]

I also question the claim that "Apple knew about the issue before shipping Lion," as if there's some big conspiracy that Apple knew it was going to cause your machine to black-screen but didn't care. Give me a break.

Did you have a look at Java 7 already ?

Re:Does it now?

[erroneus]

Apple's support forums are some of the silliest, whiniest forums on the web, and you'll rarely find useful information from the users there.

My God, you got that right. Over the last weekend I was loading up a MacMini with Snow Leopard and getting MySQL installed to work with PHP and Apache. It comes with Apache2. It comes with PHP but just needs a couple of text files edited. MySQL was a little more difficult-- download the package and install. (mcrypt also but that was a genuine effort with source code compiling and all) But, unfortunately, that's not where I started. I started with Google and ended up on any number of Mac related forums advising a LOT of really stupid things. And this "MAMP" tihng? How ridiculous is that?! I just don't see any use for it at all. If someone wants to make a useful "easy" package, then they need to write some scripts to pull down MySQL, install it and tweak some text files.

Worse, I had upgraded the HDD on the MacMini to 500GB and the little cable on the sound board came lose when I was putting it back together. Eventually the sound dropped out and I searched those same forums, They all claimed it was a software problem and that all I needed to do was acquire an older kext from and older kernel to fix it. I did that and it obviously didn't work and I kept reading how this happend after "upgrading." I read a few more and they were talking about upgrading hard drives... and then I went... oh... I think I know what happened now... These idiots left something unplugged or disconnected... well... me too I guess but it was working at first so I guess it was just loose. Anyway, from their inability to blame themselves I realized it was their fault, then I went into my mini and sure enough, the cable was loose. Reattached and it was back like that.

I don't care how smart YOU are. You could be a frikken genius but it doesn't change anything. Generally speaking, Apple attracts some pretty dumb people to their products.

Re:Does it now?

[teslafreak]

As much as I dislike Apple in general (and a bunch of my posts reflect it). "bonch" is right. This clearly isn't as big of an issue as the person is making it out to be. There are a ton of people running Lion just fine, and Apple is looking into the problem for those that aren't. The only place they are in the wrong here is for censoring posts complaining about it (which is kind of an old news tactic from Apple).

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

make that two that it hasn't affected!

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that HDD is not a user-serviceable part on your Mac Mini, right? What makes you think you'll get proper help on an Apple support forum after you do that?

Re:Does it now?

[ColdWetDog]

Let's do a test, I'll go to CBS news (a typical news site with unmoderated comments) and click the first story I see. Yup, sure enough, the comments are completely fucking retarded. [cbsnews.com]

Those weren't the comments, they were the stories.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are clearly a mac fanboy. You are completely missing the point of the article.

Re:Does it now?

[Stewie241]

That's fine, except Apple doesn't deserve the same grace that IMO Microsoft deserves. Developing Windows is inherently challenging because there are countless combinations of motherboards, video cards, disk controllers, etc etc.

The advantage that Apple has always had is that they control the entire stack - from hardware down to software. They can choose whatever chipset they want, whatever display adapter they want, and whatever components they want.

It is quite conceivable (and I would expect them to do so) for Apple to have at least one model of every computer they sell that their operating system needs to run on, and they can test their product on each of those machines. It should also be possible for them to identify what machines it will not function on and refuse to upgrade those machines until such time that it is stable.

Yet, they failed to do so.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, your entire post is full of unsubstantiated assertions and in fact some very misleading information.

Whaddaya expect? this IS /. after all.......

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good post. Mere side-show quibble:

when I'm playing a game and the system gets too hot because my room isn't well-ventilated.

Unless you're somewhere really really hot, this shouldn't be a problem.

(RRHot would be say 90+ in your room. ~32+ Celcius. Roughly like gaming inside a fresh Ton-Ton.)

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm on a late 2011 iMac and whilst it works ok, some of the animations are somewhat slow and jumpy - not what I'd expect from Apple. In Snow Leopard it was always smooth, even with intensive apps open.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

possibly.. but that doesnt mean I'm incorrect.. there ARE a lot of fanboys out there who will downplay any complaint no matter how legit. when it comes to apple, especially considering their corporate behavior, I'm more apt to believe complaints

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, your laptop has graphics issues since upgrading and you blame your room's ventilation; i was going to say your holding it wrong but that is much better.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

By the way I installed Lion new & clean and not over Snow Leopard, so I seriously doubt it uncovered previously invisible problems lurking on my computer as you said.

Well, yeah. He pretty much pulled that one out of his ass. It's not the hardware, and it's not some buggy driver that just didn't experience the bug under Snow Leapord... Lion had its own driver, and that's where the bug is. NVidia has even said it's Apple's problem, not theirs.

Re:Does it now?

[ThePhilips]

[...] there ARE a lot of fanboys out there who will downplay any complaint no matter how legit.

You do not own a Mac/etc. I can easily tell.

Because if you had own a Mac, you would have surely browsed the Mac related forums. And by browsing any Mac related forum one quickly finds that the fanboys are actually the very same people who generate the complains. An endless stream of them at that. Some of the complains get picked by the media, some of them are real problem - most are not.

I'm more apt to believe complaints

And that's the problem with you. You *believe* complaints. While people who commented above, by virtue of owning a supposedly affected, now purportedly useless Mac, *know*. I hope you do understand the difference between the verbs "to believe" and "to know"?

Re:Does it now?

[geekoid]

Seven! is it seven customer?

Re:Does it now?

[geekoid]

While I dont' think Apple is doing anything wrong, this is incorrect:

"Yeah, because here on /., posts that are hopelessly offtopic are never modded down to death. "

I can adjust my view and see any post. This is completely different then removing a post.

"it's just a ton of nice little tweaks and everything else just works. Spaces... it actually"
so it didn't work before? You're sentence is weird.

Re:Does it now?

[Luckyo]

Fanboys don't generate the complaints. Fanboys, by definition, are people who will complain/deny/scream at anyone complaining about the thing they're into, trying to shut them up at any cost and by any means necessary from pointless shouting to trying to make up intelligent-looking arguments that have no substance behind them. Because that's what fanboys are - the object of fandom can do no wrong, and when someone complains about the object of fandom, they are inherently stupid, evil and just plain need to be shut up.

On that note, your post above is a good example of relatively tame variant of fanboyism.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm also on a mid-2010 Macbook Pro... I haven't had a kernel panic on this machine ever. It's run pretty much constantly on 10.6, and now 10.7.

Re:Does it now?

[sjmacko29]

My mid-2010 Macbook Pro has run pretty much non-stop since the day it was new. I installed Lion the day it was released. This machine has never had a kernel panic. Never... I wish I could say the same for my Fedora Thinkpad.

Re:Does it now?

[loom_weaver]

2010 MacBook Pro. Ran flawlessly on OSX Snow Leopard. Upgraded to Lion and it has crashed about once every day or two. Screen completely frozen, nothing works except a hard reboot... essentially the BSOD.

Better get fixed soon. Not impressed with Apple with this release.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

No issue here either (mid-2010 MBP, core i5, 8GB RAM). I did have an issue with NVidia GPU related kernel panics under Snow Leopard, which turned out to be a hardware issue. Could be related to this

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

bah... at least those stories had some facts... much better than FOX{news?}

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd call that a pretty big fucking problem if your computer is overheating when you play games.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it wasn't big apple wouldn't be censoring their boards. In actuality it is a big issue, I'm experiencing it on both of our mbp's

Re:Does it now?

[bucky0]

You probably have it already configured, but I used XAMPP to install the apache/php/mysql stack. I found it when I was wanting to get that installed for some local testing, and it was one of the easiest things I've done.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither the kernel nor I have yet to panic...

You've both panicked, then?

Re:Does it now?

[Ossifer]

Try again.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

That ain't shit, you want to see retarded? Check out Yahoo News.

Re:Does it now?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Oh, yeah? I'm posting this on a mid-2010 17-inch MacBook Pro with an Nvidia card. I've been running Lion developer previews for months, and the only time I've ever have graphics problems is when I'm playing a game and the system gets too hot because my room isn't well-ventilated.

How hot is your room? I'm in Shanghai, and my HP G71 - with a big 17" screen - running 3D FEA simulations (both CPU cores pegged at 100%, 7.6 GB of RAM committed, full rendering enabled) never flakes out thermally. Even while the room temperature is a relatively warm 36 deg C.

Having to worry about your room being too hot is a sure sign there's a thermal management problem with your laptop. They're supposed to be used in places beyond just a comfy air-conditioned office, after all...

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

All new OS versions have bugs

All OS versions have bugs

there. fixed that for ya.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

You lost. There is no "try again."

Re:Does it now?

[macs4all]

It is quite conceivable (and I would expect them to do so) for Apple to have at least one model of every computer they sell that their operating system needs to run on, and they can test their product on each of those machines.

That was somewhat true in the 80s and 90s; and they did have a roomful of every single Mac in existence. In fact, developers could even schedule time in the room, to make sure their stuff ran, too.

But it's not so much true now. Especially when you start considering revisions of motherboards and video boards and GPUs across a dozen products times several years of changes to those products that you'd like to support. And all that isn't even taking into account native and third-party applications, kernel extensions, drivers, memory size differences, et cetera. I would wager that the combinations really run into the thousands, if not millions. And of course, you can forget that kind of testing happening for things like printer drivers; where Apple is pretty much in the same boat as everyone else, as far as "testing possible combinations" goes. That is to say, they really can't.

