Users of mid-2010 MacBook Pros continue to experience frequent stalls/hangs, accompanied by the spinning beach ball progress indicator, under varying conditions (previously noted here). The problem appears to be hard drive-related, and occurs most frequently with the standard 320 GB 5400 RPM drive, but is also occurring with the 5400 500GB and 7200 500GB drives.
When this problem occurs, the hard drive becomes unresponsive for up to 30 seconds. During the stall, all applications will stall and or cease to properly function, but the mouse cursor can still be moved. CPU usage does not spike.
Initial reports implicated Seagate hard drives as culprits in this issue, although this no longer appears to be the case, as Hitachi hard drives are also exhibiting the issue, and many systems using Seagate hard drives are not.
As previously reported, traditional fixes, including re-installation of Mac OS X, resetting PRAM, turning hard drive sleep off, and diagnostics via the Apple Hardware Test and/or disk checking tools such as TechTool Deluxe have proven unsuccessful.
Boot from external hard drive. Several users have reported that they’ve been able to eliminate the constant freezes/hangs by booting from external USB or FireWire hard drives. Albeit not an ideal solution, this can provide a stopgap measure until a permanent fix is available.
Apple testing/replacing units. Meanwhile, some users report that Apple is replacing select units, in some cases even seeking out owners of improperly functioning machines and reclaiming their units for testing and replacement. Apple Discussions poster redwoodtree writes:
“Apple has asked to examine my laptop. I’ll be returning my laptop for them to examine. Sad to be without a computer, but it’s nice to be able to help the engineers fix it and they’re building and shipping the new machine as soon as my old one is scanned by Fed Ex. I received a new computer from Apple last week. I was disappointed to see it had a Seagate drive in it and that it was negotiating at 1.5 (500 GB, 7200rpm). However, it hasn’t frozen once, it’s running great and I couldn’t be happier.”
This issue happened to me, took the MBP i7 with 500gb 7200 rpm (seagate in to apple) they replaced the drive with another seagate, and in store the machine hung during the initial setup stages.
They said i needed to call apple care, but for me this was not an option as the new mbp was to replace my dead work laptop. So i purchased a new HD my self, a Hitachi HTS725050A9A364
For me this totally fixed my problem.
I know its not just seagate issues, but this fix worked and I am now very happy with the new i7 mbp 🙂
i’ll guess this is caused by some menulets wich try to fetch some data using the internet.
i’d never had that problem but after i started to use weather menu i received constantly the beachball. after killing this menulet (using process wizard) everything was fine again.
a bit later i used a tiny menulet to fetch some webmail accounts for new incoming emails and again i received the beachball.
so i think or maybe i guess that the beachball has something todo with not yet well coded menulets.
Same issue happened to me. I bought my mac here in Colombia last week(June 17th) and mine came with this issue. Everything was ok until I try to play my videos purchased in iTunes store and boom the beach ball appeared and stall my system. Today they received my laptop to replace my laptop. Too sad that apple are not testing units for quality purposes. Anyway have to wail ´til next wednesday.
Same here… JUST got my i5 MBP and it’s having some crazy beach-ball issues. Whenever I load up Firefox and Dreamweaver it takes up to 10 seconds to load. I’ll be taking my MBP into a Genius as soon as I hear that there is a fix. I had originally planned on upping the HDD to a 640Gb anyway, but this is kind of annoying… I’ve come to expect better from Apple. I’ve only owned everything they make (except Apple TV)!
Same here.. But for me if happens all the time. But not for a long period of time, maybe the most being 3 seconds… Drive me up the wall! I also have a mbp from last year 13 inch and it never hangs like this.. Now I got the faster i5 and it hangs all the time, scrolling down web pages, typing an email, it will stop, cursor vanishes, no new letters appear, and then about 1-3 seconds later, presto there is the letters I was typing when everything stopped… I plan to use this in live music performance, I cant be having this happen on stage.. At over 15 thousand watts, this problem will be hugely amplified when dealing with audio.. Now Im afraid to use it live. need more testing.. I haven’t heard of any fixes yet.. Im using WD hard drive 640gb.
