More of this Macbookpro crashing thing..

The driver issues with the nVidia 8600GT that is causing so many crashes seems to be understood by Apple and nVidia. But my MBP crashes frequently and it is an early MBP with ATI X1600 graphics. Does anyone know what is up with crashes on ATI gfx MacBook Pros? I'm thinking of replacing my thermal paste.

I also have an early MBP with the same graphics card. Lately I have had constant hard restarts at least once every 90 minutes. I am at a loss at why it has suddenly started doing this other then the last upgrade for sl caused all this. If anyone knows of any reason for this issue please let us know! My computer is dieing here I think.

Scar

The solution is to install Vista in your Bootcamp partition. Then it works fine, no crashes, runs smooth as butter -- and you can even force anti-aliasing turned on in the NVIDIA Control Panel.

I also found Vista to be faster at web browsing than Mac OS X, marginally.

G.E.

Here's a thread about it on MacNN forums:
http://forums.macnn.com/69/macbook-pro-and-powerbook/346958/vista-runs-faster-more-stable-macbook/#post3471106

I just got my MBP 2.4 with 8600 M GT graphics back form Apple Care, THEY insisted in replacing the logic board and graphics chip set saying it would help the driver problem, BY the way the Apple Rep did go to the SL Jira site and the WOW support site to read up on the problems, after which he kicked the issue up the the engineering dept, after a week the Rep got back to me saying the YES THERE IS A DRIVER PROBLEM but replacing my logic board and graphics set will help, Well it didn't help, same problems as before. YES the jira workaround does stop the crashing and the memory leak but at a cost, it is an extra step to start up the viewer and the graphics are not as good as using the native drivers. Oh well, we can hope for 10.5 to save the day. Not holding my breath!

Hey, Mu, thanks for the update. I think I'll put my MacBook Pro purchase off for a little bit longer, until it's safe!

((I've gotta tell ya, as a former Mac owner and a forced-into-it-by-work Windows user, that I find it really scary that SL runs better on a Mac if you use Vista instead of the native OS!))

I'll be patient.

It's not because the OS isn't as good as we all know it to be ... it's because the SL browser isn't a proper Mac programme ... it's like a port ... all the key commands wrong, wrong feel, file dl twice the size etc. If they'd only written it in Cocoa ...

yup...brand new 2.2 MPB here, and I have all the crashes everyone talks about. My Quad G5 tower seems to work ok, for the most part tho...but...the MBP is SUPPOSED to be a much better machine.

sure wish LL would also dive into better Mac programing...and, I'll just keep waiting for an update..wonder if it will happen BEFORE Leopard hits next week...

Hi there,

I have the 2.0 Ghz MBP with 1.5 Gig RAM and the Radeon X1600 video card. I am on a high speed cable modem connection and running an external 19" Samsung monitor and wireless Keyboard and mouse.

I was really excited when I first came across SL but have had increasing problems with it.

Multliple hard crashes each day. Sometimes I am just in the connect window adjusting preferences before logging in and both screens go completely black. Or I will log in and within minutes...(or less) have a hard crash with everything frozen or no response to force quit.

It has reached the point where I am crashing hard 15-20 times a day and I am almost ready to call it quits. I am honestly worried about the hard drive being damaged with these multiple hard restarts.

Some people have referred to firmware that can be downloaded - I am wondering which firmware you are referring to.

I also heard about the Nicholaz patch (http://radio-boomslang.shacknet.nu/~bb/articles/nicholaz-edition-mac/) but am not sure if that will help.

Why can't a high end laptop like the MacBook Pro handle SL ?
I have been considering buying the new iMac so I have the option of running in Bootcamp on Windows but hate to have to go to such an extreme.

Does anybody have any suggestions at all ?
I thought it might be my computer that was screwing up (i.e. with the striped lines on the external monitor at times - the entire screen is just vertical colored lines) but this only seems to happen in SL. When using other apps, it has never happened.

Thanks for any suggestions you can offer,

Kei

Hi,

I have this card too. I have now elevated the MacBook pro off the desktop and it seems to be helping keeping it cool but SL is definitely processor heavy.

I joined the Mac discussion group in SL and was advised of the Nicholaz patch. I guess it is a different viewer but somehow manages to reduce the crashes.

I am praying this helps as I have tried everything else (even erasing my gd hard drive and re-installing thinking it might be a faulty driver that was causing the crashes). It still crashes - even with adjusting all the preferences, emptying the cache obsessively with every log in etc etc. I am at wits end.

If the Nicholaz patch doesn't work, I think I'm going to have to give up for awhile until I can buy a new computer and maybe run in Windows or something (too devastating to even consider right now !).

I guess we just need a full Universal version of SL vs a port.

