OS X Lion Ships With Faulty NVidia Drivers 284
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."
Re:Does it now? (Score:3, Interesting)
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. [cbsnews.com]
Falsehood (Score:3, Interesting)
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:It's Apple, it just works, think different (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
The really disturbing part of the story. (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Does it now? (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Again (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)