Just took the MBP 17 inch down to the ‘genius bar’ and the man said he never heard of such problems, and I showed him this web page which he refused to look at and said we cant listen to anyone outside of apple. So he asked me to duplicate the problem, which I could not do right away. I told him its much worse when usb devices are connected, but he didnt have any.. So he did some things to put a load on the processor, still, everything worked fine up until we were getting ready to call it quits and then all of a sudden the youtube video that was playing in another window froze while he was closing the terminal window for about 3 seconds and then the video started again and played real fast to catch up to the current play position.. He didn’t say anything about it so I did. I said Hey thats it! thats the problem, and he said that was normal because we had a load on the cpu which was only about 40%, and then said I could leave it over night if I wanted, but they only have 15 mins at the genius bar.. I told him my mbp 13 intel duo never did that, I could tell by the look in his eyes, that he knew that I knew, he was feeding me a line of crap.. So I took a day off from work, drove all the way down to the mall, which I cant stand malls, walked at least a quarter mile from the parking lot to the store for this? So I guess I will try to erase everything and reinstall everything to see if that works.. Oh boy im so excited, might as well try to make something out of the rest of my day off.. 🙁
Well, Just spent all day, erasing, zero filling the hard drive, reinstalling snow lep with all the latest updates, and still same problem!$%$^%&*^$#!#@!#. I guess I will be contacting the bbb to report the jerk genius.
Here we are again.. I sent the MBP into some place called the depot.. Tech support called me and said they cant reproduce the problem, but they did find that the 3rd party hard drive was failing, and that would cause problems just like the ones I was having, and it would cost me 995.00 to fix it..
Of course I said just return it.. So I bought a new momentus xt from seagate, installed operating system, and surprise surprise, same problem.. This time, I didn’t bother installing anything before testing.. Good thing… So the seller sent me the original hard drive that I am installing the operating system right now, and am scheduled to take it back and drop it off AGAIN! I will report back the results.. I told the tech support people that this problem is all over the internet, and they claim to have no idea.. Again, this is temporary hangs, when I am typing, the text will stop flowing onto the screen for a couple of seconds or so, sometimes I get the spinning beach ball before the text all of a sudden appears with the cursor.. Also some new discoveries, sometimes I will adjust the screen brightness and the screen brightness will adjust, but the brightness window that shows how much of an adjustment is made, will sometimes show up a few seconds later, after the adjustment is finished.. This never happened on my mbp 13.. Sometimes I may get a very small hesitation of text flowing onto the screen, max maybe half a second, but not 2 to 3 seconds like the newer faster mbp 17 does.. Sometimes I click an icon in the applications folder, and nothing happens so I click two or three times before something happens..
I have the same problem. I have taken my mid2010 macbook pro i7 2.66mhz to Genius Bar in Australia/Chadstone.
I took it cause my screen needed replacing.
They did that, and couldnt get the hard-drive to mount! After 2 visits (yes 2, as the 1st one they said my laptop was ready and it was not) they finally got the drive replaced.
I got it back, I could hear a “click” with the drive every 30-90 seconds. And at this click, coloured disk came up and computer completely hung, for sometimes up to 3-4 seconds. Watching AVI files, the image would freeze, audio would stop, then audio would start again and video still frozen, would take 3 seconds to catch up. I took back to the store, they replaced the drive, again! And this time, no super hangs, but still some problems with iDisk being really slow, and still the odd hang time COLOURED WHEEL. And I too, have clicked on apps and sometimes they dont open. If it continues I will take it back for the 3rd time in 3 weeks.
Update.. I was going to take it in right away, but I installed the new seagate and the problem seemed to ease just a little and then all of a sudden back to the same problems again, so then I installed the original hitachi 5400 rpm hard drive and still same problem.. This time caught it on video just after the screen fills in, starts hanging right away, and then after a while it starts playing the video normal.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibtuRXWBvBQ.. Now that I have this on video, no longer can they play dumb with me.. Back to drop it off tomorrow in Tacoma, Washington, for another week without my computer..
Yes,I reset the pram and the command option shift and power button and that seemed to momentarily straighten out the seagate after I wrote the last time.. Too bad it was only temporary.. Now those same resets will only hold out for about 30 mins before the hang ups come back.. When it hangs, it reminds me of my cell phone..