For the latest on the MBP 8600 driver issues ( and does Leopard cure it?) go to:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1978[URL]see the latest Sl posts and refer to the WOW posts for info on Leopard beta and the SL wiki driver workaround.

Just an positive word on the issue, the beta that is being discussed probably has been out for at least a month and may be what is being shipped on the 26th, so Apple MAY already have updates ready for it when you install. I will let you know on Friday when my copy is scheduled to arrive.

I've been using the Leopard 10.5 beta and while it seems to fix the memory leak issue, it instantly crashes if you turn on some of the graphics features. Can't remember which -- I think it was Shiny, or Vertex Objects. Or both.

But basically, still, there's no anti-aliasing available like there is under Vista (via the NVIDIA Control Panel). However I also get crashes in Vista (blue screen of death is pretty common).

Personally I think there is something wrong with Apple's hardware, and no amount of driver updates will fix it. I've had more crashes with this computer in 4 months than with all of my previous Macs from 1984-2007 combined. I also get weird lock-ups where the MacBook Pro's built-in USB keyboard and trackpad stop working randomly. The spacebar has annoyingly squeaked since Day 1. There are discolorations along the bottom edge of the LCD, even AFTER I had the LCD replaced by Apple for that same problem (the replacement had the same issue).

So I think these machines are just pieces of junk that are made in China. Which they are. I'm highly contemplating selling it and switching to PC and buying a Sony VAIO or something.

odd your having problems with that. The big "problem" with Macbook Pros are driver issues with the Geforce 8600, which you do not have. My Macbook Pro with a Radeon X1600 runs fantastic, rarely ever have any problem let alone a crash, staying connected for many hours at a time.

I see you are using a secondary monitor though. SL is reported to have problems on secondary monitors more ofthen than primaries. You might try running your MBP as a single monitor output to your external and see if it works better. If you have a USB keyboard and Mouse, as well as a monitor plugged in, you can run the MBP with the lid closed, with the external monitor running as the only monitor on the machine. If you dont want to do that, you can also make sure you are running SL on the primary monitor, the one with the menu bar at top. You can run either the built in or the external monitor as primary changing it in Display Preferences.

I used to crash every few minutes on the mac, both on my MacBook Pro and on my new imac -- often enough that I abandoned running on the mac and just played on the PC for a while. I eventually started running SL on the mac again, usually to run an alt to test something out -- and I noticed that the crashes weren't happening. Not until I logged in with another character. Then the frequent crashing started occurring again.

As an experiment, I started deleting the entire Second Life folder from the Application Support directory (or renaming them) when I wanted to switch to run a different character on the same machine. And when I started doing that, the frequent crashing ceased.

For those of you here that are hitting frequent crashes, and use multiple characters, give that a try and see how well your mileage goes.

bump

Thanks for pointing out we can vote on a problem. I'd never been logged in when looking at JIRA and hadn't realized I could vote on a bug to raise its priority.

I'm planning to get my own laptop in the next few weeks and had wanted an MBP, but have had so many probs running SL on my husband's MBP that I may have to go to ... gasp... a Windows-based machine just because of SL.

Thanks to the tips in this thread, I was able to play SL on my MBP yesterday with no more crashes than "usual" (i.e. on my old PowerBook)

So I:
- deleted the whole Second Life folder in Application Support.
- closed the MBP a couple of times when the cooling started to overreact (usually together with a drastic fall down of performance)
- had to hard reboot a couple of times when after I reopened it, the MBP didn't react anymore
- got 1 SL crash, which is reported to Apple
- tried to switch to fullscreen mode when overheating/fan noise started, but the low resolution I got then was awful. Maybe there is some room for experiments here.


I keep on dreaming of a fix that makes SL as smooth an experience as it should be...

(Why don't the Lindens use like Trolltech QT to write a viewer that's buildable on every platform? )

An easy band-aid for the problem for the time being is to go find one of the zillion FREE fan-speed controllers for macbook pros. I have one called SMCFanControl, and if I pump the fanspeed up to 6,000 RPMS when second life starts (automated in that software), I never crash, and my macbook pro does not overheat.

They don't use useful development software for the same reason they call "clients" "viewers".

I'm definitely gonna try this!
But does this suggest the problem is just an overheating issue? No weird memory leaks or whatsoever software bugs??

I'm sure there are other bugs on top that are partially causing the overheating issue---well, not bugs so much as the result of a straight port from windows to OS X. Next to nothing has been tweaked with OS X in mind, including thread management and graphics support. On the very same macbook pro under windows xp, I'm getting 30-50fps and absolutely no problems whatsoever, including overheating. This is a port issue, and LL needs to stop blaming everyone else for their inability to understand opengl and its implementation.