abelliveau

Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro (2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory) running OS 10.8.2.  It has two graphics components: an AMD Radeon HD 6750M and a built-in Intel HD Graphics 3000. Since I've had the computer, the screen would get a blue tint when the computer switched between them.

 

However, as of two days ago, the problem has become substantially more severe.  The computer was working fine, when all of a suddent the screen when completely blue.  I had to force restart the computer.  Since then, the screen has gone awry on numerous occassions - each time necessitating a hard reset.

 

I installed gfxCardStatus, and have discovered that the computer runs fine using the integrated card, but as soon as I switch to the discrete card - the screen goes .

 

I am just wondering what my options are (any input on any of these would be appreciated!):

 

1) Replace the logic board.  Would this necessarily fix the issue?

 

2) Is there any way to "fix" the graphics card? 

 

3) Keep using gfxCardStatus and only use the integrated graphics card.  This is definitely the easiest/cheapest option, but to have such a computer and not be able to use the graphics card seems like a real shame.

 

4) Is there any other alternative?

 


MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 GB memory

Posted on Feb 1, 2013 4:45 PM

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Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

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  • by td1234567,

    td1234567 td1234567 Mar 9, 2014 8:10 AM in response to abelliveau
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    Mar 9, 2014 8:10 AM in response to abelliveau

    I thought I'd give an update.  I got the $310 Flat rate repair. So far it's been working, but it looks like its starting to go already. Got the computer back early Feb,  1 Crash in mid-Feb, possibly unrelated, and then yesterday a major graphics glitch.  Computer did restart and is now working fine.  I still have the warranty from the first repair, so it looks like another trip to the apple store in my near future.

  • by jfthibeault,

    jfthibeault jfthibeault Mar 9, 2014 9:45 AM in response to abelliveau
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    Mar 9, 2014 9:45 AM in response to abelliveau

    (I have posted this in this discussion without knowing about this bigger one here)

     

    Same issue as everybody else here.

     

    Bought my late-2011 MacBook Pro in Feb 2012 (15", 2.2 GHz i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6750m 512 MB)

    Yesterday, I started getting the grey screen when booting. Trying to boot to the recovery disk (and even the internet recovery disk) gave me the blue screen.

    After a couple of hours of research, I find out that it was probably the GPU.

    I ran these commands (in the Single user Mode - Command+S when you start the Mac) to deactivate the GPU (by removing its drivers) and then was able to boot.

     

    /sbin/fsck -fy /

    /sbin/mount -uw /

    mkdir /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions

    cd /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions

    mv /System/Library/Extensions/ATI* .

    mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMD* .

    touch /System/Library/Extensions

    exit

     

    (see article http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/120507/boot-hangs-on-grey-screen-even-w hen-booting-from-usb-drive-with-fresh-os-x-inst)

     

    At least now I can use my Mac, but the graphics are very slow (obviously). This fix also prevent me from going into Sleep mode... (hopefully I will find a solution for that).

     

    Anyway, I went to the Apple Store today. They confirmed that it is probably the Graphic card, and to fix this, I need to change the logic board for a nice 600 $ (Canadian dollars).

     

    Now what... if I change the logic board, will I still have the same issue in 16-24 months and have to change that logic board again?

     

    Why should we pay for something that looks like a design/chip issue?

  • by HelgeCPT,

    HelgeCPT HelgeCPT Mar 9, 2014 11:05 AM in response to jfthibeault
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    Mar 9, 2014 11:05 AM in response to jfthibeault

    I typed everything like it is seen below in the command line

     

     

    /sbin/fsck -fy /

    /sbin/mount -uw /

    mkdir /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions

    cd /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions

    mv /System/Library/Extensions/ATI* .

    mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMD* .

    touch /System/Library/Extensions

    exit

     

    Some of those commands came back with something about being read only, yet I continued with the commands, still same issue, not booting up...apologies but I am not too familiar with using commands.

     

    Also a good point was made regarding taking it to a so called "Genius" at an Apple store. Getting the logic board replaced with the SAME gpu and specs is pointless, seeing that these gpu's are the issue.

  • by nexuz6,

    nexuz6 nexuz6 Mar 9, 2014 11:10 AM in response to nexuz6
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    Mar 9, 2014 11:10 AM in response to nexuz6

    Just to report back.

    nexuz6 wrote:

     

    I have not read every post here... But I had similar problems.

