OpenGL next does not load on mac mini 2011, poor 3D and very slow Lunchpad

Question

OpenGL next does not load on mac mini 2011, poor 3D and very slow Lunchpad

I am trying to find why my mac does not use hardware acceleration for 3D graphic. I have 2.3GHz mac mini with i5 HD3000 graphic. To my surprize the system does not load the proper drivers at boot. I can load them manually, via kextload, but they still seems to do nothing 😟

Anytime I boot I can see the message in the conlosle: "SNB Framebuffer did not show up, unload"

kextstat | grep Graphics

64 10 0xffffff7f80be2000 0x38000 0x38000 com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily (2.3.2) <9 7 5 4 3>

66 1 0xffffff7f81a3b000 0x3000 0x3000 com.apple.driver.AppleGraphicsControl (3.0.16) <65 64 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

82 0 0xffffff7f815db000 0x3a000 0x3a000 com.apple.driver.AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB (7.1.4) <64 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 1>

Why the system does not want to utilize AppleIntelHDGraphics or AppleIntelHD3000Graphics or how can I make it to utilize the drivers?

Many apps, for example safari, complains in the console log that OpenGL cannot be initialized. I believe this has also implication on Lunchpad speed.

I have downloaded from App Store free app "OpenGL extension viewer" and this app can only detect AppleSoftwareRenderer.

The hardware seems ok, on Windows 7 the graphics works great (ok it is not a monster but can do reasonable 60fps in 3D).

Of course I have tried wipping out the HDD and reinstalling Lion, no luck.

Any ideas?

Mac mini (Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jan 23, 2012 2:04 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Feb 27, 2012 11:19 AM in response to think.out.of.the.box

Hi there 🙂 I have just installed EFI update 1.6 and my mini works excellent! OpenGL hardware acceleration works, sleep-resume works... finally I can use the lunchpad 🙂 It was a very long year waiting for the update but finally it's a pleasure working with Lion on my mini 🙂

Reply

Answer 2

nobre84

Level 1

0 points

Aug 22, 2012 7:26 AM in response to think.out.of.the.box

I have the same issue on my Mini server (mid 2011) , however I already have the latest EFI, tried to reinstall Lion and it still no 3d accelleration 😟

It used to work, it stopped after I experienced 3 kernel panics, seems something got corrupted.

Reply

Answer 3

Aug 22, 2012 11:44 PM in response to nobre84

It's possible that your system is just corrupted and reinstall/repair would help.

However I would do simple hardware checks:

1. Does the fan work? You may have serious crashes when the CPU overheat.

2. Is the hard drive ok? Check SMART report - you can get a SMART reporting utility from macports.com.

2. Check the memory. You can make a bootable pendrive with memtest and start from it via holding the option key upon boot.

Hope that helps ;)

Reply

Answer 4

Aug 22, 2012 11:55 PM in response to think.out.of.the.box

And anyway, even if the fan seems to work open the deck and check if it's clean. It can be clogged, this happen often to people who keep cats or dogs at home.

Reply

Answer 5

nobre84

Level 1

0 points

Aug 23, 2012 6:05 AM in response to think.out.of.the.box

Thanks for sending in ideas. The machine is brand new, just 2-3 weeks of usage, so the fan failing/dirty should not be the case.

The memory has been upgraded, so I thought it was worth checking them, I let memory test ran overnight, 3 full cycles on the built in hardware tests (booting with D pressed), and no fault was found.

Maybe upgrading to ML can solve the issue ? I reinstalled 10.7.4 combo update and reinstalled Lion already (without wiping the partition, I'd rather avoid that as I spent a huge time setting everything up on the machine)

Reply

Answer 6

nobre84

Level 1

0 points

Nov 23, 2012 11:41 AM in response to nobre84

After re-installing Lion to no avail, and upgrading to Mountain Lion also without a fix, I resorted to creating a full Time Machine backup of the boot volume, making a bootable ML installer, and installing ML fresh erasing the old volume , then after done restoring from the backup. Then it fixed the video acceleration.

Reply

Answer 7

nobre84

Level 1

0 points

Dec 4, 2012 8:32 AM in response to nobre84

Update: unfortunately even a fully fresh install of ML doesn't fix the issue. As soon as the Mini is shut down for a few hours (sometimes a simple reboot is enough) and the acceleration is gone again. Tried as well clearing PRAM, SMC etc... I'll have to take it to service.

Reply

Answer 8

Jan 2, 2013 10:26 AM in response to think.out.of.the.box

I am also facing the same problem. If any has found any solution for this problem please update

Reply

Answer 9

Jan 2, 2013 10:52 AM in response to harishchm

I have not experienced any issue since the last fix.

Reply

Answer 10

Jan 3, 2013 6:22 AM in response to think.out.of.the.box

I did everything nobre84 has done. I installed the formware update. Didn't work. After that upgraded to mountain lion. Opengl was enabled in the first two or three boots. After that again apple software renerer is being used. Don't know what is the problem and how to resolve it.

Reply

Answer 11

Feb 26, 2013 5:55 AM in response to think.out.of.the.box

@nobre84: Have you found any solution for this problem? I am still struck with this problem.

Thank you.

Reply

Answer 12

nobre84

Level 1

0 points

Feb 26, 2013 7:08 AM in response to harishchm

Unfortunately not. This is a work box for iOS developing , and I haven't had the time to take it to service yet, I just let it run without powering down, it stays rock solid as long as I don't reboot it, uptime of 47 days right now (I make it sleep only). I'll have a large vacation on May and will send it to Apple (its under warranty until July)

Backing it up in TimeMachine and just restoring the main drive from it in the Mac boot recovery mode will work around the problem and its fairy quick when absolutely needed to reboot.

I guess its a corrupted/malfunctioning firmware problem of some sort... It simply won't load any kernel drivers for the graphics adapter on a second reboot.

Reply