ATI Radeon X1600 GPU problem

Thanks for the advice. I have some experience with fiddling PCs and notebooks so think i could do the necessary 'reflow' if you posted some links. Though am very tempted to try the SOGA route especially as I have just read a post elsewhere when somebody was successful in doing this.

Hi CRich,

Heres the useful links.

iFixit MBP

YouTube Guide 1

YouTube Guide 2

If your confident then I say give it a go. Day 2 of my repair and its still going strong!

Stu

I got the herringbone screen recently too on the 2.44 Intel Core 2 Duo 17". This was after my 15" died so I knew some steps, reset PRAM, SMC, etc but this time nothing fixed it. So I booted into safe mode which let some of the screen stay normal (probably due to less processor usage or disabled some drivers affecting it) and thus I moved all the ATI driver kexts out of Extensions via Terminal. Well the computer KIND OF worked on normal mode, the herringbone still tended to pop up and would increase in frequency whenver I was typing especially. Temperature kind of affected it but sometimes even after running smcfancontrol high blast, it would still corrupt.

AND THEN I found another post about deleting the SystemConfiguration files. I realize that not all power management preferences were updated when PRAM and SMC were reset. So I moved those out. Did another SMC reset (battery out, power button). And voila as of this post, the computer seems totally free of corrupted pixels even after the temperature exceeds 160.

However the ATI drivers have not been moved back. So while the computer works perfectly fine, my graphics experience is like reverting to Windows 95. I'm about to try moving drivers back, keep you updated!

I am running Lion (yes I made it work) and intensively use my comp for video and graphics editing. I did notice just recently Apple did a software updat ethough it appeared to be related to printing.

Okay! I just used Kext Drop to reinstall the ATI X1600 files that I had moved out of the directory and now everything looks perfectly normal like before all this kernal panicing happened!!! So weird.

A reminder about the System Configuration files, the Power Mgmt file enables screen dimming and such so after you move out those files, go into Energy Saver and just click restore defaults or fiddle with it so that it will recreate the file.

Another oddity which could point to software is that the kernal panicing began when I was viewing YouTube in Chrome. The screen 'crashed' into black and lines which forced a reset. Then on things got bad. And then during my system use when the files were moved out, Chrome was begin choppy about video playback yet Safari and Firefox handled them just fine. I'm not 100% sure but I do believe Safari and Firefox were playing Flash version of Youtube and Chrome was using native HTML5.

I am adding to the list of failed Radeon X1600 GPU from a MBP 2006 1,1. It failed 5 years after purchase. Any news of Apple/ATI inclning their ear to this issue?

liquifiede,

Could you by any chance post a step-by-step of what exactly you've done? What's your experience since you used Kext Drop and reinstalled the ATI X1600 drivers? Have the freezups returned?

Your help would be much appreciated. I have the exact same problem and it's getting worse and worse, already at the point of tearing my hair out, my laptop always freezing up at the worst possible moment.

Thank you.

Liquifiede,

I have the same issue with ATI X1600 on a MBP 2.33 17 inches (feb 2008). The computer stops booting and shows a gray screen. I could not boot until the end from installation DVD 10.5, 10.6 and 10,7. The computer start on Safe Boot but a ghost scale sticks on the cursor. I can not have a clear mind of this issue. Is it a hardware or a driver matter ?

I would like to know how many ATI X1600 drivers you have reinstalled. I have deleted all types of ATI drivers including Atisupport.kext, Atiframebufer.kext, AtiX1000.kext and three others atix1000.

Hey guys, okay, whoever reads this for the first time do this first: READ THE ENTIRE THREAD FROM START TO HERE You will get a better idea of what has been done and so you need not ask the same questions again.

I'll restate, the KEXTS that need to be removed are anything that starts with ATI and they are all in the same order. Just remove them all for sanity's sake, no need to zero in on specific one. Before you do that, make sure you make a local backup copy. When you delete the kexts, empty the trash afterwards.

However I have an UPDATE!!!!!!!!

My software "solution" seems to have been only temporary, seems 2 months at this point. After playing a YouTube video in Chrome on full resolution, the kernal "crash" happened again to a forced reset, eventually after use everything went to herringbone smithereens as it did in August. THE FINAL WORD IS: RECOMMENDED SOLUTION IS TO CLEAN AND RE-THERMAL PASTE THE CHIPS. Yep Cpl BadBoy wins this. After this second crash, my kext solution was not solving the problem. I cracked open my 2006 17" MBP 2.3 Intel Core 2 Duo and discovered the same failed thermal paste slatherings of yore that has accosted nearly every single owner of this infamous MBP. With new cheap thermal paste on and a PRAM reset later, the screen has returned to normalcy again. For good? Well, there is no more fix aside from a logic board replacement which is still $600+ from even the local guys here in San Francisco. Why the thermal paste is the cause of what seems to be a motherboard issue is still up for debate. Perhaps it has to be simply the chemistry of the paste used and as it breaks down and becomes brittle, creates a reaction that is affecting the processor. As well if you lug your macbook around like many of us do, the paste will break off and migrate outside onto the chip (as seen in almost every photo of an opened up MBP).

