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ChanaiCh Author

Level 1

35 points

13" MBP 2012 freeze, HD4000 graphics to blame?

I bought my 13" MBP (2012) two days ago and have tried running a few programs that push the graphics capabilities. I know the 13" has no discrete GPU, but did not think that running graphics-intensive tasks would freeze the entire system, requiring a forced shutdown (holding power button for 5 seconds).

The two most recent freezes were running X-Plane. After the first freeze, I set up a program called Temperature Monitor and saw that after X-Plane loaded and started playing, the GPU diode had gone past 103°C. I quit X-Plane and it started cooling off, but the system froze the second time after it reached 92°C.

Other freeze include Chrome using its built-in Flash to run the "Scale of the universe 2" interactive animation (GPU temperature doesn't seem to go above 70°C when doing this), and in Safari when checking out Google Maps' new WebGL features.

Unfortunately there are no crash or kernel panic logs for any of these.

On my old white MacBook (late 2006), when the CPU temperature rises above 80C, e.g. when trying to play some (but not all) HD videos, there will be audio and visual stutters, at which point I stop doing what I was doing.

Is there not some kind of failsafe in OSX or the video driver that chokes the GPU when it exceeds a certain temperature? If not, how are we to supposed to know when something will spike the GPU? There is no warning to *not* run games or graphics program just because it has no discrete GPU.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 4 GB RAM

Posted on Jul 11, 2012 4:33 PM

38 replies

Patopipp

Level 1

37 points

Sep 1, 2012 8:48 PM in response to ChanaiCh

Hey ChanaiCh I'm having exactly the same issues you had. Hard freeze while browsing http://www.chromeexperiments.com/detail/cube/, also always when trying to export a video with iMovie, and also while playing Diablo 3. When I was trying to upgrade to ML my system froze so I took it to the Premium Reseller and they did a fresh install and everything seemed to run nice. (I live in Argentina, no Apple Stores over here, I bought this mac last month in NY, they dont sell MBPs over here just MBA). Today I installed Diablo 3 again and kept freezing, hopefuly Grapher.app does not freeze so I'm able to do my graphs for my studies. I believe I will need to have my logic board replaced 😢 unless Apple releases a magical update. Until I go again to the USA I won't be able to play any games or finish any iMovie proyect. I think I have one year warranty for this type of issue.

Sorry for my English.

ChanaiCh Author

Level 1

35 points

Sep 2, 2012 10:07 PM in response to ChanaiCh

Got my computer back Friday with new logic board, and so far the problem has not reappeared! Woo-hoo!

I put it through the same Grapher.app 3D example test as described above, the GPU temperature read as going to about 92°C. Ran the X-Plane demo, and the temperature peaked around 102°C like it did before, but again no system freeze despite switching to Finder while X-Plane was still running, and throwing different GPU tasks at it.

Sep 4, 2012 7:41 AM in response to ChanaiCh

In the past, how long did you run the X-Plane demo (or grapher demo) before the computer locked?

Thanks,

Curt

ChanaiCh Author

Level 1

35 points

Sep 4, 2012 8:56 PM in response to Chastings

Under Mountain Lion, the Grapher tests with all 3D examples running (in foreground; if the app is in background their animation stops) froze the system at the Genius Bar between 5 and 10 minutes, only because the system had cooled a bit between the initial install, reboot, and filling out initial user info. If I'd then reset the system and started the Grapher tests right away I'm sure it would've froze within 5 minutes.

Often the crash didn't happen in the program itself--it would happen shortly after quitting the program and doing something that invoked the GPU (like Quicklook or minimize animations).

ChanaiCh Author

Level 1

35 points

Sep 4, 2012 9:25 PM in response to ChanaiCh

I just installed smcFanControl and put it to full speed as a test. I was surprised how loud that was. I had thought it was a no-brainer that the fan was going full speed when the GPU went north of 95°C, and had been impressed at how quiet it was... now it seems the fan never went much above 3400 rpm the entire time I had this problem (3400 rpm is around when I start hearing it if I'm listening for it).

Maximum speed seems to be 6200 rpm and it's loud, there's no way I could've missed hearing it if it they'd been running at that speed. Even 4000rpm is audible over my air conditioning.

Jan 7, 2013 9:09 AM in response to ChanaiCh

@ChanaiCh: How is your system running - still good? It's been 4+ months since your last post so I figure the logic board replacement solved your issue but wanted to verify...

senthor

Level 1

0 points

Jan 7, 2013 9:31 AM in response to Cyb3rZ3us

my issues were solved with the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Update 2.0.

ChanaiCh Author

Level 1

35 points

Jan 7, 2013 7:52 PM in response to Cyb3rZ3us

Yes, still good, not a single freeze since the logic board was replaced. I've run X-Plane for tens of hours on it, it's even spiked past 100°C when I sometimes forgot to set fans to maximum first using smcfancontrol, and still fine.

Unlike senthor, I haven't applied the MBA and MBP Update 2.0 yet--it's still waiting in the App Store Updates section. I'll never know if that would have fixed the original problem on my MBP.

13" MBP 2012 freeze, HD4000 graphics to blame?