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Graphic failure after full on memory consumption

After few hours of usage mostly after a high memory consumption, my mac starts doing these lines. Now i never had this issue before maverick upgrade. Can someone let me know what is going on. Rebooting fixes the issue for now.

User uploaded file

MacBook Pro

15-inch, Mid 2010

Processor 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5

Memory 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Graphics Intel HD Graphics 288 MB

Posted on Oct 23, 2013 1:00 AM

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60 replies

Oct 24, 2013 2:05 PM in response to drewex

Yup, same thing happening here. Just upgraded to 10.9 Mavericks.

2010 MBP 15-inch, i5 2.4GHz.


Kind of odd that all that all of us have the same model Mac. I hope this isn't related to another issue described over here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4088


I just spent money to get my logic board replaced because of that issue, as the diagnostic test said I "passed" even though I was still getting kernel panics occasionally. Now I upgrade to 10.9 and see video artifacts everywhere.


Random video/graphics glitches appear all over the place after a while. Sometimes it's minor, other times it makes the system unusable as you can't see anything. Usually goes away again if you restart, but it's obvious there's some kind of graphics issue with 10.9.

the 2010 15-inch MBP.

User uploaded fileUser uploaded fileUser uploaded fileUser uploaded file

Oct 25, 2013 2:29 AM in response to drewex

You have a faulty GPU as outlined in this Knowledge Base article -> http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4088?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US.


If you're within three years of purchase, the logic board will be replaced free of charge. If beyond three years of purchase, you'll have to pay for the logic board replacement yourself.


Good luck,


Clinton

Oct 25, 2013 3:52 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

Are you sure? I don't see how you draw that conclusion. The article says:

... may intermittently freeze or stop displaying video on the built-in display or on an external display connected to the MacBook Pro.

This is not what happened to me, or what seems to be happening in these screenshots.


I have not had any problems prior to Mavericks, and Mavericks has two big new features affecting memory: memory compression and variable integrated GPU memory. It seems reasonable that there are bugs in these features affecting older hardware.

Oct 25, 2013 10:55 AM in response to drewex

I tried editing /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist and setting ForceOldStyleMemoryManagement to YES, but it didn't help. In fairness, I actually have no idea what that's really supposed to do. I was just digging around and that sort of seemed like it may have been relevant.


Couldn't find anything else in other .plist files that seemed like it might help.

Oct 25, 2013 10:57 AM in response to drewex

I probably shouldn't have mentioned the other issue with the 2010 15" MBP, as I think I ended up confusing some people with a possibly unrelated issue. Still, it's weird that this specific model is having all of these various video/graphics glitches.


Because the issue only seems to happen when on integrated graphics, a temporary solution I've found is to turn off "Automatic graphics switching" in the Energy Saver panel in System Preferences. Unfortunately, this will force the discrete high-performance graphics on all the time, and use more battery power.


While it's probably related to the new power management features of 10.9, I don't recommend people muck around with random plist settings or terminal commands as that could possibly cause more issues down the road.

Oct 25, 2013 12:14 PM in response to ThreeD912

I followed your suggestion on turn off "Automatic graphics switching". Of course no clue if it will solve the issue. Also bad part of all this is i cant duplicated it, pure random for me. I had my laptop open for 2 days with a lot of work done nothing happened, even repeating exactly what i was doing before. Not sure what causes the problem

Oct 25, 2013 12:36 PM in response to drewex

Yeah I also get the same corrupt display artifacts, they also have only appeared since the Mavericks update.


I've also got the same MacBook Pro model (15-inch, Mid 2010, Processor 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5, Memory 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, Graphics Intel HD Graphics 288 MB).


It's definately a software issue. The temporary fix that corrects my display is the > System Prefs > Energy Saver > Untick/re-tick "Automatic graphics switching". It instantly corrects the display. It's a pain in the *** but better than a reboot.


Hopefully an update fix will be along soon.

Graphic failure after full on memory consumption

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