So, you may THINK that Apple's testing is trivial; but if you stop to really think about it, you'll soon realize that it is most assuredly not.

Re:Does it now?

[Bert64]

Only Apple have to support the hardware as well, whereas MS defer hardware support to the third parties who actually make that hardware.

And as someone else has pointed out, this doesn't affect every macbook of a particular model, just some... And the question is, what's different about those particular units?
What third party software are they running, have they installed any third party hardware, does the machine still crash if you install a stock lion onto it with nothing else?

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed Lion on three machines: two Mac Pros (one 2008, one 2010), and a MacBook Pro (2010). On the Mac Pro 2008, it took about three restarts before all the built-in apps stopped crashing. Then it stabilized, and has been stable for weeks, except for iChat, which gets in a mode where it refuses to connect and requires a restart to start working again. The MacBook Pro has been completely stable. The 2010 Mac Pro is stable once it's running, but whenever it sits more than a few minutes at the login screen at startup, it freezes (except for the spinny beachball) and requires a hard restart. Not too impressive.

Presumably the next dot-release will fix much of this. Surprising that it's having this many problems at such a low level.

Re:Does it now?

[ThePhilips]

Fanboys don't generate the complaints.

That statement completely invalidates any relevance of your comment to the Mac related discussions.

Because in world of Macs those are the Apple/Mac fanbois (as opposed to "users") which generate complains. Because they feel entitled and obliged to complain because Apple "promised" quality and charges premium for it.

Because that's what fanboys are - the object of fandom can do no wrong, and when someone complains about the object of fandom, they are inherently stupid, evil and just plain need to be shut up.

I frequent to several Mac related forums, and never seen any "evil" which is as widespread as people try to make it. In fact, technical discussions remain technical all the time. General public on the forums is very civilized and constructive when it comes to discussing issues people are having. (As opposed e.g. to Engadget editors/commenters: those are after generating traffic thus inflamatory materials are must.)

On that note, your post above is a good example of relatively tame variant of fanboyism.

And your response is a lame attempt at conspiracy theory. And very lame at that - because you didn't even bother to learn what you are conspire about. Thanks to Apple secrecy policies, lots can be conspired about it and everything related to it - but your broad shot missed it all.

Re:Does it now?

[AmiMoJo]

There is a power saving when an SSD goes to sleep. The internal RAM buffer can be powered down, voltage regulators for the flash memory turned off etc. If you have problems waking up from that state then it could as easily be a bug in the SSD firmware.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you have developed a hardware problem, probably completely unrelated to the software upgrade. It's called a coincidence. I'd think with your first sentence you might recognize the high probability that such a coincidence has occurred in your case.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google is open source, where's the public repository for the search engine?

Your sig is asinine. Google is not open source, and it cannot be, because it's a corporation. If you meant the Google Search product, no one ever claimed that it was open. Ever. Android, Chromium, and a few other odds and ends that they produce happen to be open. There's also lots of closed stuff, everyone knows that. I fail to see your point.

Re:Does it now?

[Stewie241]

So long as Apple is getting enough reports, they should be able to isolate fairly easily what the particular units have in common. Again, they control the whole stack - hardware down to software, so there is no trying to figure out what kind of machine it is - presumably with a serial number or some debugging app they could pinpoint exactly what hardware it was, down to the chips on the motherboard, because they made it all.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

"system gets too hot because my room isn't well-ventilated" ...ROFL ... I've seen some lame explanations from fanbois, but this tops it all !
That's why lappies have FANS, jackass !

Re:Does it now?

[Dog-Cow]

You are moron. Your blind hatred has led you to make a completely illogical statement.

Having 500 units of every Mac to test on doesn't help one bit if they don't exhibit any problems. There is no reason to believe that Apple doesn't test on as many Macs as possible, but clearly not every physical unit is identical to every other. There are myriads of reasons as to why something might crash on one unit and not another of the same make and model.

Re:Does it now?

[Dog-Cow]

Who says they've gotten enough? Who says they aren't working on it? Why would anyone rational think that they aren't? Have you ever debugged a hardware problem specific to a fraction of a percent of users without having one of the crashing units in front of you for testing? You are assuming that there's a hardware fault. Perhaps its software and Apple doesn't have a way to distill the common set of software across all reporters of the issue.

Stop hating for the sake of hate. It's not healthy.

Re:Does it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only an apple user would take personal blame for his machine dissipating heat poorly.......

Re:Does it now?

[metalgamer84]

No grape drank? damn...

Selective reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

"How a major hardware manufacturer can ship such a faulty product without getting much press about it is completely beyond me."

It is easy to explain... Apple is the Obama of the tech world.

Re:Selective reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you're going to get modded down...

After all, Slashdot... The home of Selective Reporting!

Re:Selective reporting

[citylivin]

"Apple is the Obama of the tech world."

I wish! If obama was like apple, he would have already:

- Forced through all the laws he wanted without debate
- Locked everyone into a government mandated healthcare store
- Told anyone that disagreed with him that they were "living the wrong way"
- Lowered life insurance policy terms to 90 days, and when people complained, offered to sell them "extended" life insurance for hundreds of dollars a year
- Brutally suppressed anyone who dared post a picture of any infrastructure under construction
- Turned everyone gay

Re:Selective reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

Lmao you are a fucking idiot. Does brain damage hurt? Maybe not you, but it kills me to try and parse some of the idiotic crap I see around here.

Re:Selective reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

If that were the case, Fox News would be reporting how Apple's calendar includes information about Ramadan, as clear evidence of Steve Jobs anti-Easter agenda.

Whether or not it is worse than no reports at all is an open question.

Similar GPU crashes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have been occurring recently in windows for anyone with a 8000, 9000, or 200 series Nvidia GPU. The latest version of the source engine (currently used in TF2 and Portal 2) triggers it quite reliably every 10-20 minutes.

Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

My MBP 2010 has this problem. Hoping 10.7.1 fixes it, or it's back to Snow Leopard Apple.

Re:Yep

[Ryanrule]

Windows 7 works great!

Re:Yep

[teslafreak]

Not a single crash yet on either of my Windows 7 Pro machines (One 32 bit, one 64 bit, quite different hardware between them) :-)

Re:Yep

[yourmommycalled]

Of course not, with windows-7 you cann't tell the difference between a crashed machine and one that is running the way it's supposed to. It's too busy sending spam and acting as a node in a DDOS attack

No big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a big deal, every computer does this. Just put a big rubber casing around it and you'll be fine.

Faulty specs?

[gilesjuk]

When you're writing a driver you're working to the specifications provided by the manufacturer. I know from experience these can be correct.

So even if it is Apple's code you can't really blame them if they've written their driver to dodgy specs.

Re:Faulty specs?

[kevinmenzel]

You damn well can, because they insist on writing the drivers themselves. Hell, even the bootcamp video drivers aren't the same as the official nVidia drivers, and worse - every time you update Bootcamp, it replaces whatever video driver you HAVE installed to get better performance, with the latest version that THEY want to provide you. If they just let the hardware manufacturers code the drivers, and had some sort of driver certification process, this wouldn't be such a problem, would it.

Re:Faulty specs?

[Anonymous Coward]

... I know from experience these can be correct. ...

Oh no, they can be correct? How can they live with themselves..

Re:Faulty specs?

[Americano]

You have yet to establish that this is "such a problem" in the first place, so it's hard to understand what problem you're thinking would be solved by letting nVidia write their own drivers.

Re:Faulty specs?

[polaris20]

Then why did these machines work perfectly fine under previous versions of the OS?

Re:Faulty specs?

[gmueckl]

For starters you would get the same set of driver bugs and features as on the other platforms, because nVidia really only has one driver with different interface layers for different systems. This would reduce the pain of working around driver bugs in cross-platform products a lot.

Re:Faulty specs?

[Americano]

So letting the vendor replicate its bugs and idiosyncrasies across all platforms in perfect sync is a good thing? Systems which are written & tested to clearly documented requirements tend to have a higher quality implementation and documentation. If the same people who write the requirement specs are the people writing the code to implement those requirements, then you open the door for all kinds of shenanigans, like "Well the spec says X, but it's so much easier to do Y, and nobody will ever notice - we can just update the spec after the fact to reflect the change."

Apple pushing nVidia to clearly document its interfaces and discovering disconnects between "actual behavior" and "expected behavior" based on a written spec is a good thing for all of nVidia's users. If your interfaces are so brittle that people are regularly exposing significant issues when they write code against them, you're doing something wrong.

Re:Faulty specs?

[kevinmenzel]

Of course, your assumption is that Apple's problem is that the spec isn't good, as opposed to the problem being Apple not having developers capable of developing solid drivers for their own platform. Considering Apple devs had trouble even getting alarm clock code correct in known edge cases like daylight saving's time, I don't have a lot of faith in their devs (or their testers) these days.

Re:Faulty specs?

[gmueckl]

What a shiny little world you must live in! In the real world OpenGL drivers are *massive* and extremely complex beasts. And they contain more shenanigans than you could probably imagine. And for bugs, there are hordes of them - you just have to be unlucky enough to encounter them. It is all a mix of obscure stuff in the OpenGL specification that is rarely, even never, used, weird combinations of features that should work, but maybe won't because nobody uses them and nobody cares to test them properly for this very reason and known bugs that won't get fixed because they are not important enough.