     

    My Macbook pro 15" early 2011 (ATI 6750 + Intel 3000) showed a apple logo with horizontal lines all over the screen at power on.

     

    Then the screen went gray/white and it was impossible to boot osx.

     

    Only Single mode worked. (cmd+s)

     

    It all started a couple of days after installing OSX 10.9.2 (dont know if this is related)

     

    I have no idea if its a coincidence or not but my fix have now worked for two days.

     

    1) Boot into single mode (press cmd+s at chime)

    2) move all AMD* from /S/L/E to Desktop

    3) Reboot

    4) Now I can boot into osx but with horrible graphics

    5) Install gfxCardStatus (Just to monitor what graphics card is used)

    6) move these files from Desktop back to S/L/E

     

    AMD6000Controller.kext

    AMDFramebuffer.kext

    AMDRadeonVADriver.kext

    AMDRadeonX3000.kext

    AMDRadeonX3000GLDriver

    AMDSupport

     

    7) reboot

     

    Everything now works as before.

     

    Maybe its all a coincidence or maybe it works for some of you guys aswell?

     

    The fix i posted earlier do not work. It was just a coincidence...

     

    My computer worked for almost 3 days... But just now when I opened up Logic Pro X it switched to the AMD Graphics card and it all looked horrible with garbage graphics all over the place.

     

    Luckily I managed to change the gfxCardStatus to "Intigrated Only".

     

    So now i'm running Integrated only mode as a last resort.

  • by nexuz6,

    nexuz6 nexuz6 Mar 9, 2014 11:11 AM in response to HelgeCPT
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    Mar 9, 2014 11:11 AM in response to HelgeCPT

    HelgeCPT wrote:

     

    I typed everything like it is seen below in the command line

     

     

    /sbin/fsck -fy /

    /sbin/mount -uw /

    mkdir /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions

    cd /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions

    mv /System/Library/Extensions/ATI* .

    mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMD* .

    touch /System/Library/Extensions

    exit

     

    Some of those commands came back with something about being read only, yet I continued with the commands, still same issue, not booting up...apologies but I am not too familiar with using commands.

     

    Also a good point was made regarding taking it to a so called "Genius" at an Apple store. Getting the logic board replaced with the SAME gpu and specs is pointless, seeing that these gpu's are the issue.

     

    "/sbin/mount -uw /" makes the drive writable... did you include the last "/" ?

  • by jfthibeault,

    jfthibeault jfthibeault Mar 9, 2014 11:12 AM in response to HelgeCPT
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2014 11:12 AM in response to HelgeCPT

    Hi HelgeCPT,

     

    Sorry, I made a typo (that I thought I corrected)

     

    You should run:

     

    /sbin/fsck -fy

    /sbin/mount -uw /

    mkdir /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions

    cd /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions

    mv /System/Library/Extensions/ATI* .

    mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMD* .

    touch /System/Library/Extensions

    exit

     

    (first command had an extra / that wasn't needed).

     

     

    Sorry again about that.

     

    JF

  • by jfthibeault,

    jfthibeault jfthibeault Mar 9, 2014 11:14 AM in response to jfthibeault
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2014 11:14 AM in response to jfthibeault

    Let me know if you can go in Sleep mode after the fix... because in my case, I can't.

     

    JF

  • by ryuga,

    ryuga ryuga Mar 9, 2014 11:20 AM in response to abelliveau
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2014 11:20 AM in response to abelliveau

    its been a week since ive reballed my macbook pro. Never shutdown since then also. closed lid in my hengedock. Still working fine. But still in woried stage. If this survive for a month, i let u guys know. Not even a single screen glitch after the first format.

  • by bennyvdhoogen,

    bennyvdhoogen bennyvdhoogen Mar 9, 2014 11:24 AM in response to abelliveau
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    Mar 9, 2014 11:24 AM in response to abelliveau

    Just for the record; another case of MBP 2011 failure.

     

    My MBP 15" 2.0ghz quad core early 2011 (bought in july 2011) also crashed again. Didn't have any graphical glitches like a lot of people in this thread had though. Was working on my Macbook Pro for a pretty long stretch of time back in October 2013 when suddenly a white screen appeared and - just like the rest of you guys - when rebooting I couldn't get past the chime > white screen sequence.

