if84

Q: Mac Pro (late 2013) Graphic Issues

Hi everyone

 

I own a Mac Pro from late 2013 and occasionally run into graphic problems. I work on a dual monitor setup, mostly drawing CAD. At times my monitors freeze while background processes continue to run (music etc.). At times I still manage to control the interface,but it's very sluggish. When I open activity monitor I can see that there aren't any processes that could slow down my mac as much, so I'm quite confident, that the graphics card is at fault (also because sometimes my mac even tells me "there was a graphics card problem"). Problem is when I run the hardware check everything seems to be in order.


This is really frustrating and I'm unsure what to do about this. Does anyone else have problems with this?


Kind regards

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Feb 25, 2015 6:42 AM

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Q: Mac Pro (late 2013) Graphic Issues

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  • by Aubrey Street,

    Aubrey Street Aubrey Street Apr 19, 2016 6:42 AM in response to if84
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 19, 2016 6:42 AM in response to if84

    Mac Pro (Late 2013)

    3.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5

    AMD FirePro D300 2048 MB

     

    So it has been a long road for myself. The Freezing started day one out of the Box. I thought it was due to me preforming the data transfer from my old iMac. So I reloaded form scratch and manually installed times again. Time passes and it freezes 2 or 3 more times, but I could never trigger it myself. I reloaded a fresh install again (all 0’s to disk), It Happened again so I started a chat season with apple care. 1 hr later they say reloaded the Mac Pro. Ran a reload again and a few weeks later if freezes. So I call apple care. Spoke with an awesome tech who stepped through a few things. I sent him a data dump so he could send to the Engineers. The next day he tells me that both GPU’s need to be replaced. This was in January of last year. Apple care informed me to take it into the Store so it can be replaced. The store checks in the mac and acts like they have no clue what is going on. I provided the cases number of what apple care stated. they check it in and 2 days later i get a call to pick it up. They inform me the Mac Pro was erased again and was told that I should never restore from time machine as this will cause this issue. When asked why the GPU was not replaced like I was told by Apple care, and who was advised by the Engineers, they stated that the store has to have permission from the Engineers and the store ultimately decides what action should be taken.

    Jump to February now after Apple quietly announces the repairs program for this issue and my Mac Pro is still freezing. I take it into the store and they say yea no prob we can replace the GPU’s. I wait a week and a half and never hear anything and can also not reach the store via the phone. When i show up i am told it is ready to be picked up. The employee informs me that the first set of GPU’s they ordered were bad and cased the same problem, so they had to order a second set and those “should do the trick”. So now we are in April and guess what my Mac Pro is starting to do agin. I will be going into the store today and requesting a NEW Mac Pro. Over $3000 for a true trashcan. I feel Apples quality on all levels has fallen drastically.

  • by Switch900,

    Switch900 Switch900 Apr 19, 2016 6:36 PM in response to Aubrey Street
    Level 2 (228 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 19, 2016 6:36 PM in response to Aubrey Street

    You ahoyad get a replace Mac Pro for Sure sfter si Manny issues and bien that your still in Apple care

  • by Switch900,

    Switch900 Switch900 Apr 19, 2016 6:36 PM in response to Aubrey Street
    Level 2 (228 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 19, 2016 6:36 PM in response to Aubrey Street

    I Have the dame spec machine that you have o la that i Sint have the graphics problem

  • by shing123,

    shing123 shing123 Apr 21, 2016 7:14 AM in response to Aubrey Street
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 21, 2016 7:14 AM in response to Aubrey Street

    I called apple support and they arranged a pick up from the authorised service people. Long story short, the repair people did intense test after replacing the GPU and after a weekish of uptime, crashed multiple times that day. They then replaced the cpu riser and io board. Did some test and I had to have it back for work. 1 and half weeks I am without my computer. But so far, for 2 months now, no crashes! After a year of dealing with unpredictable crashes and calls to apple and dread over having to plan time to get the machine repaired, I now so happy to have a computer that behaves as it should.

    Credit to apple's great warranty and repair, probably one of the best after sales service in the world.

     

    However, this is a big enough problem and apple should have already test and debug. I'm sure there where plenty of complains and console logs that were sent to apple on this particular issue. Instead of have customers debug the computer, they should maybe take back a couple of their temperamental computers and figure things out. I am a huge fan of apple. Multiple devices, great warranty, great customer service, probably even doing some good to humankind, But I have this feeling they do not have computers as reliable as before. Maybe I'm romanticising the past.

