Chosen Solution

When my MacBook Pro warms up (above 55°C) it will do random things. First it shows blinking colored lines (green and pink normally show up while watching a movie), then it will ether freeze or the screen goes black. (Once in a while I’ll get a gray screen too.) In my research I have found that turning up the fans will help keep my MBP from heating up which keeps it from freezing, but then I have to listen to the fans all the time. Any suggestions?

These macbook Pro’s do tend to heat up pretty significantly when doing any processor intensive tasks. If you feel like taking your laptop apart, you could try making sure that the heatsink is screwed down all the way and that the thermal paste is applied properly. Check this guide out on applying the thermal paste: How to Apply Thermal Paste This is kind of just a side thought, but also make sure both of your fans are working. and that the vent on the back of the machine is not being blocked by anything (including excessive dust).

It sounds like an issue with the bonding of the GPU to the logicboard to me, samianlife. The primary problem with the NVidia 8600M GPUs in 2007/8 MBps is not that the chip itself actually fails, but that it generates temps that mess up its connection to the board as I understand it. If this is your problem (and you have an MBP with the NVidia 8600 processor) then it should be covered by the Apple Extension repair Program ( see http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377 ). If it is not covered then it is usually either a matter of replacing the logicboard, or of finding someone to “reflow” the GPU connection (which is still expensive, but not as expensive as a logic board, requires specialist equipment and is hard to find someone capable of in many areas). Without repair the problem is likely to get progressively worse, I’m afraid. Cheers Rod

Turning up the fans is a solution, if you can adjust the fans you could get a temperature sensor widget or application. That way you could manually spin the fans when necessary. I recommend iStat Pro, it’s a widget that harnesses all your technical information including all your machine’s temperature sensors