Of course, I have finally ordered a somewhat inexpensive 13" MB Air to be my remote workhorse. It will give redundancy, speed, and stop people from laughing at me lugging this computer around. I will admit as a sort of retrospect (if Apple ever looks back at itself) that the first-gen aluminum Pros were the most beautiful and terribly designed macbooks. The internals are brilliant (if you understand them) but the casing itself is a trainwreck of fatigue points and exposure joints. This computer is destined to suck in a lot of dust and grit without any assistance from you and the speaker meshes essentially leave the logic board out in the open. You could tell the difference in built up dust between the topside and underside. Any minor bump can cause a contusion or warp in the frame that can end up completely misaligning the entire casing and create new pressure points for other parts. Essentially, this generation of Macbook belongs in your home office at all times and don't be putting any drinks near it. It is a shame no one ever decided to sell some kind of reinforcement kit for this computer.

Aside from this problem, I have begun experiencing screen bezel fatigue. The screen is so heavy that the bezel on both sides has begun to crack inwards about 1.2 inches above the single screw. As you close the screen, the hinge draws backward, popping the rear of the casing up. It has now sheared out the screws so I will have to manually drill in reinforcement screws.

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This is a topic that helped me a lot with my 17" Macbook Pro from late 2006. Thanks to all who contributed to the solution of removing the ATI Drivers and the other techie solutions. I only removed the kexts with the 1000, 2000, 3000 in the file names, rather than all of them with 'ATI.' The result of that is that the horizontal lines in the display are gone and the computer doesn't freeze any more. I am not sure if I'll try the processor board cooking experiment, but I have had the computer apart pretty far while replacing the hard drive and cleaning out the dust from the speakers. That was a little over a year ago. I didn't pull the fans apart, but cleaned the blades as best as I could. The thermal paste at least, should be replaced. Maybe I'll do that.

I also have Fan Control 1.2, which I like because, if nothing else, I can monitor the temperature when I want to. It also helped show that the temp can go way up, but without the hardware issue interfering, the PC still runs. I still had the 'runaway' temperature periodically, which seemed to be due to streaming media and/or Flash content. I had disabled Flash a long time ago as a contributor to the heating and freezing. Flash and non-Flash video viewing elevates the temp severely. Apparently Flash became re-enabled on the last Chrome update and while the PC didn't lock up, the speeding fans convinced me to disable Flash again. The CPU runs cooler and the automatic video content that starts on some websites (CN* and ESP*, for starters) doesn't annoy me any longer.

I can use the laptop again, accepting the limitations (video DVDs do not play), and ponder the Mac vs. Windows PC question in a more relaxed way. I don't like the Retina prices, and I don't like the lower resolution of the non-retina 15" Macbooks, as compared to the 17".

Cheers.

You guys rock. My old mbp 2,2 went the same road yesterday so I took it apart using the ifixit instructions, discovered the heat paste was terribly dry. then baked the mainboard as shown in the first youtube vid. meanwhile I cleaned the casing. Wasn't that bad actually. Then I put everything together again and turned the mbp on.

To my surprise it worked well immediately. This whole procedure took just three hours to complete (I had taken apart laptops before and did have a lot of compaq trainings many years back - but I never baked one).

Thanks for the instructions, and thanks to all other people in this and other threads to solve this issue.

It will work immidiately, but whenever the laptop heats up for any high processing time.. it will go back to same state Dude, its a Manufacture fault... what to do... 😢

SOLUTION THAT WORKED FOR ME WITH ATI X1000 kext enabled, 2 copper coins fixes it !!!!!!!!😉

OK update for all you guys still trying to work with older macbook pros struggling with this problem, I resolved it on my macbook pro A1150 properly with no disablement of the ATI x1000 kext, everything work fully, for my glitches it turn out that as per usual SMC BGA chips are the problem, the 4 vram chips mounted on the opposite side of the logic board appear to not making full contact causing the glitching, simple solution which just worked for me, playing youtube videos for 30 mins not glitches on boot no issues so far, you will need

2 x 2 pence peices or equivalent dimension copper coins to 2p UK currency or theyre equivalent material and dimensions in copper foreign currency.