Hay! Just checked updates tonight before reserving my drop off time tomorrow, and there is some FIRMWARE update for all 15 and 17 mid 2010’s! regarding STALLS! Im installing it now, sure hope this does it..
update! Firmware did NOT work! So tomorrow, I will be taking the mbp back in for warranty.. Three different hard drives with the same problem? I dont think so, or at least the odds are pretty much ridiculous.. I have never had this many problems with a laptop, and I have owned many of them over the years.. This is my second MBP.. My first was a 13 and worked great. Still does, but I gave it to my wife when I got the 17, and she is always up and running no problems still! and that one is the intel core duo.. Now I have the i5 which is suppose to be better… 🙁
HI all!
Im a owner of Macbook Pro 13 MID 2010 and mine has same problems
System freeze ,mouse blocked,keyboard light off,keyboard blocked,only power off by button.
It happens randomly with aplications or only in finder ,or once was at start up after login …
But i can work 3 days or more without problems,so for technical service will be difficult to see it.
Im a professional musician and i make my performances for a hundred of people with a laptop so i cant risk a set with this laptop no more…
Y tried to reinstall system,same problems…
I think is a hardware in 13 ,15 and 17 macbook pro 2010.
I will not accept a hard drive repair,i will request a new unit.
It only has 2 months……And as my job depends of a laptop, i need a new one.
Now im again working with my old Powerbook G4 (2002) and still goes perfect !!!!
Update again.. So I just picked up the mbp today and they said again that they cant find any problems.. So they did a clean system install.. So far video performance does seem to be better, but I still get hangs in other areas.. For example, I select applications folder and then select utilities and nothing happens and then all of a sudden, 2 to 4 seconds later, here comes the utilities window.. ? what? So straight back to the store I went to drop off the mbp for the 3rd time.. Even though we were able to duplicate the hang with the applications folder about 4 times. One of the times, he clicked the utilities folder and the window just closed, and he said “oh, did I do that right, maybe I should adjust my click” and of course, then it worked as it was supposed to… then he said it was normal and unless I can duplicate hangs in other areas in front of him, then there is nothing they are going to do.. Normally when I select the applications, and then utilities, I get an instant utilities window.. The genius desk dude could not explain why that has never happened on my mbp 13 intel duo, or any other computer I have ever owned.. These hangs are driving me out of my mind. I cant spend the hours to set everything up because its not fixed yet.. 3 weeks now.
Queensland, Australia
I have same problem with 13″ Macbook Pro. Purchased mid July 2010. Last week it started to freeze at least once a day, during minor work load. Currently busy running a looped hardware test (4 hours in and still no errors).
What else can I do?
Tech support does not look very hopeful or seem very helpful.
So this whole issue is interesting. I have the same problem with my Macbook 13 inch. It just stalls, but I figured out that mine is related to heat. I’m using SMC fan control that keeps my fans running fast all the time. This works fine until I go work outside or just play a video for too long, like a movie or TV show. As best I can tell my computer stalls if the temp goes above 60 Celsius. Let me know your thoughts. Genius Bar won’t help. They said I have to send it off to the Depot and they will fix any issues for a flat price.
Having the same issues with my MBP.
The only official support I found online is MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.9 at apple.com, but only for 15 and 17 inch models. Do you think it’ll work on my 13 inch, or is there a chance it’ll make things worse?
Dear all,
I am far from you but with same problems.
I live in Italy, I own(ed) a MBP 15″ that is still in the clinic, waiting for a cure…
I am almost desperate: Genius don’t help on the telephone, they treat me as an idiot even if I am a Mac user since 2001. Anyway, I wish this drama comes to an end, or I want my money back!!! I can’t work like that and I feel they are pulling my legs… Where’s Apple quality?
i have this issue with my 2009 c2duo 2.66Ghz 15″ mbpro. i just installed a momentus xt and i believe it to be the culprit. my hd firmware is version 23 which is supposed to stop the APM spindown, but i still have the problem.
i’m hoping for a version 24 from seagate or a firmware update from apple to resolve. i will probably swap the drive for another brand / non-hybrid in the near term.
I have this issue with a June 2010 MBP containing a 250 GB HDD @5400 RPM. I am running the latest update of 10.6 (Snow Leopard). The most common time this happens is when using Safari, Firefox, or Spotlight, or even just opening an application!