  • by liyuanfromredding,

    liyuanfromredding liyuanfromredding May 12, 2016 3:43 PM in response to if84
    Level 1 (8 points)
    May 12, 2016 3:43 PM in response to if84

    I thought I'd reply with my experience in case anyone else continues to have the similar problem despite the various 'fixes.'

     

    I have a Mac Pro (late 2013) manufactured around June 2015 with the D300 cards. Stable, no problems for about the 1st 2-3 weeks or so. Then the random beach ball freeze/lock up/crash that required either a hard reset or removal and then re-insertion of the Thunderbolt cable to the Thunderbolt monitor.   If I pull and re-insert the cable to the monitor, it would un-freeze it, but the computer would run slow and would eventually within a few minutes or an hour at the most would freeze again.   This would happen every few days to a week or so.  But a week was the longest it would go without a crash.  So my routine was to shut down everyday or so instead of using sleep mode. This seemed to help me get through several days or maybe a week before a crash.

     

    I was not running any programs that would be consider demanding on the CPU or GPU; just Safari, Firefox browsers, video players, a few games.

     

    DId the usual updates, hardware checks, HD checks, re-install OS, etc.  Called applecare, etc.  Problem could not be identified.  Only thing that helped was the re-format and re-install of OS. But this only helped for a couple weeks. Kept searching and reading threads like this one, the recall, etc.

     

    Then after about 8 months or so of this regular freezing, I thought maybe this was a Adobe Flash problem and not what many are experiencing with their GPU as described in these threads.  So I un-installed Flash completely. I know, I know, I should have tried this earlier.

     

    That was over a month ago.

     

    Not one crash/freeze since then. Stable as a rock.

     

    So some of you with similar crashes that are not fixed by the GPU replacements, it could just be as simple as Adobe Flash?

  • by guitarsos ,

    guitarsos guitarsos May 16, 2016 4:04 AM in response to liyuanfromredding
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 16, 2016 4:04 AM in response to liyuanfromredding

    Thanks for this post....I have exactly the same setup as yours with exactly the same problems...I use mine for work(music production) so the embarrassment of constant freezes in front of clients is extremely unprofessional ....especially after I'd made a big noise about upgrading to Mac. I however don't have Adobe on my Mac (as far as I'm aware) could quick time player possibly be the cause in my case?

  • by evansdad,

    evansdad evansdad May 16, 2016 2:33 PM in response to guitarsos
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 16, 2016 2:33 PM in response to guitarsos

    Well, I know this thread is related to the Mac Pro, but I have a mid 2015 MacBook Pro 15" with the AMD Radeon R9 M370X GPU and I'm having the same problem.  I got a new Dell 4k monitor at work, and I've been using the MacBook closed with an external keyboard/mouse and only the 4k display.

     

    My problem happens when I either lock the screen or walk away and let it lock on it's own.  When I come back and hit the keyboard to log in, the screen never comes back.  I'll open the laptop up, and once I unplug the external display (thunderbolt) and hit the internal keyboard a couple times, the display will light up, but will be at the resolution of the external display, so the login box is at the lower right corner of the screen.  But, the computer is totally sluggish and almost completely unusable.  One time I took and hour and just waited it out to go in and look at things to see if there was something that was slowing it down, but like others here, I couldn't find anything.  So for a while, I was just putting up with it and hitting the power button to reset it.

     

    Today it happened again, and I decided to look at the console.  Lo and behold, there are a ton of GPU driver appears to be hung messages.  So, it would appear that my MacBook Pro is in the same boat as your Mac Pros, and interestingly using a completely different GPU.  I guess the one thing that is different with mine, is that it only seems to happen when the computer is locked or goes to blank screen.  The only screen saver I use is the standard text one that comes with OS X.

     

    I hope a solution can be found here soon.  Thanks.

  • by Mark Myers1,

    Mark Myers1 Mark Myers1 May 22, 2016 11:43 PM in response to tkpfrommck
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 22, 2016 11:43 PM in response to tkpfrommck

    So it just hangs for a few seconds and then carries on or the computer restarts?

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder May 23, 2016 8:36 AM in response to evansdad
    Level 9 (61,095 points)
    Desktops
    May 23, 2016 8:36 AM in response to evansdad

    evansdad-

     

    your overall symptom is the same. But if any solutions other than 'replace the graphics cards' found for the Mac Pro late 2013 are unlikely to solve your problems.

     

    Yours is likely a graphic Hardware problem, a problem in only your Mac, not a pervasive problem in every Mac of your model.

