Retina MacBook Pro- choppy, laggy display at any resolution

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Level 1

14 points

Retina MacBook Pro- choppy, laggy display at any resolution

Just bought the entry level Retina MBP today... at first I was gobsmacked and pretty thrilled, but for some reason, the unit shipped with Lion, so I updated to Mountain Lion pretty much straight away. I mention this as I have no idea as to whether or not ML is the cause of this.... but for the love of god, scrolling in general (WriteRoom, Safari, Chrome) and Mission Control transitions are distractingly choppy and laggy. I have a headache pretty much after an hour of browsing the web as the scrolling is so choppy and laggy. Its entirely unacceptable- ***?

It appears to happen less frequently at 'Best for Retina Display', but to be honest, only moderatly. The issue appears at all display resolutions (or scales). I installed gfxCardStatus and discovered that if I forced the selected GPU to discrete (i.e., use the NVidia GPU rather than the Intel 4000), that performance was for the most part what I would have considered 'normal', or at least closer to being in line with my expectations... but overall, I'm not only disappointed, I'm gutted- I don't feel that is a functional machine... it feels like a beta. I have no idea if this is hardware or software, but I don't think its suitable for purpose.

Perhaps its just my machine and a simple replacement is needed. Anyone else experiencing this? Has Apple made any comment on the situation- has it been acknowledged as a defect? Is there a fix in the pipline? This is awful as it stands.

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Aug 16, 2012 3:59 PM

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Answer 1

GATTACA Author

Level 1

14 points

Aug 16, 2012 4:18 PM in response to GATTACA

Cant seem to edit my original post- held down D on boot to enter apple test.... it failed with the message 'Alert! Apple Hardware Test has detected an error' and the following code.

4SNS/1/40000001 : ID0R-0.000

I'm definitely bringing it back... but anyone any clue what that error signifies? If you can believe it, I'm hoping that what I'm experiencing is due to a defective machine, and not a defective line!

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Answer 2

GATTACA Author

Level 1

14 points

Aug 16, 2012 4:38 PM in response to GATTACA

Just in case it helps anyone, this video (not mine) demonstrates the terrible scrolling issue. I also experience lag when switching between full screen apps and zooming with mission control-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uixeNzzJBXQ

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Answer 3

johns1

Level 1

69 points

Aug 16, 2012 5:19 PM in response to GATTACA

Online they are saying that 4SNS/1/40000001 relates to a temperature sensor problem. I would have it checked out at the apple store.

You could always download iStat (free) to see which sensor (there are several) is not working.

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Answer 4

Aug 16, 2012 5:17 PM in response to GATTACA

I also have MacbookPro Retina with ML. I have experienced this once and I just shut my computer and started again and no problem since then. Maybe SMC reset would help. That resets the system.

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Answer 5

johns1

Level 1

69 points

Aug 16, 2012 5:20 PM in response to jaehlee87

It would be worth while as you say to reset the SMB (click on link for knowledge doc)

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Answer 6

Aug 16, 2012 11:31 PM in response to GATTACA

The quality control on these suck. Mine is faulty as well. I cant beleive they coudlnt run the hardware test before they ship so I surmmize that the company is shipping models whether they are working or not and dealign with it on the back end realizing this will allow them to spread out distribution load. Its sad that corporations make decisions like this but Apple wanted to jump to the front of the tech train instead of spending another 6 months doing R&D and building up stock. Mind you it worked.. they got my bucks.. now I have a 3 week wait to get this alluminum paper weight replaced.

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Answer 7

GATTACA Author

Level 1

14 points

Aug 18, 2012 1:56 AM in response to GATTACA

Just to document this, I reset SMC- no diff. Reset PRAM- no diff. Booted into recovery mode, erased hard drive and reinstalled Mountain Lion. This didn't solve the issue either. FYI also turned off graphics switching, so only the Nvidia GPU is being used, improvement, but still lagging and stuttered OS animation.

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Answer 8

Oct 15, 2012 7:35 PM in response to GATTACA

The choppiness is because the integrated graphics card has a hard time handling the retina high resolution. When you switch to the decrete graphics card it's a little better because it's a better video card. The graphics techonology in the laptop needs to catch up with the retina screen. That won't happen until the haswell processor update.

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Answer 9

jondrac

Level 1

1 points

Oct 22, 2012 9:35 PM in response to GATTACA

I retuned mine for a regular 2012 MacBook Pro, which works pretty much flawlessly, as you would expect from an Apple product. I'm pretty disappointed that Apple would even release the Retina MBP in it's current state. Hopefully this turns out to be just an isolated incident for them and a permanent drop in quality standards.

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Answer 10

Merica76

Level 1

0 points

Jul 10, 2014 5:51 PM in response to GATTACA

I know this is an old post, but I'm in dire need of a solution. I have the same problem as you, Gattaca. I have a 13" Mid-2012 MacBook Pro that is nothing but choppy when working on any program, scrolling, or switch between windows or full-screens (it's much worse than the YouTube link you posted). I noticed it a couple days after installing AutoCAD (in which I hadn't even opened the program after installing that one day). I have a warranty on it, but it only covers hardware. I brought it in to be fixed, but was told by Best Buy that it wasn't a hardware issue. I tried re-installing OS X Mavericks, but to no avail. Also reset SMC, with no change. Eliminated unnecessary automatic login items as well. Have any of you come across a possible reasoning behind it, or better yet a solution? I was told by Apple that it was because my laptop couldn't handle the lack of memory, therefore recommending that I purchase an 8GB stick to speed it up. Why would I need an 8GB stick if it worked fine before? What so drastically changed that I now need more memory? Any advice would help at this point!

Thanks!

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