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Macbook Pro mid-2010 blue tint with GPU switch

Have had this problem off and on for a while, but as of a few days ago it is constant. Anytime the integrated graphics are used the display changes to a blue tint. Switch back to discrete graphics and it returns to normal.


The only "fix" is to turn off graphics switching in the Power settings... but, that's not a fix, it's a work around.


Has Apple addressed this in any way or even acknowledged it in any way?


Thanks in advance.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Nov 13, 2012 3:09 PM

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Posted on Nov 14, 2012 12:13 AM

Same for me on Mid-2012 15" MBP. Problem only appeared today. Kind of annoying.

37 replies

Jun 25, 2014 8:35 PM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

Thought I'd share my find after countless forums and message boards with the same problem only to have apple genius tell all the same thing - that it's a logic board issue and that the graphics chip or processor is possibly damaged.


Well I found through other such cases that the logic board doesn't necessarily have to be replaced as the apple geniuses would have us all believing. Apparently pc users get the same problem too, and according to techs that fix pc's all the time, this screen problem and inability to boot is an easy and fast fix, it's generally related to a graphics chip problem where the soder that binds the chip to the logic board has softened due to overheating. If you take your mbp to a pc tech who also deals in fixing Macs, he will be able to do what's called a reflow, which is a process of rebinding or resodering any loose pins back to the logic board. According to them this is a simple fix. Only takes two hours max to complete! Do as I did, find yourselves a Computer tech in your neighborhood using yelp, mine quoted me only $80, and only need to pay if he's able to fix it and if thats the only issue! Of course, for some people, your chip may be cracked or fried, therefore only a new board would be advised, but please try this first before letting apple genius convince you to turn yours in for some rediculous fees and dollar amounts of up to $1200 in some cases I've read.


The logic board is repairable folks if it's only loose soder...just as long as there's nothing else wrong with the graphics chip and nothing else is cracked or damaged like the board itself, connectors, the drive, etc...there may be hope yet! So find yourself a pc tech who knows about doing a reflow...this may solve your problem!

Jul 4, 2014 2:40 PM in response to stewartfromknoxville

Hi Everyone,

I seem tohave the same problem...

The grey startup screen, with Apple Logo and spinning wheel, has red, or could be pink horizontal lines. MacBook then shuts off by itself, or sometimes Apple Logo and spinning wheel disappear, grey screen with horizontal red lines persist. I then have to hard-boot on Macbook and try again. I was able to run a AHT (apple hardware test) when it first happened, I did both the standard and the extended test, but no problems could be found! I've tried to run AHT since then, which was about a week ago, but nothing seems to work now anymore. System Board bad? I have also tried to boot from Mavericks USB stick, Install-CD, recovery boot up, SMC reset, no go!


here the specs:

MacBook Pro 15" early 2011

i7 Quadcore 2.3ghz

8gb 1333mhz

AMD Radeon 6750 1gb

Intel HD Graphics 3000

Antiglare screen

I paid a lot of money for that Mac!, now it's just a boat-anker!!!

Has anyone had any experience with "Powerbook Medic.com" http://www.powerbookmedic.com/xcart1...FUcV7AodPBQAnw)? They say if they can't fix it you don't have to pay! Logic Board repair is $300.00, might be worth it, but are those Guys for real?


any suggestions?

best regards


Tlynyrd

Jul 23, 2014 12:21 AM in response to stewartfromknoxville

SOLVED: My language may not be good, sorry!

MacBook Pro Late 2011 model (OS X 10.9.2 Maverick) - My MBP struggled a lot when i boot, the Apple logo is red/pink with stripes, and after that a grey screen or a blue screen with vertical stripes and stays still and the fans run full speed, over heating (centre part below where MacBook Pro text appears can't even touch) , NOTHING HAPPENED not even able to login for the past two months. The Mac people said that it is display adapter issue, must change logic board [The logic board cost $800 (Rs.~45,000/- in India)] . I have searched solutions and followed many threads and tried EVERYTHING (PRAM, safe mode, recovery, R, T, S, D, etc.,). Finally (yesterday) I put my boot disk (that came with my MBP) and tried again blue screen appeared after few mins. But something happened inside when the disk was running after that I removed the disk and tried to turn on with (shift) safe mode… Apple logo --> grey screen --> after 2-3 mins I could able to login YESTERDAY and my MBP works till now without any problem 🙂🙂 I backed up my whole system 298GB to Time Machine … I don't know what happened but still works fine.

Jul 23, 2014 12:22 AM in response to Tlynyrd

SOLVED: My language may not be good, sorry!

MacBook Pro Late 2011 model (OS X 10.9.2 Maverick) - My MBP struggled a lot when i boot, the Apple logo is red/pink with stripes, and after that a grey screen or a blue screen with vertical stripes and stays still and the fans run full speed, over heating (centre part below where MacBook Pro text appears can't even touch) , NOTHING HAPPENED not even able to login for the past two months. The Mac people said that it is display adapter issue, must change logic board [The logic board cost $800 (Rs.~45,000/- in India)] . I have searched solutions and followed many threads and tried EVERYTHING (PRAM, safe mode, recovery, R, T, S, D, etc.,). Finally (yesterday) I put my boot disk (that came with my MBP) and tried again blue screen appeared after few mins. But something happened inside when the disk was running after that I removed the disk and tried to turn on with (shift) safe mode… Apple logo --> grey screen --> after 2-3 mins I could able to login YESTERDAY and my MBP works till now without any problem 🙂🙂 I backed up my whole system 298GB to Time Machine … I don't know what happened but still works fine.