Unfortunately, you can't just build a new replacement driver from the ground up even with the specs within reasonable time. Both OpenGL and the underlying hardware are much too complex for that. Just look at the sorry state of the open source Radeon drivers. The guys have the full specs for the hardware, but the drivers are unfortunately unusable for real OpenGL use. They are still incomplete and unbelievably buggy. I'm certain that the developers working on the driver are competent enough. They just aren't done yet. "But it runs compiz" means nothing in that context, because the OpenGL rendering within compiz is a joke.

If you have to ship real, working software in such an environment, each configuration that does not behave totally different from the others you need to support is a godsend.

Re:Faulty specs?

[geekoid]

A) Quality
B) Consistency
C) You could roll back to a previous driver until the fix the current one.

Re:Faulty specs?

[geekoid]

I have used the nVidia specs, and they are really good. However that was a few years ago, maybe they ahve gotten worse.

Problems with software that uses the card

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like there is problems with software that uses the GT 330M on my machine extensively, an example is autocad.

Drivers are responsibility of NVidia

[Anonymous Coward]

"NVidia has responded that the drivers are the responsibility of Apple so they won't deal with the issue."

From everything I've heard from the inside, this isn't true. The video drivers are written by NVidia and then have source drops into Apple. Yes, Apple is the one who typically controls their release, but the actual bugs are the result of NVidia engineering.

I've been having graphics driver issues on other chipsets as well in Lion.

Re:Drivers are responsibility of NVidia

[Billly Gates]

One of the reasons for choosing a Mac over a PC is that it is the responsibility of Apple and you do not need to worry about drivers and incompatibilities. Its in all in an integrated platform where you plug it in and work.

This issue of responsibility of hardware driver issues is why Windows sucks and also why Windows XP is still popular. People are afraid to upgrade their pc's with the OS that it came with. You are rolling dice when upgrading drivers or operating systems.

Re:Drivers are responsibility of NVidia

[bonch]

What Nvidia is saying is that they can't provide technical support.

It's Apple, it just works, think different

[syousef]

Come on fanboys, tell me again how intuitive and stylish Apple is and how "it just works". "Think different".

This will get modded troll or flame bait but it isn't - it drives me INSANE that otherwise intelligent people fall for such marketing BS. All companies have problems, and if you're expecting everything made by one company with moving parts or electronics to "just work" you need to get off the sauce.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[Anonymous Coward]

No no no, you don't get it. It's not a problem, it's just trendy to have your computer freeze after a few minutes - it shows the world how much of a free spirit you are.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[bonch]

Apple is intuitive, stylish, and their software just works. They think differently.

If you're claiming that Apple fans think the hardware and software is flawless, you've obviously never visited MacRumors, AppleInsider, and other Apple forums. Apple customers are the whiniest critics in existence and will complain about mismatched colors at the pixel level (granted, the guy I'm talking about was an interface designer, but still).

But yes, all the high-level qualities about Apple are true, which is why they have such a devoted fanbase and billions of dollars in the bank.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[mcmonkey]

Apple is intuitive, stylish, and their software just works. They think differently.

Are saying iTunes is either not software or not from Apple? Because it certainly is not intuitive, stylish, not just works

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird.

It's not just some magical marketing trick that people fall for. Apple actually does things a bit different, their approach is an interesting one. I don't know any Apple user who claims their computers and other devices are perfect or never have problems. That seems to be the impression that non-Apple users get...somehow they believe Apple users think their stuff is flawless, but no one actually thinks that.

Periodically an Apple product has a newsworthy issue, and then the critics come crawling out of the woodwork, screaming "See! Apple sucks!" while leaving out the glaring fact that there's a lot fewer and less horrible issues than any product from say Dell or HP. I'm not even an Apple-only person and I think it's silly the things non-apple folks believe about Apple products.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple tried tries to hide their issues, why is the newest Apple store (The Americana in Glendale) getting 50 chairs at the Genius Bar?

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[Sorny]

Try iTunes on a Mac.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[certain death]

I wish I had mod points - I would have given you +5 for use the term "get off the sauce"!! LOLOL!!!

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple computers do 'just work'. There is nothing wrong with Lion. Lion is perfect. I haven't upgraded yet, but I know it's perfect because Apple made it. If some users computers are crashing because of the nvidia drivers, it's the fault of the user - they are just using their computers wrong.

FU apple for telling me to hold my iphone 4 'correctly'

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a lot of money in the bank is not necessarily proof that those "qualities" are true. It could also be that they are very good at marketing their products and that's why they have that money. A devoted fan base? plenty of other platforms have a fan base and those high level qualities are nowhere to be seen (as in Justin Bieber).

  It appeals to you - but their "software just works" is BS (i've seen this problem with one of the few macs I have available in the office). Intuitive? Certainly debatable, stylish, maybe.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[daver00]

iTunes on my 2011 MBP with SSD is without a doubt the slowest piece of software on my system. It is consistently the slowest to load, and slowest to run. It is not some magical experience on OSX, iTunes sucks horrbly over here too.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back and read some of the comments mac bois have compared windows to apple, or android to iphones. They WILL tell you only what their gut tells them to. It doesnt matter if you introduce opposing evidence, it rolls off their back like water on a duck.

Then there is a major release like this... or jailbreaking ipods via a pdf (Holy shit Batman) and they will always lay the blame somewhere else. That in and of may be fair, except for the fact that they also control every aspect of your mac "experience". Since they are solely in control of said "experience", and since users had to pay two to three times more for the computer, then the operators of the experience are the only ones who will ever recieve fault. If you take all the credit for the product, then you take all the blame for its failure.

On why most people hate mac fanbois in particular:

Say you have a friend who loves imax movies. He raves about how great they are all day long. You prefer your streaming service. Then every time your internet burps or your OS acts funky there he is laughing at you. Telling you how much better his shit smells. Then there comes the day when his imax movie is closed because the hard drive it was stored on (I assume they dont use reels for movies anymore) failed. Perhaps it was the HD manufacturers fault. You are still going to get your chuckle in that cause his "experience" was ruined.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[geekoid]

"Apple is intuitive"
No, it is NOT intuitive.

"stylish" true

" their software just works"
apparently not.

"illions of dollars in the bank."
If money is an indicator, then I guess Windows makes the best OS of all.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[kiwimate]

Apple is intuitive, stylish, and their software just works.

iTunes. Q.E.D.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen support requests that make me doubt the sanity of mac users, they complains for days icons are not round enough and similar shit, check out this gem from a disgruntled mac user:


I don't like that fact that you guys chose to put Big Bright Red Distracting Bars on the icon on MY computer with no way to change it or remove them. This is my computer and I shouldn't have to have an annoying icon on it that distracts me and has wasted hours of my time trying to figure out how to replace them. I am not the only one. See this forum post if you want to see how many people hate it. Just so you know, its probably thousands of people who hate it. I talked to a bunch of people who think it looks "broken" or "paused" or "cheap". I understand that it is your logo, but it doesn't have to be on the programs icon itself

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[tycoex]

The funny thing is that his guy could change the logo to be whatever he wanted if he was using Windows...

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple didn't write the original iTunes codebase. It started life as a neat little program called SoundJam which Apple bought up back in 2000 and actually worked pretty well when all it had to do was keep your Mp3's organized on your iPod.

The real problems started when Apple introduced the iPhone in '07 and, by extension, iOS, using iTunes should be the hub for organizing iOS apps and other content. At that point, iTunes started growing like a tumor, being forced to incorporate features that the original SoundJam architecture was just never designed to accommodate. It's gone from version 7.3 to 10.4 trying to keep up--39 updates/upgrades in four years (yeah, I counted).

There's no saving it. Apple needs to create a new app from scratch (which I'm sure they'll call "iTunes").

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[boley1]

As you can with OSX (at least through SL, haven't tried it in Lion), but you (or your admin) must give yourself permission first. More funny or tragic is that any run of the mill malware can also change the logo to anything it wants, if using Windows.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[tycoex]

What is this malware you speak of? I've had my Windows 7 machine for about a year now and haven't had any kind of virus on it yet. Maybe people just need be to taught how to take care of their computers.

Re:It's Apple, it just works, think different

[boley1]

Me too. No infections with my Win 7 machine that I know of, with a little over a year experience. No sticky infections for my XP or Vista machines either, and I leave them up and networked all the time. Unlike many people using PCs and practically all people using Macs I keep them updated, and make sure that I have a working copy of an antivirus going at all times. But I use them strictly for business and I find it pretty easy to spot fake updates, and never install software and drivers unless I absolutely trust the source. I'm pretty paranoid. Most people seem to be trusting and hate UAC, and anything they perceive as slowing down their experience including AV software. So I wind up helping 6 or more people a month clean their Windows computers, some of these are Win 7, I don't seek this business, they track me down.

