display anomalies

Whilst i'm here, starting and restarting my MBP (with nothing but Finder running)... Any ideas on what to do with our dead MacBook Pro's...? I could break it down and sell the bits on eBay i guess... but then the market isn't that great for bits of dead MacBook Pro's right now, especially as half of it (the most important parts) don't work any way... and then again, if i do sell it for scrap, and Apple do a recall, i'm out of the running because i don't have the carcass to trade in... So, i guess i'm stuck with a useless piece of $crap Apple stuff... unless any one has any bright ideas!?!

Hang on tight... while we don't want to have anyone sacrifice their MBP, there is a group combining efforts to have this be better known, and having your old MBP showing it's sickness may be of huge value to show dreadful ATI's defective GPU is...

Mine won't run for more than a minute or two unless I crank the fans WAY up using smc fancontrol. This really *****, I can't run my boot camp partition, because it just freezes, and I need windows for work.

After I read a bit more of this very instructive (but also dreadfull) thread, some additional comments on the occurence of the problem (in the case of my sooner-or-later paperweight that is finishing his life as a computer) :

I used to play quite a lot GPU intensive WOW (with lots of video options). I suspect that this might has caused some heat stress on the GPU now probably damaged (as many other people are suspecting in this discussion).

If that's the case, it is clearly a design flaw and/or poor quality of some key components (remember the thermal grease fiasco).

It may be also linked with bad drivers or miscommunication between ATI and Apple on the opertating specs of the GPU.

Anyway, congrats to those who have been able to get a replacement ! Showing us the path to follow

Hi all,

Thought I'd add a few comments because I think my MBP has been suffering the same issues described in this thread, and more particularly because it's recently got a lot better…

Bit of background: I have a MacBookPro1,1 built in early 2006 and which I purchased as a refurb in June 2006. It's pretty much the top 15" model of the time; 2.16GHz, 256MB ATI x1600, 7200rpm 100GB drive, 2GB ram. Ran pretty hot from day 1 🙂

It's had a few other problems - the most serious of which was that both the left and right fan died towards the end of the first year. It was a few months before I got around to opening the machine up and replacing them; in the intervening time I still used it, and CPU temperatures were regularly up in the 80s and 90s.

I also started experiencing two very occasional 'glitches' quite early on (before the fans died) both of which have been well described in this thread:
1) One pixel high horizontal lines appearing on screen.
2) Often preceded by the above, the machine hanging, with sound still playing, the pointer still active, but the keyboard and everything else unresponsive, forcing a hard power off and back on.

For a while I put these problems down to driver bugs, but as they gradually became more and more frequent I started to notice a pattern: the horizontal lines seem to coincide with the machine getting hot, whilst the machine would typically hang when performing particular graphics operations, often freezing part way through zooming the dock, minimising a window etc.

I recently even found a reliable way to reproduce the hanging problem - playing Nucleus ( http://www.pangeasoft.net/arcade/info.html) for 30 seconds or so without artificially boosting the fan speed.

So… about 2 ago I was ready to throw it out the window after it'd hung 4 times in the space of an hour, but I decided to take it apart again and see what state the insides were in; I've long known about reports of too much thermal compound having been applied to these early MBPs, and was toying with the idea of replacing it with some Arctic Silver. So this time I went all the way down to removing the motherboard, and found that:
1) The air vents through which the fans expel hot air were blocked (from the inside) by big wedges of dust, almost like snowdrifts in shape.
2) The thermal compound between the 3 chips and the heatsink was a thick, dry, solid layer covering not only the surface of the chips, but in the case of the GPU it also completely covered several contacts on the board itself. There was obviously far too much of it.
3) To my surprise, the insides were otherwise quite clean and didn't show any sign of overheating.

I removed the dust and desiccated thermal gunk, cleaned up the chips and heatsink and applied a small amount of Arctic Silver in its place.

The result:
1) No horizontal lines have appeared since the operation.
2) Temperatures are much lower.
3) I've not seen any problems minimising windows, zooming the dock etc.
4) But… it would still hang after 30 seconds or so playing Nucleus, unless I forced the fans to run at about 3500rpm+.

Happy that it was back in a useful state, yesterday I upgraded it to Snow Leopard (from Tiger). For much of the last 36 hours it has been very busy and very hot, installing, upgrading, compiling, Time-Machining, etc. Not only has there not been a single glitch so far, I don't even seem to be able to force the problems to occur any longer - for example, I've just played Nucleus for 15 minutes.

