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Apple issues MacBook Pro black-screen fix for Snow Leopard

Apple has released a video drivers update for Snow Leopard that addresses the black-screen bug for 2010 MacBook Pro systems.

Topher Kessler MacFixIt Editor
Topher, an avid Mac user for the past 15 years, has been a contributing author to MacFixIt since the spring of 2008. One of his passions is troubleshooting Mac problems and making the best use of Macs and Apple hardware at home and in the workplace.
Topher Kessler
2 min read

One ongoing problem that has been affecting users of the 15-inch mid-2010 MacBook Pro is a black-screen bug that appears regularly when the computer is performing tasks like waking from sleep and manipulating graphics. While this problem became more prominent once OS X Lion arrived, a number of people have reported encountering this in Snow Leopard as well.

The issue was acknowledged by Apple and users were assured a fix was in the works. Shortly thereafter Apple released a MacBook Pro video update that included new video drivers and an update to the OpenCL framework in OS X. This update brought mixed results, but did correct the problem for many systems.

The initial update Apple released to address this problem was only for OS X Lion, although, again, the issue had also occurred for systems still running Snow Leopard. Today Apple has released another version of the MacBook Pro video update that addresses the problem for systems running Snow Leopard.

The update is a 51.45MB download that should be available via Software Update, but also can be downloaded from the update's Web page. As with the previous update for Lion, this one includes new video drivers for all supported graphics processors, and contains updated components to the OpenCL framework. The update will require you to restart your system, so be sure to save your work and back up your system with Time Machine or another backup program before applying it.

The update requires OS X 10.6.8, so if you are running Snow Leopard make sure you have installed the latest version of the OS before applying this update.



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