I am in Sydney and also have a stalled MBP May 2010. The hardware obviously has a problem so they need to fix it (i may get it back in 10 days) but my problem is with the attitude of the apple staff. They believe the press that the apple product is so good it does not break and they treat us like dummies and wont listen. The apple care phone support staff were great it was only when I got near an actual “genius” that the problem started. Customer service training is needed apple if you are listening.
I already provided this comment in another article, but this problem seems to be widespread, so I thought I’d drop my comments where I can.
Disabling the Sudden Motion Sensor fixed this for me. The freezing was becoming a huge problem, particularly when switching applications. Not sure why it was triggering, as I’m on a desk with external keyboard/mouse, but in any case, turning this sensor off using the Apple instructions returned my computer to normal.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1934?viewlocale=en_US
My MBP I5 2.53 was bought in Japan in august/2010 and I had the WHEEL PROBLEM,
I just change the original SEAGATE hard drive for a HITACHI 7200rpm. Problem solved.
My 13 inch MBP is Mid 2010 model and I am having the same freezing issues reported above…I have a SSD…so i am not sure if this is a HDD issue? My freezes seem to be related to overheating.
Yeah I am having this issue also with my mid-2010 Mac Book Pro. i5 Processor and 320GB HDD. However, I have put in my own Toshiba 5400rpm 1TB HDD, so it can’t be the hard-drive that is the problem.
I might take it to the apple store soon.
Hi guys, well a think the problem could be the EFI update to 1.7 and the solution of course (no apple provided) is to perform the downgrade to 1.6 as described in http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=8414998&posted=1#post8414998 for me this come down the problem but no at all eliminated. Could yo try the solution and post if the downgrade solves the problem…
same problem here.
however, i have a backup MBP 2.33 GHz which freezes frequently, sometimes 2-5 times a day. sometimes i got the spinning beach ball like some of you mentioned and sometimes the MBP freezes without warning and no obvious reason.
i monitored the cpu and gpu, also the heat and fan speed simultaneously while working and trying to figure out this annoying problem with iStat pro (widget) and there seams to be no reasonable explanation to this issue.
i also installed different HDD (120GB hitachi and 320GB seagate) with either leopard 10.5 and 10.6 + latest updates and still with the same result.
my apple vendor – gravis in germany does not acknowledge this issue and i tried two different shops in two cities.
hopeless!
Solution (for me) for freezing macbook pro while playing video/audio or using Finder. This occurred when I upgraded to a 640gb western digital drive. I tried turning spotlight off, tried pram reset, disabling sudden motion sensor, etc etc. None of that worked.
Solution: Downgrade EFI Firmware from 1.7 down to 1.6
Instructions found here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=8414998&postcount=305
Only reason I’m posting is because I went thru 2 drives, countless formats and fresh installs, and hours of reading the net and trying different things. Hope this helps. If you’re uncomfortable doing this yourself, I hear you can take it to apple and they’ll do it for you.
[B]I resolved my batch balls by disabling FileVault 2[/B] on my OWC SSD. All freezes have completely and instantly gone since then.
Did this work? Can you describe how to do this? Thanks
Exactly this problem is persisting on my machine. Mid 2010 MBP i7, Hitachi drive, OS X 10.6.8. Tried toggling sms and other power management settings, cache cleaning, etc. I’m going to get it looked at on Monday, but I thought I would post this here so people know it’s still “current”
I have this problem. My 2010 MBP had the logic board replaced for another problem where the screen just cuts to black randomly when using the discrete graphics card and the only option is to reboot (Apple had a 2 year warranty extension of that specific widespread problem).
Now I get these hard freezes even with the upgraded logic board (I checked the part number). I emailed an Apple store and the manager keeps saying he will call me back but he still hasn’t. It’s been 4 days. I don’t want to seem desperate and keep emailing, but it sucks that this problem is even less predictable and not covered under a warranty extension. I didn’t get Apple Care so all I have to rely on is the 90 days of warranty you get after a repair.
The mid-2010 macbook pro problems are not hdd related.
I am experiencing the very same problems after upgrading to Lion and I have an ssd fitted.
I have contacted Apple and there seems no solution for the issue.
They claim that it is a hardware problem and the warranty has expired, so don’t blame Apple but buy a new machine.
Frustrating!!!
Lance
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