Difficult to know exactly what has fixed what, but my MBP feels almost like a new machine at this point.


Mark

I am sorry to see so many people having this temperature-related problem. Add me to the list too. I have been using my computer happily for more than 3 years, and the graphics distortion / freezing problems have only started about two months ago, with connecting an external display, but progressed to an overall unreliability of my machine.

I am very used to my 2.16ghz C2D ATI X1600 macbook pro. It's my main machine and I'm puzzled to see an Apple product fail on its third year, while on the next desk there's a 2003 Ti Powerbook G4 still working with 100% reliability, although noisy and very much worn out.

After 3 years of constant use under high load, I still think my laptop has aged very well. The palm-rests have clouds of tiny black dots, the keyboard has started to wear out, there are dark/gray dots on the display, and a scratch mark or two on the case itself. I love the machine, I put up with it, but the ATI thing drives me nuts.

This is a temperature-related problem that stems from the fact that three separate chips are connected to the same copper heatsink. This is a common flaw in Apple's designs and to my knowledge Macbook Air owners have been complaining about a similar (tho reverse) issue. Even with no graphics load, the CPU keeps heating up the GPU through the heatsink. My X1600 starts exhibiting problems at around 54C (GPU). Over than that and it gets progressively worse.

The solution that has worked with me so far: My computer sits atop a Zalman cooler, with some extra pads at the front, to create space between the vent holes of the pad and the laptop, so the air can flow freely. If I use the machine under load, I make sure the laptop fans are boosted up at 6000rpm. Combined with the cooling pad's fans, it barely keeps the whole machine at the edge where things start to get messy. It doesn't sound (or feel) right, but it gets me through the task.

To see this problem disappear, disable Quartz Extreme. Then you'll see much higher CPU load with Window Server handling all the fancy desktop effects we're so used to. And you'll kiss your battery life goodbye. but if you need 100% reliability it can get you through..

In Tiger this problem is less apparent, but 10.4 also keeps higher rpm on the fans. Leopard is more aggressive regarding noise, so internally the chips run a few degrees hotter. 1-2C makes a huge difference sometimes. I am not scared of hardware (been poking in Apple computers since Apple2), and am convinced that this is a manufacturer defect, and that Apple and ATI didn't make good, especially given that Apple play with NVidia these days.

Ultimately I've given up and am raising cash for a new Mac.

hey all - i don't have much time but i wanted to update you all on my situation - i've been combating this problem with a whole host of software and hardware tactics for the last year or more (new readers can check my previous posts for a list of coping strategies). overall, i had managed to get some degree of functionality back provided i was very attentive and didn't strain the GPU too hard (no 2hr streaming from Hulu no gaming etc).
over the last 6 months i had started to believe that even if i still had problems with the machine they had been minimized - thanks in large part to the suggestions and shared experiences of people on this thread.

Well - i was in for a VERY rude surprise.

about 2 weeks ago i left my machine on overnight. this was specifically in opposition to *my own advice* - the MBP will run much much cooler if you shut it down when not in use - don't just put it to sleep - *shut it down*.
anyway, upon waking up i discovered a strange - never seen before - checkboard pattern overlaying my desktop. i rebooted - same problem. i rebooted from a system disk - same problem. i tried an external monitor - same problem.
"uh oh" i thought, that doesn't sound so good.
now i was smart enough to have insured my MBP with a laptop insurance company - and they cover any problems - any at all. so i sent it in to their repair facility and was promptly told exactly what i expected: DEAD LOGIC BOARD DUE TO GPU FAILURE.

well - the insurance company totalled it out and is sending my a check for about $1300+tax - it won't quite get me a new MBP but it'll get me pretty close. now for the big question AM I REALLY GOING TO SPEND $2000 BUYING A MACHINE FROM APPLE AFTER ALL THIS???

can't rightly say.

i have more to add to this story, as well as the name of the insurance company for any who might want it - but you'll have to contact me personally as i don't want this post to "disappear".

anyway - just wanted you all to know - even with every conceivable coping strategy and care my $2700 (at the time) machine didn't live past its 39th month. in fact i'm typing this on my girlfriend's crappy old $800 (at the time) Dell laptop - 66 months and going strong...
pathetic - if i could run some kind of Reverse Boot Camp i'd seriously consider it... way to take care of your customers Apple.