     

    You should not wait for Apple to find a solution. You should make an appointment to present your Mac at an appointment at the Genius bar for an evaluation. The appointment is free.

     

    It is especially important that you start a "paper trail" that shows you had problems early on, even if they could not be solved. If you are within the one-year standard warranty, I strongly recommend you add the AppleCar extension to three years -- you cannot add it after the one year has expired.

     

    -------

    One solution to certain class of hangs was recently discovered, but it is very unlikely. If you are using Wi-Fi, be certain that your TCP-IP settings are for IPv4 only, and that IPv6 is set to "link-local only" or "Off". This applies for almost all Home networks and small office networks, unless you are using a highly specialized Network configuration..

  • by Dpetz72,

    Dpetz72 Dpetz72 May 31, 2016 7:56 AM in response to liyuanfromredding
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 31, 2016 7:56 AM in response to liyuanfromredding

    Then after about 8 months or so of this regular freezing, I thought maybe this was a Adobe Flash problem and not what many are experiencing with their GPU as described in these threads.  So I un-installed Flash completely. I know, I know, I should have tried this earlier.

     

    That was over a month ago.

     

    Not one crash/freeze since then. Stable as a rock.

     

    So some of you with similar crashes that are not fixed by the GPU replacements, it could just be as simple as Adobe Flash?

    Yes! same EXACT situation here. Mac Pro was taken to the service center (no apple store near my city) and they could not reproduce the issue and all hardware came out of diagnostic looking fine. The graphic cards are the 300 series so not part of the recall. I reformatted and reinstalled el captain. I added all the software back, making sure not to install flash. The computer is finally performing to specifications... I am utterly amazed that this does appear to be a software situation. There are so many reports of this issue, and so many specific to this model.

  • by Dpetz72,

    Dpetz72 Dpetz72 Jun 1, 2016 6:19 AM in response to Dpetz72
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 1, 2016 6:19 AM in response to Dpetz72

    Spoke too soon. Today, walked in and my computer was frozen. unplugging the display cable brought it back, but the video is supper slow.

     

    SAME PROBLEMS.

     

    Calling Apple Care again.

     

    This cannot be a software issue.

  • by batmandan,

    batmandan batmandan Jun 4, 2016 2:44 PM in response to dazhou
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 4, 2016 2:44 PM in response to dazhou

    I had both the gpu driver hung and windowserver issues on my 4 core.   I would either get spinning beach ball frozen, or no video at all after sleep.  The computer was still running as could be seen on network.  Unplugging and reconnecting displays would make displays work again in both cases but the clock would be stuck at the time of the error and the system would be slow.  Reboot generally fixed.

     

    Apple called today to say both graphics cards are to be replaced under warranty.  Sounds very much like the 4 core is also affected by the known issues.

  • by guitarsos ,

    guitarsos guitarsos Jun 6, 2016 4:28 AM in response to batmandan
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 6, 2016 4:28 AM in response to batmandan

    Good luck....I have exactly the same problem here...I bought this one second hand in "perfect"  condition . I very much doubt the previous owner or myself could have caused this problem. Still hoping that that Apple will accept responsibility and recall the D300 cards aswell

  • by HitzHits,

    HitzHits HitzHits Jun 6, 2016 8:11 PM in response to if84
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 6, 2016 8:11 PM in response to if84

    Hey guys,

     

    thanks for this thread. My Mac Pro 2013 froze randomly since about a year. I reinstalled all software (fresh install) switched RAM, switched SSD - nothing seemed to work. I found this via Macrumor.com. I'm a big apple fan and use my MP for Music production. Had a couple of Top 10 Hits in Europe. So long story short: Went to the Apple store and they treated me like an idiot. They totally denied the issue with the Graphic card even though it's obvious that this exactly the issue. They want to charge me $220 for replacement???? *** - I paid a premium price for a product that is NOT working as advertised. No recall, nada...

     

    I have the 500 card.

     

    But hey, Apple get's away with lousy service and stuff like this because they don't care.

     

    This is how I feel:

     

    Kermit.jpg

     

    Thank you Apple for your amazing support....

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jun 6, 2016 8:23 PM in response to HitzHits
    Level 9 (61,095 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 6, 2016 8:23 PM in response to HitzHits

    There is currently a silent recall in effect for a certain series of Mac Pro late 2013 500 and 700 graphics cards.

     

    If you return to the Genius Bar today, you may find your graphics card problems are taken more seriously.

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