And yes, even users that do everything right still get infected. I get one of those every other month or so, with no attack vector I can find, other than zero day google ad exploits, through IE 8 or Firefox. And some people who I thought had compromised their system by turning off UAC, though they denied it, and I doubted their ability to figure out how, may not have been the blame after all.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9218916/Malware_turns_off_Windows_UAC_warns_Microsoft?taxonomyId=17

Anyway, good move getting Win 7. I'm hoping to get everyone I know to get new machines with Win 7, that is those who don't want an iPad or Mac. Win 7 machines are much less trouble. Mac and IOS machines, are a bit better IMHO, zero trouble from malware, and lesser trouble of any other kind. Ironically the users if anything are less trained, and do absolutely nothing to protect themselves. So yes, maybe people need to be taught how to take care of their computers, or get one that doesn't require so much care.

In this thread......

[polaris20]

anecdotal evidence of single experiences are given as credible information. One laptop != significant indication of reliability, or lack there of. We've got a couple nVidia-equipped machines that are working fine too, but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem, despite my vast Lion user base of four users currently testing the OS.

Re:In this thread......

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the homogeneity of Apple hardware, any driver issue would likely be universal within a given model; thus, there must be another factor at play.

Re:In this thread......

[erroneus]

No, but if you read the larger list of people saying the same things, you can see patterns emerging. The article is wrong. Many people here, if you haven't noticed, have the problem with 2009 Macs but not with 2010 Macs. Seems to me the author was either mistaken or got a very early 2010 batch machine.

Re:In this thread......

[Em Adespoton]

The other factor at play is likely the operator causing the crash... my bet's on OpenCL, which has been modified in Lion. Most people won't experience the glitch due to not using the OpenCL operator, but any time it gets called, bam! System goes down hard, with no kernel panic, crash logs, etc.

Re:In this thread......

[polaris20]

My point is people chiming in with just one machine is irrelevant as a yard stick for the problem, whether they're experiencing the problem or not.

Re:In this thread......

[Anonymous Coward]

The submitter said "everyone'. It's easy to disprove "everyone" with a single example. So that's what people are doing.

Re:In this thread......

[dwightk]

when the problem is described in absolute terms such as "anyone with a mid 2010 Macbook Pro", one machine *is* relevant.

Re:In this thread......

[polaris20]

I was under the impression that the article's hyperbole was understood, but technically you're correct.

Not news

[Anonymous Coward]

Linsux has been doing that for years. Eat shit you open source lemmings. Your faggot OS pet project lost the OS wars. It's fucking over and you are left sucking shit. Faggot loving Slashdot tries to keep hope alive but the numbers tell the truth. Linux couldn't do in 20 years what Apple has done in 2. Not even close.
 
FUCK YOU OPEN SORES!!!! FUCK YOU IN THE ASS!!! F/OSS is dog shit.

Re:Not news

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that Apple use a lot of open source software in their products? For instance, basing it on FreeBSD.

Re:Not news

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD is good though, it's just Linux that's shit.

The wonderful thing about Apple product

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, Apple is better than Windows because it "Just Works".

Re:The wonderful thing about Apple product

[Anonymous Coward]

And when it doesn't, they fix it. My son had a Mac Book Pro with a faulty video. He took it to the Mac store and they fixed it for him. The repair cost was about $1200 but they didn't charge him a dime.

Re:The wonderful thing about Apple product

[geekoid]

So your praise is a company fixed something that was their fault? shocking.

Re:The wonderful thing about Apple product

[jo_ham]

Yes, why not?

You can't ensure 100% perfect products in a mass production line (at least, not economically), so the speed, efficiency and cost of putting right a lemon is an important part of any business that sells consumer products.

If they do it right, then they should be praised. Far too much emphasis has been placed on companies to not only repair a product but to then be expected to bend over and ass kiss the entitlement attitude customer who says "ok, so you fixed that for free so I now have what I purchased, but what are you going to do for me?"

Engage reality distortion field

[gstrickler]

These are not the faulty drivers you're looking for.

Well, there's always the Windows partition

[AaronMK]

Haven't experienced this with my 2009 unibody with an nVidia card on Lion, but it does not seem like I should be expecting to either.

In any case, I have Windows on bootcamp if bugs in Lion ever become an issue. Unlike Lion which only has partial OpenGL 3.2 support, I get full OpenGL 3.3 support on the windows side, so I'm on there for my graphics coding projects anyway.

Falsehood

[ArAgost]

Apple OS X Lion shipped with new NVidia video drivers that are causing anyone with a mid 2010 Macbook Pro to get a kernel panic every 5-10 minutes.

Uh, what? I've yet to see a MBP with Lion getting a KP. Do editors really fall for this obvious linkbaiting?

Re:Falsehood

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple OS X Lion shipped with new NVidia video drivers that are causing anyone with a mid 2010 Macbook Pro to get a kernel panic every 5-10 minutes.

Uh, what? I've yet to see a MBP with Lion getting a KP. Do editors really fall for this obvious linkbaiting?

So much linkbaiting. Check this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3191083 ...also, grats that -you- haven't seen a MBP getting a kernel panic in Lion.

Re:Falsehood

[Anonymous Coward]

My mid 2010 MBP has had multiple KP's sense installation and its only been one week

Re:Does it now? Fanboy much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fanboy much?

Mid 2010 MBP 15" with Nvidia

[beadfulthings]

No kernel panics here. I did have a tooth-gnashing amount of irritation with an update needed for Adobe CS5, but aside from that misadventure (which took a couple of hours of swearing to put right), Lion has been a giant snooze. No overheating, no bashing and thrashing, no sudden power issues. In fact, "snooze" is probably the right word, since I haven't yet found anything about it to impress me, either.

Re:Mid 2010 MBP 15" with Nvidia

[rsborg]

No kernel panics here. I did have a tooth-gnashing amount of irritation with an update needed for Adobe CS5, but aside from that misadventure (which took a couple of hours of swearing to put right), Lion has been a giant snooze. No overheating, no bashing and thrashing, no sudden power issues. In fact, "snooze" is probably the right word, since I haven't yet found anything about it to impress me, either.

Same, 'cept I'm rocking a 2010 13" MBP... only problem I have with Lion is that my Office 2004 won't work anymore (not a huge loss, but Pages '09 doesn't like a *some* of my Word docs). Oh, that and my SSL VPN provider is usually about 9 months late to release OSX drivers.

Re:Mid 2010 MBP 15" with Nvidia

[MemoryDragon]

Actually there is one thing in Lion which I really like, that is the local time machine snapshots, they are like a second saftey net.
But there are many things I dislike
a) New icon color scheme obviously designed by a blind person destroying the usability in finder. In other words the new icons feel like
if someone uses a user interface and smashes it on the table when it still was a baby.

b) Problematic save and versioning scheme which is literally dangerous (could be fixed easily but apple probably will not fix it)
The problem there is you do not have full control over when a document is saved and to the worse you cannot see which versions are stable
(aka saved by you), so in the worst case you accidentally drop in a mistake and then close the program wham the mistake is in the document without you noticing it, once you recognize the document is faulty you have a hard time to determine which one was the last stable version.
The cure for apple seems to be to lock the unused documents after a certain period.
So all mistakes of RCS VSS etc... are repeated while others have done the versioning on local level for 10 years without destroying the users workflow (aka version only on save)
To the worse all of this has no off switch whatsoever.

c) Autolocking of files, to semi fix b (which it does not, and causes problems for people who work with lots of files simultaneously.
The period for auto locking still is not on, but I think we will see lots of complaints in about 2-4 weeks where they suddenly got a load
of files autolocked.

d) Replacing save as in auto saved files with clone and save

e) While I applaud local time machine, why are the files still fully present once synced to another time machine, this sucks up hd space
f) Rosetta, while not an issue for me, there are many users who really still miss it
g) Deletion of the installer after the install without any warning, there are some users who would like to burn it onto cd or a mem stick, because
4.3 gig takes ages to download for them

Re:Mid 2010 MBP 15" with Nvidia

[MemoryDragon]

I forgot
h) Mission control has dropped the ability to rearrange the spaces, you cannot move windows anymore from non active spaces to non active spaces, definitely a downgrade from the old spaces system
i) Launcher does not have a full text search (even the ipad launcher has), so using it is absolutely pointless once you have more than 10 programs.
j) Annoying auto correction, while the auto correction is fine for a tablet or a phone, on a real computer it really is just annoying, I instantly turned it off it is not funny if you type 10 times val in your ide and the osx auto correction corrects it to value without prewarning
k) Annoying window animations, I hated them on Linux i hate them even more on osx but you can at least turn them off and revert to the old way

Re:Mid 2010 MBP 15" with Nvidia

[beadfulthings]

Thanks for these two posts. After I got it installed night before last I did nothing much with it all day yesterday--family emergency--so the only thing I've run into is the annoying correction feature. Today's a full work day. I'll refer to your posts as a checklist.

cant you just update them?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the shipped drivers suck... you can download updates from Nvidia can't you?

GET A MAC

[Anonymous Coward]

oh wait...

History of this....

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck getting this addressed, my mid 2009 MBP can't use any SATA-II drives (even though it's a "supported" technology for this model) because of a broken EFI firmware update (1.7) and it's been almost 2 years since they released it without a fix. Apple hasn't released a supported way of rolling the firmware back so I could at least use my "supported" after market hard drive either (even at SATA 1.5 speeds, I'd be happy). Despite threads on apple's forums thousands of posts long with affected customers, Apple still hasn't addressed the problem...

Re:History of this....

