Macbook Pro Retina 15'/Sudden drop in graphics perfomance

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Macbook Pro Retina 15'/Sudden drop in graphics perfomance

Hi, I purchased the base model of the Macbook Pro Retina 15' display 2 weeks ago and recently installed Windows 7 via bootcamp just so I could play a couple of games which were not supported on OS X. Everything was going well until 3 days ago when I turned my mac on, logged into windows, booted up Bordelands 2 and noticed a massive drop in frame rates causing the game to be very laggy. At first I thought it was a problem with the game but then I had the same problem with Skyrim. I then reinstalled Windows 7 and the problem persisted. So I did a CineBench test on OS X Mountain Lion and got 14.7 fps on the OpenGL test which is more than half of what other people get with the same model Macbook Pro. So now I'm stuck on how to fix this, I'm not sure whether this is a software or a hardware problem and if there might be a quick fix that I can do or if I have to take it to an apple store to have it replaced. I would appreciate any help, thanks.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Sep 27, 2012 3:33 AM

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Answer 1

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Ardalaan Author

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Sep 28, 2012 1:42 AM in response to Ardalaan

I found that a simple SMC reset resolved this problem so nevermind.

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Answer 2

Jahtila

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Oct 1, 2012 6:10 PM in response to Ardalaan

Thanks for this... you just made my day with this one line. Tried to figure out for days what went wrong with skyrim or the macbook pro, but a simple SMC reset helped.

For the record - since I had to google this SMC reset myself too - here is how I done it on the retina MBP:
1. Shutdown the laptop.

2. Make sure that the MagSafe power adapter connected.

3. Press (left) SHIFT+CONTROL+OPTION+POWER buttons once (at the same time) ...no need to hold them.

4. Press POWER button to turn your MBP on again.

Simple as that and worked like a charm for me.

Big up for Ardalaan.

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Answer 3

Ardalaan Author

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Oct 3, 2012 3:36 AM in response to Jahtila

I'm glad I could have helped! My Macbook was like this for 4 days, I was actually starting to become depressed, was so happy when I finally managed to fix it.

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Answer 4

rob_ART

Level 2

426 points

Nov 30, 2012 7:26 PM in response to Jahtila

You are a gentleman and a scholar. I was re-running some benchmarks to compare my 15" Retina MacBook Pro to the new iMac. The numbers were so low, it was like I only had an integrated GPU like a Mac mini. Your SMC reset did the trick.

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Answer 5

Radeonus

Level 1

5 points

Dec 4, 2012 8:49 AM in response to Ardalaan

I bumped into the same problem a few days ago. I somehow fixed it, I also did a SMC reset among other things but I didn't realize the SMC reset fixed it.

Today it happened again and this is how I ended up reading your post 🙂

It is now fixed again thanx to you but the question is still why this happened, what action or software triggered this?

Thank you very much!!!

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Answer 6

cbs20

Level 4

2,796 points

Dec 4, 2012 9:10 AM in response to Radeonus

This problem started for me after the most recent EFI Update 2.0. Others are reporting problems from this update as well and I read that Apple has pulled the update from their servers.

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