10.8.3 Forcing Discrete Graphics With Dropbox and others

I'd like to second this: Dropbox 2.0.0 ran fine on 10.8.2, but 10.8.3 forces discrete graphics (mid-2010 17in i7 MBP). Don't know whether Apple or Dropbox is the culprit here, but I'd be happy to see a fix/work-around soon. Thanks!

Add Growl, Hyperdock Helper, and Sparrow to that list.

Apple's official statement (from their phone support) is that if Apple determines there's an issue, they will fix it. To me, that is far from a satisfactory response. The next line I got was to go to www.apple.com/feedback and submit feedback there.

Hi,

same problem here:

I just saw, that my 2010 MBP 15'' is using its Nvidia card because of Dropbox!

Updated to Dropbox v2.0 &10.8.3 yesterday, before that everything worked fine...

I've already send a bug report to Apple & submitted the bug to the dropbox forum.

I think it's not acceptable to power the discrete graphiccard all day long for these "simple" apps in the background!

Hopefully something will be changed...

BTW: Dictation also needs the Nvidia card 😠

I can confirm OS X 10.8.3 on my mid 2010 MBP that Dropbox 2.0, Memory Cleaner, and Growl were using discrete graphics. I've downgraded Dropbox and disabled the other apps from starting on start up; I miss Growl already. I never had Tweetbot or Reeder starting on start up so I can't confirm or deny if the discrete graphics was being used in 10.8.2 previously. I've left Apple feedback. I've also sent support tickets to the support teams of the respective applications.

I'm, currently, running an older version of Dropbox (1.6.16), which runs just fine on Integrated graphics (I believe later 1.6.x releases will auto-update to 2.0, this one won't). Fortunately, you can still download and install previous versions of Dropbox using the links on the Release Notes page. I like to keep Dropbox open 24/7. Discrete graphics is not an option. I won't be updating Dropbox until someone (don't care who) addresses this issue.

I don't use any of the other applications mentioned in this thread, so I can't, personally, comment on them.

Other than the Dropbox debacle, I have had no issues with 10.8.3.

Cerebro wrote:

I don't use any of the other applications mentioned in this thread, so I can't, personally, comment on them.

Try choosing Edit > Start Dictation in any application that supports text input. (You need to enable Dictation first in System Preferences > Dictation & Speech.)

Sometimes h.264 1080p videos played in QuickTime Player X force the system to use discrete GPU.

MBP 15" mid-2010, same problem as everybody else. Dropbox, bartender, spotify… they're all using the NVidia card 24/7 now, warming the left side of the case.

I sent a feedback both to Apple and to the 3rd party developers, I hope someone will fix it.

Dropbox are on top of things, according to their latest update. The "discrete graphics" bug isn't resolved, yet, but the post tells us that they ARE aware of it and ARE working to resolve it. This post also explains how to downgrade to the last v1 release (1.6.18) and disable the auto-updating feature, which should be useful to to anyone who needs a fix, immediately.

O.K. went back to 10.8.2 after a major crash today.. couldn't even get back into Mac OS anymore.. 😟 repair.. diskcheck nothing worked so..

Happily I had a backup from before 10.8.3 and was able to restore. everything runs fine now.. even cool! 😀 so.. no update to 10.8.3 for me..

@Apple: please help the people enjoy their macbook instead of braking it ant tell everybody you fixed it..

Same problem here, mid 2010 macbook pro just upgraded to 10.8.3.

I gave up using Google Chrome on OSX a year or so ago because that always forced discrete graphics and killed the battery. Now with dropbox doing it the macbook will always run hot. Needs a fix soon.

Just a question:

Why does everybody with this problem using a 2010 MBP with 15''?

13'' does not have discrete graphics ok, but 17'' has one!? Nobody here is using a 17'' MBP, as far as I can see...

And why only the 2010 ones? Is it just the Nvidia 330M?

Do we may all have the same Prozessor installed? I've an i5 with 2,53 GHz.

I'm just wondering why our hardware is just the same, and we're all facing the same problem...

(I just recognized that Hiss is also using Nvidia card, I don't think this happend before 10.8.3!?)

Thanks Clinton!

I've already read about this, but I do hope and think that I'm personally not affected by this issue, because I've just had 1-2 kernel panics in the last 2 1/2 years. (But sometimes I see some diagonal strips when playing hd-videos, but just for some milli-seconds and nothing crashs...).

Is there a way to reproduce such a kernel panic, so that I can see if my MBP is affected?

Do you think it really might be a hardware failure & not a MountainLion thing? Sounds bad 😟

Sitting, waiting, wishing...

Hi aburger,

As stated above, I have the same problem on a mid-2010 17'' MBP with an i7 2.66 Ghz processor, and I don't think I'm the only one with this hardware and that problem. The 330M video card might actually be (part of) the problem, but who knows, really?

Cheers,

T

Let's not conflate several unrelated issues here. This thread is about OS 10.8.3 forcing certain apps to use the discrete GPU, whereas the same apps used the integrated GPU before the 10.8.3 update. The issue is with the driver for the integrated Intel GPU, and not the discrete NVIDIA GPU.

from the macrumors forum I got this

rosh325

Unfortunately based on this I wouldn't hold your breath:

http://developer.apple.com/library/m...id/DTS40010791

Apple fixed a "bug" in that the 2010 MBP is no longer allowed to use integrated for OpenGL. Such BS!

I suggest using the feedback link to report this to Apple and let them know that sacrificing your battery life for this "fix" is not in the best interest of the user, especially when 10.8.2. showed us these programs could work just fine with the integrated

source: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1556998