[MrMatto]

Good luck getting this addressed, my mid 2009 MBP can't use any SATA-II drives (even though it's a "supported" technology for this model) because of a broken EFI firmware update (1.7) and it's been almost 2 years since they released it without a fix. Apple hasn't released a supported way of rolling the firmware back so I could at least use my "supported" after market hard drive either (even at SATA 1.5 speeds, I'd be happy). Despite threads on apple's forums thousands of posts long with affected customers, Apple still hasn't addressed the problem...

There exists small jumpers on many 3.5" & 2.5" SATA-II drives that will limit the transfer speeds to 150Mbps. You should see if the drive you are trying to install has that option.

Re:History of this....

[Troed]

I used the unsupported version of getting an older EFI back and haven't upgrade to 1.7 since. Works fine my my (Apply Service Center) replaced harddrive, since I got the infamous mid-2009 MBP SATA cable harddisk crash.

(The SATA cable apparently does other things as well, like keeping track of lid open/closed, and can become "faulty". Symptoms are like a disk crash)

Note: I THINK these are the same instructions I followed, but it would be best to research yourself.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=8416559&postcount=323

Possible starting point: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2267098?start=165&tstart=0

The really disturbing part of the story.

[grimmjeeper]

I've been using computers since the 70's. I've seen every major manufacturer have problems over the years. Despite protests to the contrary, Apple is not immune. This is not the first time they've had software issues. It won't be the last. It doesn't make them any different than any other computer supplier. That's just the way things go.

But software issues aren't the real problem. The real problem is right here:

Apple knew about the issue before shipping lion, hasn't responded to the issue, and is censoring posts in their support forum that mention words like 'boycott' and 'petition.'

Censoring technical discussions? Removing posts?

Seriously?

This is the kind of crap that really opens up Apple for criticism. Sure, it's a problem. But you deal with it by coming out and saying "we know we have a problem, we're going to fix it". Some people will rant and rave. Some people will take the initial problem as an excuse to boycott Apple products in the future. Most likely though, people who cry "boycott" will calm down in a few minutes and accept the software upgrade push to fix the problem. After all, consumers are quick to be incensed but they're easily mollified by good customer support. That is, until Apple goes and deletes their posts. That's exactly what you want to not do. Everyone is going to see you do it. You're going to generate tons of bad publicity by yourself and you're going to drive away customers who would have otherwise accepted the fix when it's available.

This is an incredibly bad move on the part of Apple. I can't understand why in the world they would do it. That is, unless the stereotypes are true about no one being allowed to criticize Apple. And if that's the case, it's no wonder they're never able to break out of their niche.

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[Americano]

After all, consumers are quick to be incensed but they're easily mollified by good customer support.

And with some of the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry, isn't it possible that perhaps Apple knows something about good customer support that you don't?

I don't know, maybe they've discovered that it's a bad idea to let your support forums turn into a whining trollfest full of threats of boycotts and lawsuits, related to an issue that has just been found, and might be a software, hardware, manufacturer or "user error" type of issue? I can't imagine how increasing the amount of unhelpful whining on customer support forums is a "good" thing for the general user base - it contributes nothing useful to help people troubleshoot, and it's just going to bog down the support forums.

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[Em Adespoton]

The real problem is right here:

Apple knew about the issue before shipping lion, hasn't responded to the issue, and is censoring posts in their support forum that mention words like 'boycott' and 'petition.'

Censoring technical discussions? Removing posts?

Seriously?

This is the kind of crap that really opens up Apple for criticism. Sure, it's a problem. But you deal with it by coming out and saying "we know we have a problem, we're going to fix it".

They are indeed censoring technical discussions, removing content that has nothing to do with the technical discussion. There are other places to post rants and complaints that are non-technical. Personally, I'd think this was a good thing, except for the fact that Apple's support forums have a dearth of technical discussion at the best of times. The result? MacFixit for the technical discussion, various other places for the rants, and Apple doesn't get the lively discussion and technical feedback on their own forums that they really need to improve things. Not sure how they can fix this though.

As for "you deal with it by coming out and saying 'we know we have a problem, we're going to fix it,'" that's exactly what the article says they've done. They're asking for any data customers can provide -- they're just not getting any; only rants and petitions.

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if somebody named "TeaCurran" says it, it must be credible, right? That's an awful lot of ire your displaying there, given that the only evidence of censorship is some pseudonymous statement.

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[grimmjeeper]

As for "you deal with it by coming out and saying 'we know we have a problem, we're going to fix it,'" that's exactly what the article says they've done. They're asking for any data customers can provide -- they're just not getting any; only rants and petitions.

Let me highlight the important parts.

Apple knew about the issue before shipping lion, hasn't responded to the issue, and is censoring posts in their support forum that mention words like 'boycott' and 'petition.'

They may be responding now. And there may be no small amount of hyperbole associated with this. After all, it's Apple and the haters are often more vocal than the fanbois. Nevertheless, a company who got on top of the issue in the first place wouldn't have these kinds of problems. The fact that people are yelling "boycott" in a technical forum suggests that Apple screwed the pooch on this one.

Sure, Apple has legions of dedicated fans who will brush this off as no big deal. Those people will read my post and lump me in with the haters. Claims have already been made about the loyal fan base meaning they didn't screw up their customer support on this issue. After all, if they have loyal fans they must be infallible when it comes to customer support, right? It's a blind support not uncommon with religious or political beliefs. "Never mind the facts, I've made up my mind." Naturally, the haters will latch on to this issue just as tenaciously as they always do when it comes to bashing Apple. It's yet one more example of Apple having problems, so it's anecdotal evidence in support of a foregone conclusion in their minds. And they will be as vocal or more than the fanbois. Around here, especially.

But, because this has to do with Apple, there's no objectivity. And, like so much going on in the world today, that lack of objectivity is really quite disturbing.

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[discord5]

censoring posts in their support forum that mention words like 'boycott' and 'petition.'

Censoring technical discussions? Removing posts?
Seriously?

It's a support forum, not 4chan. Calling for a boycot has nothing to do with technical support.

As much as I'd like to say "It just works" right now while basking in my PC glory, I personally think it's more productive for these couple of users to post crash reports and try to help Apple find a solution. Throwing a tantrum on a forum and yelling "boycott" (on their iPad2 preferably while listening to music from their iPod Touch) never got any results anyway.

Another storm in a glass of water...

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[grimmjeeper]

Here's a thought. You could keep your customer service forum from becoming a whining troll fest by, oh I don't know, responding to the problems quickly. It's a radical concept, I know. But it's a thought. . .

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[grimmjeeper]

People don't just randomly show up in a technical forum and start yelling "boycott". Apple dropped the ball by not responding in a timely manner. Then, when users started getting frustrated, Apple decided to compound the problem by deleting posts rather than trying to fix the problem they created for themselves. I don't know of a better example of how not to run your customer service department.

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[jo_ham]

To be fair you are quoting an article written about this issue from someone with some bias.

"Apple knew about the issue" [citation needed]

"hasn't responded to the issue" [demonstrably false - they are asking for feedback and crash logs].

The fact that people are screaming "boycott" in a technical forum is.... human nature. I saw it *all the time* in Blizzard's forums - especially back in the day when they had weekly server restarts and fortnightly maintenance that would take the servers down for a few hours, and even with update posts on restart times if they didn't come back up the *second* the estimate time was reached (along with the constant posts during the downtime) there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I have seen it in the PSN forums (I used to moderate them as a job in college many years ago), on the BBC iPlayer forums.. pretty much anywhere there is a place for people to vent, they will do so, and they'll all talk about how "unacceptable" it all is and how "I am boycotting!". Hell, we see it on slashdot every time video games get mentioned - a flurry of posts about boycotts due to DRM/removal of LAN play/TF2 hats etc.

Now, I'm sure there are problems but I find it hard to believe there wasn't extensive testing on all manner of hardware to try to iron out bugs. It's also why there was a dev release to help catch things like this that might not show on generic systems. I think people are expecting Apple to go "oh, silly us! we forgot to close a bracket in the driver code! All fixed!" and the fact that it hasn't been instantly cured is taken as a sign that they don't care. It's obviously quite a specific bug, since it doesn't affect all models of the same generation, but does seem to be limited to a specific model type .

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[MemoryDragon]

Actually it is not only criticism about faulty drivers, Apple also locks people out of the App store comment section if they post valid criticism regarding the auto save which causes problems for people and is not turn offable.
There are reports in the support forums that people were locked out of the comment section because they posted a thorough review showing the good things and the bad things. But even having a valid review in the app store seems to be too much for Apple.

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[MemoryDragon]

Apple never responds to problems quickly. If they respond it takes them usually half a year or a class action lawsuit. Sometimes they will never fix issues. The first Macbook Air generation had a serial fault of overheating hardware.
Apples response

a) First ignore the issue
b) Say it is not designed for serious use (well web surfing also caused the overheating)
c) Roll out a software fix which did not fix the issue but did something it introduced a kernel task which stalled the machine once it becomes too hot (which always happened)
d) Silently roll out a bugfix release half a year later
e) Leave your existing first generation customers hanging in the air once you have sacked in the 2500 USD the machines cost back then

If Apple ever deserved a class action lawsuit for one thing, than it is the first gen macbook air, unfortunately they never got one on their necks, while the support forums had threads with thousands of posts all about the same problem!