2 x double side sticky sponge pads smaller than the coins but sufficient to hold them I used sellotape sticky pads 19mm x 19mm with 2p coins.

1: remove upper case

2: locate the the vram chips on opposite side to ATI GPU, top side of logic baord as visible when opening upper case, the chips are in pairs 2 across near vent and 2 down nearby them, on reverse ie visible side of logic board to where the ati chip is solderd onto the logic board, (ie no need to remove logic board they are on the visible side) place 1 two pence peice overlapping each pair of vram chips

3: place sticky pad on top of each copper coin

4: Then carefully align top case and place back onto main case without disturbing the position of coins, this should stick the coins via the double sided sticky pads onto the back of the keyboard on the upper case so when you lift up upper case the coins come with it stuck to the back of keyboard,

5: Reassemble as per usual making sure to do up all screws nice and tight especially the four long philips case screws on the rear of the back case, you may have to squeeze the the two halfs of the case together a bit especially at the location on the case where the screw is closest to the copper coins, once you have all screws in tight, with the extra pressure of the copper coin heatsinks you are applying to the vram chips, they will now make better contact to the logic board, and therefore now work correctly!, I know this sounds ridiculous but it actually worked completely for me, I now have my x1600 working properly ! with ATI X1000 kext functioning with no glitches, Its also worth noting I have copper shimmed the chips on the reverse and redone thermal paste prior to this but it did not not resolve the problem of glitching until I applied pressure to the vram chips in this manner.

The problem was only resolved when I applied the two pence peices to the vram chips, which I beleive is the cause all along, Im guessing this means that perhaps a bake of the motherboard might resolve the issue with the vram smc bga chips, as mere pressure onto these chips seems to resolve it!

experiment at your own lesiure report back results, but im perosnally very chuffed with this result.

I hope this helps someone

perhaps I spoke too soon worked for 60 mins worth of video watching on vimeo and youtube, QE CI working as getting droplet effects working in dashbaord when placing widgets etc - then I had a hang in safari - no glitching screen at all though and none after reboot either ? justa straight hang, gonna try a fresh reinstall as maybe I have allot of stuff that was corrupted from the time i was running with the glitching video, and as ian cheong instructions states maybe some files need clearing out as maybe corrupted from previous times ? I also note that my repair though fixing also puts a low profile bulge in the keyboard, as basically my method is to sandwich the chips tighter onto the logic board and the copper coins/shims take up space, just rebooted conducting testing now tightening the screws a little further. will report back how stable fix is temps are very low cpu core on video browser use 38degc did use arctic cooling mx2 thermal paste properly and thinly applied.

Ok update I cleared out corrupt preferences as per ian cheong instructions did an smc and pram reset, did a gigs worth of OS updates to 10.6.8 for 45 minutes no screen glitches of any kind, it certainly seems as if pressure on the vram chips has massively improved the situation by at least 90% its kind of night and day compared to before with no pressure on the vram chips, ie until I get the hang there is literally no screen corruption of any kind ? but I am not at all 100% stable. Pity so many hot surface mount BGA chip packages are used on thin logic boards as they are prone to failure within a few years of purchase, and lead free solder did not help the issue, well manufacturers dont seem to care about such design flaws. the logic board on a macbook is too flexible imo and the case not rigid enough, the unitbody macbooks helped these issues, bu theyre still to thin not cooled well enough and I doubt with thick enough logic boards either.

so im guessing the next step is a bake of the board, probably using g clamps to apply pressure to both the vram chips and the gpu chip at the same time whilst being baked, as I think pressure and baking might be the only 100% way, relying on just one or the other is going to leave me at around 90%. i should imagine as the bga solder balls need to be forced into firm contact whilst the solder is made fluid and recooled, not sure if I have the energy for the operation as this is not worth it time wise.

I kind of have it 90% stable, im using the penny trick on the vram chips, new thermal paste and a copper shim on the gpu chip, im using "Fan Control" system preference from macupdate, to set a fan profile ramp from a lower threshold 48 degc to 70degc for max fan rpm, and minimum fan rpm 3100rpm, im using temperature monitor lite set to open at login so I can keep an eye on all temps in the menu bar, I am also using SmcFanControl as fan speed readout in the menu bar, I tend to find though I have no graphic glitches during machine use when the temps get high watching full screen video for an hour or I may get a lockup, if I Avoid full screen and probably though not tested I also suspect full screen 3d games I dont get any lockups during normal use, which is a darn site better than beofre where the machine was display glitching on boot to desktop.

It worked perfect... Ti is any other solution after 3 years?

Thank You