Jul 23, 2014 12:22 AM in response to 1twistedjew

SOLVED: My language may not be good, sorry!

MacBook Pro Late 2011 model (OS X 10.9.2 Maverick) - My MBP struggled a lot when i boot, the Apple logo is red/pink with stripes, and after that a grey screen or a blue screen with vertical stripes and stays still and the fans run full speed, over heating (centre part below where MacBook Pro text appears can't even touch) , NOTHING HAPPENED not even able to login for the past two months. The Mac people said that it is display adapter issue, must change logic board [The logic board cost $800 (Rs.~45,000/- in India)] . I have searched solutions and followed many threads and tried EVERYTHING (PRAM, safe mode, recovery, R, T, S, D, etc.,). Finally (yesterday) I put my boot disk (that came with my MBP) and tried again blue screen appeared after few mins. But something happened inside when the disk was running after that I removed the disk and tried to turn on with (shift) safe mode… Apple logo --> grey screen --> after 2-3 mins I could able to login YESTERDAY and my MBP works till now without any problem 🙂🙂 I backed up my whole system 298GB to Time Machine … I don't know what happened but still works fine.

Nov 26, 2014 2:47 PM in response to 1twistedjew

Same story for me, same model (MacBookPro 15" beginning 2011).

I'm very disappointed in Apple... very bad quality & service for a maximum amount of money! Shame on you Apple, applecare for 3 years is over, and now just a couple of months later on, the AMD Radeon is dead.


I'm a Mac-user since the early '90's.... never have had a bad Mac like this before. I hope my iMac (medio 2010) will not end the same way.

Nov 27, 2014 11:49 AM in response to crjett

Just appeared for the first time this week, coinciding with Yosemite 10.10.1. (was not an issue with 10.10.0). This is on a MacBook Pro 15" Mid-2010 with Intel HD Graphics built in, and NVidia GeForce GT330M graphics in PCI.


First noticed a very blue cast in the menu bar, Finder windows (and any other white space on the screen), when using Photoshop, and intermittently when running Firefox or Safari. I had the same reaction - did something happen to the color profile of my display? When I launched System Settings (making it the front-most application and sending FIrefox and Photoshop to the background), the screen suddenly switched back to the normal color gamut.


Anyway, to make a long story short, the GPU seems to be my issue. In Energy Saver, I have a check-mark in the box for Automatic Graphics Switching. Un-checking it makes the screen go to the blue cast. I just ran Onyx to clear all the caches, but this did not solve the problem. After cleaning and rebooting, it was OK with Firefox, but it went blue when I launched Microsoft Outlook.


PS - This is not the first time for issues with this model of MacBook Pro. See Mavericks Finder window- and shadow-rendering issues-Screenshots - I had some serious issues with the first few revs of Mavericks that eventually want away. Apple even went through the expense of replacing my logicboard at no charge to me, even thought my Applecare had expired. So I can't say they didn't try. But I am convinced that this was a software issue, and so is the current problem.

Nov 27, 2014 12:05 PM in response to Steve H

I just re-set PRAM, and it may have addressed the problem. (press CMD, Option, P, R together, just after pressing the power-on button at startup. Don't let go until after you hear the startup tone the second time)


I am running Photoshop CS6, Outlook and Firefox simultaneously, and no blue screen.


I will report back if the problem returns.

Dec 1, 2014 9:07 AM in response to Steve H

On Day 2 after resetting PRAM, the blue cast has come back. Resetting PRAM after this recurred did not solve the issue this time. The problem again appears intermittently when running one or more of these software applications: Microsoft Outlook, Safari, Firefox, Photoshop CS6. Outlook seems to be the most consistent cause. It appears that browsers will cause the screen to go to the blue cast when running a video player plug-in such as Flash or Silverlight.


Previously, I had run Disk Utility to re-set permissions, etc.- didn't work. Then, used Onyx to clear all caches, which worked for a short time but no longer. Then PRAM, which, as noted above, worked for a while - but the cat came back.

Dec 5, 2014 3:41 AM in response to crjett

Same problem over here. Spend over €2500 for my Macbook Pro 15" 2011 2,4 Ghz i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6770M / Intel HD Graphics 3000. Since mid October it crashes, locks-up, kicking me out of finder, gave me distorted, flickering and blue screens, stripes, trouble booting, etc... I've tried everything: Full reset, fresh install, updating, safe boot, clearing pvram, gfxCardStatus, etc... At the max it'll work for a couple of hours.
Since this is my work computer and much of my work needs a computer this is ****. I've paid this much money so I've got a stable system and not any of those windows problems, but it seems like Apple is giving us the finger and is becoming worse then Microsoft... I hope there'll be a recall soon and the problem will be solved

Dec 27, 2014 4:25 PM in response to crjett

I don't have anything productive to add other than that I've been experiencing a lot of the same issues, just not the blue screen or blue tint problems people have been reporting. I do get the stripes, crashes, and double/split screen effect. My computer will usually boot back up OK, always crashes when I play a video back in Final Cut Pro X. I can always recreate the problem this way, but I have had similar issues pop up randomly. I do want to keep an eye out on this forum in case something good is posted. Thanks

Macbook Pro mid-2010 blue tint with GPU switch

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