good luck all,
bennett
(nufumanchu)

Bennet, you can do a sorta reverse boot camp, should not be illegal seeing as it is software that you own. Some laptops have the capabilities, such as certain lenovo models. Anyways, this won't stay up I'm sure, but there are videos and other stuff if you look. Also you can build a tower computer that can run OSX, but there are more difficulties I believe. There is a chip called EFIX from europe that can help, or some other ways to get around the bios stuff. Anyways good luck with it all I suppose we won't see you anymore, and thanks for all the advice.

thanks DHD_03, actually i did know about that 'sorta reverse camp' thingy. friend of mine actually built himself a desktop and has it running os x .
quite a pain in the *** tho, he's always troubleshooting some kind of wierd hardware/software issue and not surprisingly he has a lot of driver issues.
but the real important thing about all that is that, as far as i know, it's never been made to work on a laptop. i could be wrong of course... that does happen from time to time ;p - but either way it doesn't strike me as real ready-for-the-market viable option.
anyway - i'm going to continue to subscribe to this thread for various reasons, i'm interested in seeing what happens.

cheers,
bennett

Found this thread, so adding my tuppence worth.

MacBook Pro2,2, 2.16GHz
The dreaded X1600, ROM revision 113-xxxxxx-158, EFI Driver 01.00.158

Started to see display issues earlier this year, but initially only in Boot Camp/XP, running 3d games. (If you must know, TF2.) The machine had always been completely fine, but 3d rendering started to show severe issues, with very large coloured polygons appearing on screen, almost completely obliterating the application. I tried installing alternative Windows XP drivers, but that didn't really help.

Glitches started to appear later in OS X (Leopard), along the lines of the original post.

The problems got much worse with Snow Leopard. Display glitches are happening more often. In some cases, random sections of the screen get copied to other screen areas, mostly with some shearing and scaling. (Ie, text runs at an angle, and there's pixel doubling in both directions.)

I'm also getting lockups. For a period of about a week I got a complete lockup once a day. Applications go spinning-beach-ball, then the mouse and keyboard become completely unresponsive, and I have to reboot.

Behaviour in Boot Camp/XP has become worse. Games that worked 100% without a hitch are completely unusable:

- the screen goes blank for 1 minute;
- the same rendering artifacts as before;
- applications eventually crash.

The machine's still usable, but it's clear that there's a hardware problem with the graphics chip. Snow Leopard may or may not be making the problem worse. I'm starting to get nervous about how long the machine has got.

Hi,

I think I have the same problem on the same laptop. Do you have any news?

Hi,

I have the same problem. I think the problem is caused by heating and is not from hadware, because the problem has different symptom with different OS (like SL or leopard or tiger ...)

FWIW, count me among those who had this issue and got it resolved with a logic board replacement. I'm among the lucky ones -- still under AppleCare. I took it to a great Apple-authorized dealer/service center (Di-No in Pasadena) and they were able to diagnose it easily, ordered the replacement logic board, and swapped it in within days.

Given how many people have experienced this I'm surprised Apple hasn't taken action with the ATI x1600 as they did with the NVidia chip.

Hi guys.

This is funny enough.
I decided to skip the upgrade to a Penryn Core2Duo MBP because all GF8600M are defective, and now - after I've experienced major troubles with my old MBP 1.1 - I find out that it's got the same design flaws (heat dissipation) and uses the same defective parts (GPU/soldering/logic board).

Not only that, I've even heard that unibody Macbooks have the same issues with GPUs (GF9600). Probably in a few years there will be a similar discussion to this one on unibody models.

Defects plus overheating, it gets very iDistinctive.

I'm quite fed up with this and just wanted to tell you guys that I'm done buying Apple's computers. Look at the rate of issues with them. There is actually nothing to choose from nowadays, all models are apparently facing REAL and extremely troublesome issues. You say latest unibody's arent, or aren't that much? Well, just give them a few years...

Were it a 600 bucks noname item, I wouldn't really mind. Or if Apple's policy matched users' expectations.
But my item cost 2000bucks, and to my despair, my AppleCare ran out just 2-3 months ago so the company isn't going to do ** about it.

I guess I'm done buying Apple.



