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Bug OS X Upgrades Apple

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."
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OS X Lion Ships With Faulty NVidia Drivers

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  • Again (Score:5, Informative)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @04:36PM (#36991096) Journal

    This isn't the first time this has happened.

    • by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      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-e
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by 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

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • 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 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by macs4all ( 973270 ) on Friday August 05, 2011 @01:59AM (#36994458)

        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...

        • 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

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        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 th

    • Re:Again (Score:5, Informative)

      by GizmoToy ( 450886 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @07:32PM (#36992724) Homepage

      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.

      • by tyrione ( 134248 )

        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.

        • 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).

          • 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.

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

        • 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 (Score:4, Insightful)

        by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @10:24PM (#36993676) Journal
        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...
        • My post showed pretty clearly I understand, and I was simply conveying my story to illustrate it to others.

  • Does it now? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bonch ( 38532 ) * on Thursday August 04, 2011 @04:39PM (#36991140)

    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? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by myurr ( 468709 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @04:43PM (#36991176)

      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? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bonch ( 38532 ) * on Thursday August 04, 2011 @04:49PM (#36991290)

        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.

        • by geekoid ( 135745 )

          Seven! is it seven customer?

      • 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? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by d3vi1 ( 710592 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @05:24PM (#36991678)
        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: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by walternate ( 2210674 )

      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: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by sco08y ( 615665 )

      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 si

      • by ColdWetDog ( 752185 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @05:51PM (#36991906) Homepage

        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.

      • by geekoid ( 135745 )

        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.

    • 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.

    • 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?

      • 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.

    • by Ossifer ( 703813 )

      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...

    • 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 cod

    • 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 possibilitie

      • 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.

    • 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 :).

    • 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...

  • by polaris20 ( 893532 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @04:49PM (#36991274)
    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.
    • 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.

      • 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.
  • These are not the faulty drivers you're looking for.
  • Falsehood (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ArAgost ( 853804 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @04:54PM (#36991330) Homepage

    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?

  • 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.

    • by rsborg ( 111459 )

      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.

  • by grimmjeeper ( 2301232 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @05:04PM (#36991442) Homepage

    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.

    • by Americano ( 920576 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @05:35PM (#36991770)

      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: (Score:3, Informative)

      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 th

      • 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

        • by jo_ham ( 604554 ) <joham999@gmail.cTIGERom minus cat> on Thursday August 04, 2011 @08:26PM (#36993076)

          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 .

    • 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...

      • 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.

  • 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.

  • by jaysones ( 138378 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @05:11PM (#36991548)
    The link to "Apple censoring posts" leads to a 30 page discussion on Apple's site. They're terrible at censorship, apparently!
    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      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.

      • by kanto ( 1851816 )
        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.
  • by PinchDuck ( 199974 ) on Thursday August 04, 2011 @05:16PM (#36991592)

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

  • 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 h

    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      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.

  • 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.

    • by Malc ( 1751 )

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

  • 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

  • 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?

  • -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
  • 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 Pog

  • Lots of posts, but just checking in.

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

  • 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.

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