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you think two weeks is far too long to investigate complicated and most likely rarely-occurring technical issues that might not replicate easily or consistently. So they should have just...what? Pushed an update within 24 hours, fixing nothing, just to look like they're responding? When they don't even know if there exists a problem? When there's a possibility that some people reporting issues have machines that have been damaged?

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[digitalvendetta]

Have you ever observed the level of flaming done by arrogant fan boy's on Apple's support forums? Deleting the post's was at the discretion of the moderators, and I don't blame them one bit. The forums is for support, not conspiracy theories and bitching. With that being said, people pay a premium for Apple hardware because it is a CONTROLLED platform. I'm very disappointed to see this fall through the cracks of their QC department.

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[Em Adespoton]

jo_ham replied to most of this, but I'll just add a bit more:

But, because this has to do with Apple, there's no objectivity. And, like so much going on in the world today, that lack of objectivity is really quite disturbing.

I think if you look through history, you'll find that there has never been objectivity. Anyone who says there has been is trying to sell you something.

Re:The really disturbing part of the story.

[snowwrestler]

Posts calling for petitions and boycotts are, generally speaking, usually not technical discussions. Those are the only posts that are getting nuked.

I guess one could make a larger point about censorship in general, but c'mon--it's a tech support forum on Apple's own site. I am sympathetic to idea that maybe Apple doesn't think petitions and boycotts fall within the concept of "customer support."

Nvidia 320m equipped mini

[Pop69]

No problems here with Lion so if there is something up with Nvidia drivers its not affecting my machine

Lion, 2010 MBP, No Problems.

[aussersterne]

I've been running OSX Lion with the machine on 24/7 since release day on my 2010 unibody MBP and I've experienced no crashes whatsoever. Lion is a bit slower than Snow Leopard was for some UI tasks, but the new Mission Control task/desktop switcher more than makes up for any other inconvenience.

Biggest issue I had was that my LiveScribe Desktop wasn't working, but as of today that has been fixed, so now: no complaints whatsoever.

No Kernel Panics here... ???

[Anonymous Coward]

13" Mid-2010 MBP here... running Lion since dev builds... no kernel panics. I have however, gotten the slowdown issue... and other visual glitches (especially when scrolling)... my take: if you need rock-solid reliability, stick with Snow Leopard until 10.7.1 is out. Otherwise, if you can stand occasional oddness, and like to play with cool new things - sure give it a go.

And if you do get those kernel panics every 5 min, take it back to Apple and complain - either make them give you your $30 back and re-install Snow Leopard for you, or make them fix what I presume is an underlying hardware problem.

Let me thank

[Anonymous Coward]

all the early adopter of "OS X Lion" for beta testing the OS for me.

Apple is like religion

[Stonefish]

It's a bug, the vendor is behaving badly and attempting to control the media. What should be happening is
It's a bug, the vendor should be apologising and assisting users.
In short apple users you should be taking your money elsewhere where the vendor treats you with respect but ... apple is like religion....

Apple is like religion, if you criticise you're a heretic, where reality and marketing differ you must accept marketing and worst of all is the viewpoint that the rest of the world are deluded and need saving. Worst of all is that you can't bring yourself to objectively look at the problem, instead you justify the relationship using some past event.

Re:Apple is like religion

[517714]

Boycott is a strong threat. Why would any company let its forums be used for activities that are clearly not in its interests? Apple is not censoring posts requesting assistance in a civilized manner, the respect you speak of should flow in both directions.

BS story. All I see posted in comments

[aussersterne]

above is "2010 MBP here, with Lion, no problems" over and over again, including the same thing from myself.

Looks like the results of this straw poll are in, and they are that the story is BS and /. has been had once again.

Re:BS story. All I see posted in comments

[smudj]

maybe take a look at the apple forums link? First page, 10 users reporting the problem, not one.

Re:BS story. All I see posted in comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Because obviously /. users own %100 of all 2010 MBP's and all the supports forum posts about this issue are bogus. Give me a break.

Re:BS story. All I see posted in comments

[smash]

10 out of how many nvidia equipped lion machines in the wild?

Re:BS story. All I see posted in comments

[jo_ham]

But the story says "all 2010 MBPs", so even if 20 slash dotters post here that their 2010 MBPs are working, the story has been proven BS, not that slashdot owns 100% of all 2010 MBPs, which no one is suggesting at all.

Nice try, though. 4/10 for effort.

Faulty drivers or faulty chips?

[kbotc]

I haven't seen the kernel panics myself, but I have seen several 2010 MBPs come in with bad video cards. If you go to an Apple Authorized Reseller, not to an Apple Store, you may get to hear someone say "Yes, we know of the issue and will fix it for you." Apple Retail Stores are specifically told to never admit that there's a fundamental problem with an Apple design, even when there is (Like the old iBook's video card seating issue). I'm just assuming Lion's hitting the card a little bit harder and the hardware flaws are showing up finally. Do all the kernel panics say "NVRM[0/1:0:0]: Read Error 0x00000100: CFG" to start? If so, you better drag that computer in and force Apple to do something about it.

Censoring

[jaysones]

The link to "Apple censoring posts" leads to a 30 page discussion on Apple's site. They're terrible at censorship, apparently!

Re:Censoring

[geekoid]

Well, if you are good at it, you let people complain about it and only censor specific information. That way people whine about what censorship is instead of dealing with the missing information.

Re:Censoring

[kanto]

People with honest grievances seem to get their say, but trying to create some kind of boycott movement in a company's own forum... bleh. Anyway, chances of those guys being genuine and not some cat assing slashdotters would probably be slim to none.

I haven't noticed a problem either

[pathological liar]

I've seen SOME strange video behaviour since upgrading (usually when resizing a window) that I assumed was driver-related, but I haven't had any panics or lockups. Why do Mac users always blow issues like this way out of proportion?

Re:I haven't noticed a problem either

[Americano]

Take it for what it is: The systems generally work quite well, so when something goes wrong, people freak out and behave like it's the end of the world.

This is exacerbated by sites like Slashdot who love nothing more than to pump pageviews and revenue by getting a bunch of apple-hating and apple-loving trolls trolling each other, to the tune of hundreds of comments per article.

Re:I haven't noticed a problem either

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats what Mac users *do*. They spend $50 more to buy a computer and they think that entitles them to sleep in the White House for a month in the summer.

You're holding it wrong...

[PinchDuck]

Apple will release a video of Steve Jobs showing you how to hold the computer properly.

Re:You're holding it wrong...

[kanto]

Wonder if they've already considered an uptime multiplier as a critical update.

MacBook Pro - no issues

[certain death]

I am running Lion on a Macbook Pro, it is a mid 2010 model I believe, though I am not really anal enough to care. I upgraded it to Lion after about 3-4 months on the developers release and haven't had any issues at all. I also upgraded my 2009 iMac and my wife's 2008 white Macbook. The only issue with any of them has been changing the mouse scrolling back to _MY_ natural scrolling way!

Mac isn't the only one!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an HP desktop which is about 4 or 5 years old. It has nVidia GeForce 7100 onboard grapuics. A lot pf the big name Distros keep shipping their Linux Distros with that nueveau driver and all I get is a torn up tiled, pixelated screen! The 273 driver works fine. Apple isn't the only one with problems. The HP I have was sold by a lot of large retailers like Walmart, so there has to be a boat load of these out there.

Let's call this article what it is.

[Anonymous Coward]

FUD.

Or is that only something Linux users can do?

Re:Let's call this article what it is.

[yourmommycalled]

Yeah we know that linux is the only "real" OS and that it is completely open-source and that linux developers wrote their network drivers without help from anyone. Think OpenBSD

Censorship.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...How a major hardware manufacturer can ship such a faulty product without getting much press about it is completely beyond me."

Clearly you don't understand the point (goal) of censorship then, do you?

Something sounds fishy

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that mac's tend to use the same hardware etc... it would make sense that ALL systems would experience the same problems, or at least most if they're firmware/hardware revisions were the same. However I think their support departments don't provide people support at all. How about providing those people some help, like moving to a pc and running a real OS like linux mint :) I'm just waiting until people get tired, not of the company making mistakes, but rather not owning up to them like a real man. Any other company that makes mistakes, apologizes, tries to assist people, and restore their image rather than comb their hair back and say "I don't know what you're talking about". I can say I don't like mac, not because of their girly products but because the attitude they have towards their own customers, as if the customer isn't #1, or even #10. The way a person is practically reprimanded for wanting to be just a little different. I want to almost say it's hitler-like.

Late 2010 MacBook Air, with problems

[franciscohs]

I'm having problems on a late 2010 MacBook Air. I'm a new mac user, and have been very satisfied with hardware and OS (some things I don't like about OS X, but that's another story). I've updated to Lion mainly for the full disk encryption feature.

I've been having multiple crashes, in different forms. There are a lot more slow downs than with Snow Leopard (I basically didn't have any) and some of those slow down's turn into crashes or permanent unresponsiveness. Last one, safari suffered one of these slow downs upon opening a new tab, this disabled the menu bar, changing to another application enabled it and I could go to the "Force Quit" option (didn't know the shortcut yet), Force quit menu didn't appear, another application stopped responding, etc. Always the same cascading effect until the system is unusable.