Anyways, I still don't want my current MBP1.1 to turn into a brick so I'll try to resolve this issue and will keep you posted if I find anything useful that might prolong the life of your own Macbook Pro with a X1600 radeon GPU. I do a lot of apple repairs, so I might try something uncommon here.

I did some testing.

_My symptoms_ were as follows:
1. Graphic artifacts during light gaming
2. Random screen (system) lockups while gaming (hard reset needed then)
3. Spontaneous restarts when gaming
4. The above led to lines on screen (app windows) after I quit the game. Lines were exactly like those shown in post 1 of this thread. I only got the lines, no color gradients on screen.


_So what's going on?_
Various reasons can cause this behavior, but after testing with some fancy utilities I pretty much established the cause - *it's bad soldering of video memory chips*. Declocking the VRAM does not help, which means it's not VRAM overheating or chips failure.

It's BGA soldering points failing in Radeon X1600's VRAM chips. There are 8 of them on the logic board in my case (128MB VRAM).

Not surprisingly this happens more frequently at higher temperatures, or when the chips are 'stressed'. It may be also connected with heat cycling (running hot/cold/hot/cold, then it starts to fail mainly when it's hot).
So it's really not an overheating issue per se. In my case the GPU never exceeded 65* Celsius - this is OK according to spec.

I also noticed that in my case if the GPU stays below ~54-58 deg Celsius, nothing really happens.
But let it work a little while at ~60-65* Celsius and graphics will fail imminently.


What one can do about it?


This could be the solution:
1. REBALLING of ALL video memory chips. This means changing all the soldering points (connections between the memory chips and the logic board) to new ones. This can be done in a specialized service point (non apple) and should cost about 100 bucks at most.
2. REFLOWING of ALL video memory chips. It might also work and should be way cheaper, while it's also way easier to do. This basically means trying to fix soldering points that failed so far but doesn't really guarantee anything.

You do not need to replace the whole logic board.
If you're out of warranty and your problems with graphics are really, really, really bad, you can try point 1 or 2.
Otherwise I suggest you try the following.

Workaround:
While not eliminating the cause +at all+, in my case the following *eliminated all the symptoms*.
Not all of the following is necessary but I'd recommend you do it to help your chances:
1. Total disassemble of the logic board, replace thermal compound on the CPU, the GPU and the logic board Chipset. . This will help keep them cool - which will help keep the video memory chips cool also. Take a peek at ifixit.com
2. Use CoolBook to undervolt your CPU. I know a lot of people hate this tool. +But it really increases your chances here.+ It is a tricky game so be careful. While it's not a free tool, it's really worth a go. It simply allows to keep the CPU very, very significantly cooler when undervolted (it can still run at max performance of course, that's the point). Remember, CPU's heat effects all the logic board and airflow inside the Macbook, so it also warms the GPU and the VRAM chips this way.
3. Of course, finally use smcFanControl or Fan Control to keep your fans running at higher speeds then normal, without hurting your ears. Ideally you should get below 50* Cel. on GPU when idle and max 54* when gaming. In my case this means running at around 3900rpm when idle and 4900rpm when gaming.

I use CoolBook, +Fan Control prefPane+, and have also replaced the thermal paste (a while back when I had a chance). My Core Duo 2.0GHz now runs at 48-50* Celsius idle, with GPU at 46-48* Cel when idle.
This is *a lot less than stock temperatures* of MBP1.1 and *in my case I got completely rid of all the symptoms*.




Sounds not that bad now, does it?
There's a downside though.
I've been using CoolBook and smcFanControl/Fan Control for a long time. Now I just increased the fan speed really.
This means my CPU/GPU/VRAM/Chipset were working in a way cooler Macbook Pro then in someone else's case.
What I mean is that in your case if your Macbook has been working frequently with stock fan and voltage settings (so CPU at ~85-90* Celsius), the logic board components (and solder points) might have gotten damaged/stressed way beyond expectations. This means that in some cases the logic board replacement might indeed be needed now.

If in your case the problems also appear when the GPU runs above around 55* Celsius, then my advice is:
If you're out of warranty and don't feel safe about reballing/reflowing, and if you're also screwdriver-literate, go for the workaround I mentioned above.
It's a bit of work but should pay off. No warranty though, good luck.

In case you have questions mail me at gplayerallegro at gmail , com .