I bought a stock 2.4 GHz aluminum MacBook in October and it's been great. However, when I play VO, it freezes. The only time it freezes is when playing VO, so it's not a general problem as far as I can tell, although VO is the only game I play right now. It usually takes about an hour of play, but the entire computer will lock up. Occasionally, it will give me a kernel panic, but most of the time it is a complete freeze without any messages at all. The only way to get out of it is to do a hard restart by holding the power button. At first, I thought it might be related to CPU temperature because VO makes the computer run hot, but I tried using SMC fan control to keep the temperature below 70c at all times, and it still freezes. I don't remember it ever doing this before, but for the last few weeks it now seems to do it every time if I keep VO running long enough. Sometimes it will only take a minute and sometimes it will take an hour or two. Since it's a complete freeze, I don't get any sort of crash log either (as far as I know). I tried reinstalling VO and it still does it.

Does anyone else have one of the new MacBooks? I'm wondering if it is my specific machine or a general conflict of some sort. I posted a similar thread describing the problem on a Mac forum. I figured I'd attack this from both ends. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=645354

It probably is a heat issue with your GPU, most don't have fans on laptops and overheat from any graphic intensive program, even watching a HD movie. I don't have the newer aluminum ones, but I find my issue is resolved by propping up my macbook on some coasters in the rear of it to simply increase circulation. Also make sure it's not sitting on carpet or fabric and isn't enclosed in something.

Well I thought of that and used "smcFanControl" to keep my temperatures nice and low, but it still froze. The GPU on the aluminum MacBooks should be under the same fan as the CPU with the new NVIDIA 9400M sudo-integrated GPU I think. Also, I shouldn't need smcFanControl to keep my laptop from overheating, and it should not overheat when playing a game or watching a movie. That would mean it is defective. The laptop is designed for those functions and it would be unacceptable if it could not perform them under normal circumstances. I haven't heard of any other aluminum MacBook users having problems like that, and I'm still not convinced it is directly related to temperature.

Get iStat Pro, it lets you monitor temperatures, and the aptly named Temperature Monitor that lets you show a history graph of them for reference. that way, you might find more clues as to whether it really is a heat issue or not (it may be spikes, but I don't know...).

Unless of course, you already did all that. Still, it should be able to run games, as well, so as you said, if the problem persists, a new one would be in order.

Edit: Both these apps are freeware.

I use iStat Pro. It's temperature readout is consistent with smcFanControl's. I got it to freeze while keeping the temperature under 70c at all times, which is well within normal operation limits, so if it is a temperature issue, it's not with the MacBook's SMC or fans, it's something with the processor because it should be able to function at the temperatures it is crashing at. I'll try the experiment again, this time keeping it below 60c the whole time and see if that helps. However, many new MacBooks regularly get up to around 90c when doing graphic intensive stuff (which mine does while playing VO without smcFanControl, and they do not have any problems whatsoever. So if mine is freezing at 70c, there is something wrong with my particular machine.

Just did a test where I ran 2 emulators at once (Snes9x and sixtyforce). The CPU temperature remained between 78c and 83c for over 2 hours. There were no crashes, freezes, or issues of any kind. This would seem to suggest the issue isn't directly related to CPU temperature. That was the only way I could think of to get the temperature up like that for an extended length of time while in windowed mode. Most games that are graphic intensive only operate in full-screen mode, which makes it difficult to monitor what is going on. So far, it seems the issue is specific to VO.

Okay. Someone else on the other forum I posted to with the exact same model MacBook as me had the same problem, but with WoW. He brought it to the Apple Store and they replaced it for him and now it works perfectly. I downloaded the WoW demo and let it sit on the login screen for a few minutes, and sure enough, it froze. I'll have to go to the Apple Store and get it replaced. Ugh...

Ack, that sucks...

At least it's not a design flaw but a DOA.