I'm kind of pissed at this, specially considering how well the system worked before.

Re:Late 2010 MacBook Air, with problems

[ColdWetDog]

ProTip:

Reload Snow Leopard. Don't upgrade again until 10.7.3. NEVER pick up the first iteration of ANYTHING Apple. Let everyone else be the beta testers unless you enjoy that sort of thing.

how tied are Nvidia / ATI hands hands?

[Joe_Dragon]

Are there forced to use apple hardware vs there own test rigs?
Is the lack of good priced desktop tower makeing driver coding for fail under the windows / Linux side that has systems that start at $500-$700 that let you add in a good video card / use a PCI-E video card VS $2500 on the mac. In the past with G4 and G5 there where lot's of mac ATI and nvidia cards + card flashing.
Do they get new apple hardware before others?
Can they make chip family based drivers or does apple force them to code a driver for each small different spin of the chip.
Do they have the full OSX source or just what other dev's get?
Do they have to use apple roms? even if just for testing?
can they just use any EFI base roms? even if just for testing?
Can they use flat drivers like how the windows ATI / NVIDIA drivers are?

Of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

No other software ships with unintended bugs. Especially code as inherently complex as an a modern operating system.

Which is exactly the reason I tend to stick to the previous version when a new feline hits the streets until Apple kicks a couple of point releases out of the door. Users who want bleeding edge tend to, well, bleed from time to time.

Scrolling eats CPU cycles

[broknstrngz]

I noticed this last night. Whenever I scroll, the process owning the window suddenly jumps eats 50% of its core. I found a thread on macrumours.com about the very same symptom. Nvidia 330 GT. It's scrolling, for crying out loud. My Macbook is a 6,2 (don't remember when in 2010 it was released). It doesn't crash, but it doesn't work particularly smooth either. I don't know if it's related to my configuration or not, but the whole GUI crawls when I compile something large, even after making sure that the Nvidia card is always on.

Yep, seconded!

[King_TJ]

I am using a 2010 Macbook Pro 17" with Lion as we speak, and so far, no sign of any graphics driver issues? The kernel panics and black screens described sound pretty typical of an overheating video chip to me, and we've certainly seen it before with a defective batch of nVidia mobile GPUs across many product lines.

Did they release some defective GPUs again in the 2010 Macbook Pros, perhaps? Or maybe some of them just have too much heatsink paste applied, causing inefficient cooling? Lots of possibilities here, but as others have said -- this definitely is NOT a major issue that Lion users are running up against. This is the first I've heard of it despite combing Apple related forums on a daily basis.

Re:Yep, seconded!

[moderators_are_w*nke]

I'm pretty sure iFixit raised eyebrows about the application of thermal paste on this model. Maybe the lion drivers are a little less inclined to run fans and its catching up with them on the badly manufactured ones.

Maybe it is a heat issue?

[dohnut]

The same problem happened when people started upgrading their laptops to Windows Vista (and 7) and using the Aero interface. It put a much greater strain on the video cards and the increased heat pushed some people's systems over the edge and they started crashing. A lot of them were older laptops that likely had a lot of dust and grime built up in their system and fans that were starting to fail.

Is there something about Lion that would cause it to put a greater strain on the GPU during normal usage? I have a MacBook Pro from around that time but haven't bothered to update it to Lion since I don't really use it all that often anyway.

Re:Maybe it is a heat issue?

[geekoid]

citation?

And this isn't supposed to happen on a Mac where Apple controls what hardware goes into it.

AS opposed to Windows systems which can have all kinds of different cards in it.

Re:Maybe it is a heat issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the massive increase in video card related crashes with Vista and Windows 7 was due to the complete change in how video drivers were handled (moved out of the kernel from XP to mostly user mode in Vista/Win7) and how the video card was now used for rendering of the interface instead of being CPU rendered. THAT took NVIDIA almost a year to iron out the kinks (after retail release) and ATI slightly less time. Some older cards that didn't support the DX9.something didn't get support and failed back to classic which itself ran slow.

Nothing really to do with "strain" since even low end cards that supported the render pathways could do the interface fairly well.

Re:Maybe it is a heat issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Th exact same problems happen under Linux too, as long as there has been a Linux version of the driver. Either Nvidia just doesn't know how to make a driver or it is a heat/power issue.

Wi-Fi ain't so hot either

[Shivetya]

Far too many report problems when the Mac wakes from sleep where it either does not reconnect to the WiFi it knows about or connects for only a short while and loses connection after. Fix is quite simple, turn the airport off and on but it is so annoying.

Re:Wi-Fi ain't so hot either

[Malc]

I've been noticing that with Snow Leopard with my 2007 MBP in the last month or two.

Re:Wi-Fi ain't so hot either

[Stratus311]

My iMac's wifi is definitely much slower now. My MacBook Pro (2011) has a random issue with wifi not when waking, but booting. Occasionally, it will not connect to an AP. If I turn off AirPort and try to turn it back on again, it won't turn back on. I have to restart for it to connect again.

Problem predates Lion?

[iksbob]

My '06 Mac Pro (with 7300GT and 8800GT cards, each driving one display) started acting up after the 10.6.8 update. It would start up and run fine, but performance would drag down after an hour or so, accompanied by various graphical and refresh glitches. After poking around a bit, I found that an error message regarding the NVidia driver was getting written to the system log file every time something on the 7300GT's portion of the desktop was updated. If anything animated was put on that display, the system would grind to a halt and pinwheel.
My solution was to move both displays to the 8800 and remove the 7300 from the system. While it's possible the card itself failed during or shortly after the 10.6.8 update, I suspect Apple pushed a driver update with 10.6.8 to make sure it worked properly before the big jump to Lion (10.7). This suspected update is less than stable on the 7300's 5 year old graphics architecture. Maybe they dropped the 7300 off their list of compatible hardware, or maybe they rushed the update and didn't take the time to fully test it. If the latter, the MacBook problem could be another hardware combination they missed.

Mac users

[geekoid]

how easy is it for the user to fix thins? can a user go to nvidia and simply download a different driver? or does it all have to move through Apples hands?

Re:Mac users

[Anonymous Coward]

nvidia sells chips to Apple. Apple writes the drivers and releases them - nvidia don't have them.

Re:Mac users

[bluspacecow]

Spoke to one of the Blizzard mac programmers at Blizzcon 2010. All graphics card driver code sits on the Open GL framework. For a new driver version to work the framework underneath needs to be rewritten to accommodate it. So no they can't it's all up to Apple.

I'm baffled too

[Eric Green]

I am posting this from a mid-2010 MBP running Mac OS Lion. Been stable as a rock. Certainly no kernel panics. Everything Just Works(tm), just the way it is supposed to. I *did* take the precaution of re-installing from scratch -- my MacOS install dated all the way back to Tiger (been updated every year or two as new MacOS versions come out or I get a new Mac), and was starting to get a bit unstable due to accumulated cruft. Gave me an excuse to upgrade to that new 7200 rpm 750gb hard drive anyhow :).

faulty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on, everything ships with faulty nvidia drivers--everything. A non-faulty driver for nvidia does not exist.

I'm seeing a new video issue...

[jmactacular]

since installing the 2 software updates Apple released to prep Snow Leopard before installing Lion. My VMWare Fusion freezes, and spits out an exception with log detail about video. So I've held off on Lion.

I have the Mid-2010 MBP with Nvidia.

Can you say "ATI X1600"?

[droptop]

-Rant Warning- Try talking to someone who has owned a late 2006 Apple product with the ATI X1600 video card how happy they are with Apple service. My iMac 5.1 has been dying a slow death for about two years now, and I've a few friends with MacBook Pro with the same freezing and screen artifact issues I've been getting on my 20" iMac. This was first all in one machine I've ever bought (not counting laptops and PowerBooks) and I'm kicking myself because the video card is soldered in place on this over heating piece of acrylic. As a point of reference I've got a PowerMac 8600 and a G4/400 AGP that run great still - And my old Zeos 486/66 DX2 with the Pentium OverDrive chip and 2MB VESA graphics still runs like new... Along with a few SGI O2's, a SparkStation 5, a PowerBook 170 and on-and-on.... Drives are expected to wear out, but I've never really had a computer screw up like this iMac at only two years old. -End Rant-

Re:Can you say "ATI X1600"?

[MemoryDragon]

You obviously never had a first gen macbook air, they were even worse than what you describe here :-)
I am healed now, if I buy apple I usually wait 2-3 months into the lifecycle of the product and then visit the support forums and ask around.
If there is a huge problem then usually you will see endless threads in the support forums about it, like you could do with the heating problems in the first gen macbook air, or now with versioning+autosave and the gray icons in lion.

Re:Can you say "ATI X1600"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love people that bring up their old junk like its somehow relevent. If your old junk were still worthwhile you wouldn't have bought that iMac Late 2006.

The alternative ?

[gearloos]

Well, I hate it as much as the next guy but it really comes down to this. Windows boxes get all the fun of Virus, Malware, Bugs (yes I run Win 7 at work and yes it has bugs). Mac users get this and the everpresent wall around everything they want to do. Lets not forget about price. Macs are way over the average price of comparable PC Hardware. Software from my experience is about on par for most things. Aperture, photoshop, office, etc... Linux has the fun of trying to learn the interface and a lot of commands. I have lots, and lots of experience with all three btw. So, what you gonna do ?

