Freeze / Lockups (17" MacBook Pro Late 2011)

Br4d

Br4d

Br4d

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Hello,

I've got a 17" Macbook Pro (Late 2011 Model - 2.4Ghz i7, 4GB Ram, 750GB HDD)

I Recently put a Vertex 3 120GB in the laptop in the main hard drive bay. (Replaced the 750GB HDD)

Re installed Lion using the internet recovery and it seemed pretty fine. Anyway now i get lockups every week or so. Practically happens the same every time. After turning it on (it will happen within the first 5 minutes)it will locking up for 45 seconds. Logs report nothing wrong.

Ive been told to let the Clock show seconds to see if its a system hang? instead of software. and sometimes the clock stops and other times it doesn't but whatever happens to the clock after 45 seconds the computer will resume and will not need a hard reset...

Any ideas?
 
Br4d said:
No i haven't. Wasn't sure if this was needed? Heard some stories about it causing many problems?
Click to expand...

It does with some SSDs, similar to the problems you are describing so thought I'd check that.

Edit: I'm remembering now a while ago there were some issues with SATA 3 drives in 17inch MBP's maybe have a google around re the SATA cable.
 
Deku said:
It does with some SSDs, similar to the problems you are describing so thought I'd check that.

Edit: I'm remembering now a while ago there were some issues with SATA 3 drives in 17inch MBP's maybe have a google around re the SATA cable.
Click to expand...


Great :(

Is it worth Re-installing OS-X Lion? or not really? The Computer is stable other than that and no real performance issues that I've noticed...

Edit: I Looked at something to do with that too. But surely that wouldnt cause freezing? the Macbook reports the drive is running at 6GB/s but benchmarks show i get about 150MB/s Write and 400MB/s Read. which is low considering its a Vertex 3 120GB. (Its got the latest Firmware too)
 
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Double check that you have ALL of the firmware updates for your system. Back at my old place if you installed an SSD in those it wouldnt even take the OS for the most part. To get around it you had to leave the original drive in, update the lot then install the SSD and put the OS on it.
 
dav3evans said:
Double check that you have ALL of the firmware updates for your system. Back at my old place if you installed an SSD in those it wouldnt even take the OS for the most part. To get around it you had to leave the original drive in, update the lot then install the SSD and put the OS on it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.

At the time of installation of the SSD the Firmware was 100% up to date.
Another thing ive noticed is it hasnt froze in Windows (Bootcamp) at all? But does in OS X?

Plus today it hung on shutdown. Normally the grey screen comes up for like less than a second. today it sat there for 30+ seconds? :S
 
If it's doing it there and never in BOOTCAMP I'd lay waste to the OSX partition and start again. Could be something up with the install. Also only go up to 10.7.2. There were meant to be issues with 10.7.3 that they fixed...but I haven't risked it yet =]

On top of that as well. If you are going to do it I would recommend you save all your shiz and zero the entire drive before you reinstall again, just to make sure nothing remains of the old file system.
 
dav3evans said:
If it's doing it there and never in BOOTCAMP I'd lay waste to the OSX partition and start again. Could be something up with the install. Also only go up to 10.7.2. There were meant to be issues with 10.7.3 that they fixed...but I haven't risked it yet =]

On top of that as well. If you are going to do it I would recommend you save all your shiz and zero the entire drive before you reinstall again, just to make sure nothing remains of the old file system.
Click to expand...

I Know you can 'Secure Erase' on windows with the OCZ Toolbox, so ill have to remove the SSD, Plug it into a PC Running Windows and Secure erase the drive, Long winded :( Unless theres a shortcut? as i don't really want to open my Macbook up again!
 
Boot to the recovery partition using cmd + R and you'll be able to go to disk utility from there.

If you click on the drive (not the mac hd or osx volumes) the go to the erase tab you can rename it and change te partition map.

Leave it a mac os extended journals and click the options button. Choose zero out data, click ok, click erase, confirm you wanna do it, then go stick te kettle on =]
 
dav3evans said:
Boot to the recovery partition using cmd + R and you'll be able to go to disk utility from there.

If you click on the drive (not the mac hd or osx volumes) the go to the erase tab you can rename it and change te partition map.

Leave it a mac os extended journals and click the options button. Choose zero out data, click ok, click erase, confirm you wanna do it, then go stick te kettle on =]
Click to expand...

Isnt that bad for the SSD? Cause of the amount of data its writing?

Wouldnt it be better to take it out and just run a Secure Erase? Takes about 3 seconds on Windows :P
 
Your choice, if it takes 3 seconds it won't write in the same way, sounds like its just a plain erase. That's my recommendation for osx and it won't ruin anything. Sup to you squire!
 
i'll give it a go soon, and let you know what happens :P Hopefully i get it sorted! :D

Thanks for your help mate, Been more than helpful!
 
I know this thread is a bit old, but in the hopes you see/read this, have you checked that it isn't set to spin the drive down? If it isn't, try ticking it, closing Sys Prefs, then re-opening Prefs and unticking straight after.

Simple but often overlooked by the best of us!
 
When i first put the SSD in i turned that option off and left it off. The other day i enabled it again ('Let OSX Put the Drive to sleep' or whatever it says :P) and since then it hasnt hung once! But lets see how it goes, its only been just under a week...

Thanks for the help guys :)
 
Hmm, that's surprising to be honest, it is known to make the problem worse. That said, if some of the settings in Lion have been known not to stick the first time round, so you might have to turn them on and off again.

That said, if it works, it works! :)
 
True story! Nice to know that sometimes the really simple no-hassle fixes do the job.

I feel like the PRAM reset should get a reward everytime it actually manages to fix a problem with a Mac!
 
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