Anyone getting graphics corruption in OSX Mavericks?

Having performed the upgrade, I am finding the toolbar at the top of the screen is occassionally becoming corrupted/scrambled. I've also noted the same scrambled pixels at the side of Safari and Mail windows.


Anyone else experienced this?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Oct 27, 2013 4:00 PM

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226 replies

Mar 5, 2014 1:01 PM in response to Gasoftware

I bought it used last June via ebay and don’t have the original invoice to know when it was purchased the first time.
I can not use gfxCardStatus because than I can not use the Creative Cloud anymore.


I followed this thread and had the graphics corruptions like described in the beginning even before Mavericks. But it was gone after installing the system new by a Genius.
The crashes kept.


I can not afford a new Mac and this is my most important working tool!

Mar 14, 2014 6:39 AM in response to Tranquillizer

I only had one incident. A few days ago, I was watching a very large video file with VLC. VLC forces discrete graphics, so no issues while in that mode. Immediately upon quitting VLC, the GPU switched back to integrated and I, immediately, saw some corruption in my dashboard widgets. I used the old trick of toggling the GPUs with gfxCardStatus to clear the artifacts (only one toggle needed; previously, I'd sometimes need multiple toggles depending on how "sticky" the corruption was at a given moment). I guess I hit that sensitive "sweet spot" level of activity required to push the graphics memory and the compression into the "problem zone". Other than that one time, 10.9.2 has been smooth sailing. Prior to the update, I was getting corruption on a daily basis doing more mundane tasks, which was much more infuriating. If the frequency has been whittled down from "daily" to "every once in a while", I supposed I can't really complain.

Mar 14, 2014 9:14 AM in response to Cerebro

Hi Cerebro - Interesting that you were using VLC when this happened. I happened to be using VLC (v2.1.4) and HandBrake (v.096) earlier this week. I don't think I turned the machine off that evening, so perhaps that's a clue. I had 'undone' Pehtis' graphics fix but i'm putting it back on now. Here is that fix (quote from Pehtis' January posting here)


"To fix it you have to disable compressed memory by typing the following command in the terminal:


sudo nvram boot-args="vm_compressor=1"


and then Restarting your Mac.


I'm guessing that its a bug in the driver of the Intel HD Graphics integrated GPU used in the 2010 MacBook Pro and somehow a part of the graphics RAM is accidentally compressed. I've been testing for approx. 8 hours and so far no graphics corruption at all.


If it gets fixed in an OSX update or it doesn't work for you you can use:


sudo nvram -d boot-args


to reenable compressed memory."

Mar 17, 2014 6:40 AM in response to Gasoftware

Just for clarification, for anyone who might be stumbling on to this thread late in the game, we seem to, once again, be crossing our wires and talking about two different problems in this thread. Granted, both of them are graphics related which, no doubt, continues to lead to the overlap.


Problem #1: Is this: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4088. Intermittent black screen or loss of video, or similar such symptoms. This has, largely, been identified by Apple as a hardware issue, specifically with the Nvidia GPU. Apple are, on their own dime, replacing logic boards on affected models as a last-ditch solution.


Problem #2: Graphics corruption (what this thread was, initially, intended to address). Symptoms have, typically, manifested as graphical artifacts appearing on screen to varying degrees and blocky drop shadow rendering around windows. The symptoms have, usually, occured when the Intel GPU is active. Toggling over to the discrete GPU clears the artifacts. This has been show to be a software issue. For many of us, the problem was nonexistent until we upgraded to Mavericks. Has Pehtis's solution has proved, the problem is directly related to the memory compression feature introduced with Mavericks. 10.9.2 has, largely, solved this problem. Though it isn't 100% there, yet.

Apr 27, 2014 9:48 AM in response to Cerebro

I have been experiencing the graphics corruption issue described as Problem #2: Graphical artifacts appearing on the home screen when I boot-up in the morning and it becomes dramatically worse (or simply more and more apparent) in any/all application screens (Safari, iPhoto, etc.).


A Restart seems to resolve it... While a start-up after shutting down seems to create the problem.


The Security Update 2014-002 was installed on 22 Apr - 5 days ago. I don't know if that would have anything to do with it?


MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB

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Anyone getting graphics corruption in OSX Mavericks?

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