It's a problem for older MacBooks too...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I try to run my Unibody MacBook with 8 Gigs of RAM, the video drivers cause a kernel panic every time I watch video or do anything with OpenGL graphics. I had to go back down to 6 Gigs for the sake of stability. But I'd really like to be able to run 8 Gigs, so I hope they update the driver and think about those of us who bought MacBooks in 2009. :(

Just fine here

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting this on a 15" MBP with a Nvidia GeForce GT 330M I purchased in Sept 2010. Been running Lion since launch day. No issues.

Not me, nope.

[jht]

I've got a Mid 2010 i7 15" MBP, 8GB RAM and an SSD. It's got a NVIDIA GT330M card in it, and I've been running Lion full-time since the GM seed was put out on 7/1. I've also used all the DPs from another boot drive I have in it (I took out the DVD drive and installed a smaller SSD). Lion has had some issues, but never a graphics-related lockup. That's both using the built-in display and also connected to a LED Cinema Display. No graphics issues at all.

In fact, the only problems I've really had were that Pogoplug's software doesn't work, my older copy of PDFpen Pro crashes, and the Cinema Display now makes a "popping" noise the moment it initializes when I hotplug it (that wasn't the case on Snow Leopard). Otherwise Lion's easily the most solid 1.0 release I've ever used.

No issues here

[Pengo]

Lots of posts, but just checking in.

2010 macbook pro running Lion and haven't seen this happen once.

Re:No issues here

[wesleyjconnor]

Therefore, the rest of the world is wrong?
What would you say.....you do here?

Not exactly

[brainchill]

So I have a mid2010 macbook pro and I've been running lion since preview 2 and have never experienced a kernel panic ......

Flame On!

[wesleyjconnor]

Start your engines, flick your lighters and douse petrol, here we go!

Derp

[thatkid_2002]

We don't need to test our software on our limited range of software.

3GHz iMac kernel panic

[RandCraw]

I loaded Lion about 5 days ago on my 3 GHz dual core iMac (with Nvidia card) and after a total of maybe 24 hours of use, tonight it generated a kernel panic, overwrote the screen with the console message, and froze up.

I strongly suspect Lion's Nvidia driver problem covers more than just MacBooks.

storm in a tea cup

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny as yesterday, instead of upgrading to Lion, I humiliate ;-) myself to install Xubuntu 64 1104.
It has been a year waiting, after hardisk failure, but results are impressive, I hope to ditch macosx asap. linux native is better than virtualbox.
Don't want to pay for Micro$ tax, end up macosx, its os is a pain but their hardware is fantastic.
I'm thrilled to go around with my PowerLinux desktop.

Do not get stuck with AppStore, choice are there, pick the one which fits you!

Cant affect everyone...

[Bert64]

I have a mid 2010 macbook pro, it has the nvidia graphics and is running lion... It doesn't crash every 5 minutes, and has been up since the time i actually installed lion about 5 days ago.

Your assuming Jobs

[Shivetya]

didn't influence those decisions to yank all those products. He seems to be pushing the company more towards the end user across all of their product lines.

As to whom he expects to make the content and with what tools I am not so sure.

2009 Macbook and 2010 Mac Mini

[pcgfx805]

Both my 2009 Macbook and 2010 Mac Mini have graphical glitches since "updating". Dragging icons to different windows causes static to appear for a split second over the destination window. Strangely enough the Macbook has an NVidia card whilst the Mini has an integrated Intel one.

Air madness Lion

[Anonymous Coward]

I updated to Lion on my 13" last model hi end Air, it's been a mess. Slows things down and every once in a while it could take up to 10 seconds to zoom a window. It was working fine before. I just bought the 11" Air and no trouble so far with Lion. I may need to clean install the 13" instead of upgrade. I feel like I have Microsoft on my machines. Apple has a very limited hardware configuration compared to what MIcrosoft has to deal with, how can they screw this up?

Oh yes, and when I bought the 13" Air last year and performed a "migration assistant" from my old Air to my new Air, it blue screened and bricked the old Air. It's been that way for a year because I don't have time to mess with it. It's a really nice paperweight.

Office Compatiability

[Anonymous Coward]

I've found Office 2011 for Mac to be far less stable on Lion. There is a bug somewhere in cut-and-paste that crashes the applications every third time or so and other times when trying to cut and paste, "insufficient memory"

Lion also alphabetized the contents on my desktop and Preview feels slower. I regret upgrading.

Still running Lion?

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys still running Lion? I just upgrade back to Snow Leopard.

I have exactly this problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an early 2010 MBP 15" i5 with 8GB of RAM, but I've been having these video issues with nVidia drivers crashing now and then even before Lion, but with lion it is impossible for me to use nVidia gfx at all. I have to manually force it to intel graphics in order to not get a KP every few minutes. So please don't say there are no problems. And I know I'm not the only one.

Fix? Upgrade driver or disable desktop effects

[udoschuermann]

nVidia announced a new driver (I think just this past June 2011) that addressed issues of a similar sort that I experienced under Linux with KDE4 and desktop effects enabled: Mysterious freezes, starting at a few seconds and working their way up to 30 to 45 seconds if I was patient enough. This was with the 270.41.06 driver.

I cannot say whether the issues are related, but but given that they affect KDE4 but not GNOME, I suspect that there could be specific ways in which both OS/X and KDE4, but not GNOME, interact with the driver to trigger the bug.

In any case, two possible solutions to look into are (1) upgrade the driver, or (2) disable desktop effects.

No excuse for bad drivers...

[Douglas Goodall]

It is one thing for a company like Microsoft to ship bad drivers, when the plethora of machine configurations they support is unimaginable. Apple on the other hand has a relatively small number of target configurations. In this case, only the Intel based machines they have shipped. And while there are dozens to be sure, Apple has the money to create a QA lab with one (or more) over every machine configuration ever shipped. I have the original 8-core 3.0GHz Xeon Mac Pro, which only has two non-Quadra video options. About two years back I upgraded to the more desirable card. Ever since I have been having intermittent trouble with my system. It has DVI out the back, which I convert with an adapter to PC-VGA and send off to my 42" Hi-def monitor (TV) at 1920x1080. Now and then when I reboot the system, it display a dialog saying the video mode is unsupported, and comes up at a lower (and distorted) resolution. Sometimes if I go into the system configuration and do the "detect" option, it realizes the better mode and things get better. Since I upgraded to Lion, it has a new and dreadful problem that it either works, or it comes up with a small band at the top of colorful multi-colored speckles, and the lower majority of the screen is filled with binding garish bands of primary colors, and the machine never achieves a stable video mode, although I can ssh into the machine from elsewhere, so it is making it into a higher run level, even though the screen is useless. Having no access to the screen, it is hard to reconfigure or diagnose the problem. As there is no convenient downgrade procedure for the OS, I am left with a very painful resolution of shelling into the machine and doing my best to save all important data, and ultimately reload the earlier OS. That will be hugely painful as I have to reload a significant number of software packages, some of which were installed on line. Running my Mac Pro in 1920x1080 with their supported video adapter and having it fail is unsatisfactory, and my applecare expired recently without an option to renew. However this gets fixed, it is a lot of trouble, and may in fact cost me a lot of money to resolve. COME ON APPLE ;-|

Mid 2010 13" MBP w/Lion...

[Douglas Goodall]

My MBP was upgraded when Lion released. I have seen a handful of annoyances. I have an external monitor attached via the mini display port adapter, and I have considerable trouble dragging a window to the upper screen. Sometimes it just works, and sometimes I have to take it to the upper right corner and it slips through. I have also seen A LOT of SPINNING BALLS that last many seconds or MINUTES. This is new since LION and is very disheartening. According to resource monitors I have plenty of memory available and it is unclear what the resource issue is. I also have had problems where the machine won't come out of sleep, and needs to be hard reset and rebooted, which I have to do, and have not previously needed to do an my mbp. Living on a fixed income I am not in a position to replace my Mac hardware needlessly. On the other hand, my Mac Pro, although several years old, is a 3GHz Xeon machine with 8-cores and 16-GB of ram (although some days it reports as 14GB). I should think my MacPro still has the legs to run Apple's contemporary operating system, and although I can no longer by Apple Care (it's been three years), I shouldn't need to replace a mac of that class already.

ATI

[Anonymous Coward]

The freezing problem is big on iMac 2010 and 2011 machines with ATI graphics. After coming out of sleep mode, and trying to play any GPU accelerated video decompression (IE: Flash or Quicktime H.264) the system will freeze. You can move the mouse, sometimes still hear the audio, but you can click on anything, the screen is frozen. The only solution is to hard reset the machine. I've been on top of this issue from day one, on the Apple discussion forums, and I was able to get TUAW and 9to5Mac to publish articles about it. Most people can't believe Apple is simply ignoring it. I called AppleCare and had to go through all those hoops to prove it's a driver issue in Lion, it was supposed to get elevated to an engineer, and they simply won't call me back. No word, no update, no patch. Thanks Apple. -Former Loyal Customer Since 2006

Mine is fine

[Anonymous Coward]

I have one of these MacBooks, use it heavily for 12 hours a day since I purchased it within days of their arrival as anew model, I've had no problems before and no problems since Lion (installed on the day of release).