     

    Brought it to the certified Apple reseller called 'Amac' where I bought the machine in the city of Breda, the Netherlands. They send the machine for repairs and a week later they gave me back my machine with a replaced logic board, free of charge - even though I didn't have the extended AppleCare.

    The guy told me he couldn't tell me why it was repaired free of charge, but my issues probably had to do with overheating he said.  But oh boy, after reading all these comments, I was pretty **** happy that my Macbook was repaired for free. I asked if they knew why my machine had crashed and why it was repaired free of charge.

     

    Until last night when - again I was working on the machine for a pretty long time (you should be able to work on these machines.. right?) when the white screen popped up again and I was back at the same point as back in october last year. Already made an appointment with the Apple store here in Amsterdam (I moved here recently).

    But even if they would fix it again for free; I wouldn't be relieved of the problem would I? What are my options? Can't buy a new 15 inch in the same price range as those are discontinued.

     

    ALSO: my hardrive failed two weeks ago (it suddenly showed a S.M.A.R.T Status = Failing and eventually I couldn't boot up in my main user account anymore; luckily could save my files via another account). I replaced the stock TOSHIBA 500gb drive with a 256gb Samsung SSD (which in the end I'm really happy with though). I know hardrives, especially moving ones, are subject to failure but pretty much all of the drives I bought have survied for at least 4 years.

  • by bennyvdhoogen,

    bennyvdhoogen bennyvdhoogen Mar 9, 2014 11:28 AM in response to jfthibeault
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2014 11:28 AM in response to jfthibeault

    jfthibeault thanks for those commands, can surely use these. How would you be able to reverse this? Would like to check if it really is my GPU failing; when I eventually take it to the Mac store I don't want to confuse them by having a OS that boots without the AMD drivers.

  • by jfthibeault,

    jfthibeault jfthibeault Mar 9, 2014 11:33 AM in response to bennyvdhoogen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2014 11:33 AM in response to bennyvdhoogen

    Sure no problem. I think you could have found the command somewhere in these 239 pages... but this thread is now way too big (hopefully Apple will soon acknowledge there is an issue).

     

    To reverse, simply go back to Single user Mode (Command+S when you start the Mac) and move the files back to their original location (i.e. the content of the Disabled_System_Library_Extensions folder needs to be moved to /System/Library/Extensions/)

     

     


  • by bennyvdhoogen,

    bennyvdhoogen bennyvdhoogen Mar 9, 2014 11:49 AM in response to jfthibeault
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    Mar 9, 2014 11:49 AM in response to jfthibeault

    Yes, that's what I thought. But my knowledge of the OS X commandline is really limited.

    So I think the reversal would be:

     

    /sbin/fsck -fy

    /sbin/mount -uw /

    cd /System/Library/Extensions

    mv /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions/ATI* .

    mv /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions/AMD* .

    touch /System/Library/Extensions

    exit

     

    is that correct? Thanks!

  • by bennyvdhoogen,

    bennyvdhoogen bennyvdhoogen Mar 9, 2014 12:05 PM in response to bennyvdhoogen
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    Mar 9, 2014 12:05 PM in response to bennyvdhoogen

    Alright so I tried moving the drivers and this line

    mv /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions/AMD* . produced a message: path or folder not available. (transcribing..)

     

    I continued with the procedure anyway and after exit the boot procedure continued and now I'm stuck at the login screen without any account or options; just the fabric-like-texture background. Have been holding my power button for a 30 seconds straight and it's not even powering down anymore?

     

    EDIT: NVM it shut down. What is it with the extremly long powering down whenever this boot issue arrises...

  • by jfthibeault,

    jfthibeault jfthibeault Mar 9, 2014 12:09 PM in response to bennyvdhoogen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2014 12:09 PM in response to bennyvdhoogen

    Check in your Disabled_System_Library_Extensions/ if the AMD are still there...

    If not, make sure they are moved.

     

    JF

     


  • by bennyvdhoogen,

    bennyvdhoogen bennyvdhoogen Mar 9, 2014 12:16 PM in response to jfthibeault
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    Mar 9, 2014 12:16 PM in response to jfthibeault

    Only the ATI ones are there. How do I move them back to the original folder? I can't seem to get this working so I suppose I want to go back to the original state...

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