Q: Mid 2011 iMac Graphics Problems with Yosemite
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Dec 4, 2014 3:12 AMby ImperialEagle,deltone ... thank you so much for your post.
And all who have helped me identify this issue.
I did ring Apple, they said they would honour the replacement of my AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB.
They found an Apple preferred store for me, said I did not need a CS code, as it was a known issue.
Took my iMac in on Friday and picked it up with a new Radeon card installed, yesterday (Wednesday).
Easy, but still a pain. Glad I have got it back though.
A few notes:
- I had to re-install the OS, as I think with the amount of rebooting I had done previously messed it up. It would only boot in Safe mode.
- After any install / re-install, best to check and repair Permissions in Disk Utility
- On my invoice (zero to pay incidentally) there was just a 3 month warranty on the Card, which surprised me.
All good now... thanks again for your help. What would we do without these forums !?
My Spec:
iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011), 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7, 24 GB 1333 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB, OS X Yosemite 10.10.1
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Dec 4, 2014 3:23 AMby ImperialEagle,Sorry meant for facemac
Just point them to this link.
iMac (27-inch): AMD Radeon 6970M Video Card Replacement Program - Apple Support
It is on their Web site !
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Dec 5, 2014 9:50 AMby gunnyst,Just a quick and maybe interesting update for those that have NOT a hardware issue (specifically those with ATI Radeon 6770). There is some issues in Yosemite still that also affected VMware Fusion (very slow virtual machines). Today I installed the update to version 7.1.0 and found an interesting comment and work-around in their release notes at https://www.vmware.com/support/fusion/doc/fusion-71-release-notes.html - specifically:
Some users running Fusion on a Mid-2011 iMac with OS X 10.10 installed may see poor performance of their virtual machines.
Workaround: Until this issue is resolved, the following work around can help:
- On the iMac, run the Terminal application.
- Type the following and press return: sudo nvram boot-args="debug=0x10"
- Enter your password (you must be an administrator on the machine).
- Reboot the iMac.
These boot arguments "make ddb the default debugger" and even though additional seems quite unlikely to make your virtual machines go faster, it effectively does. There is a few comments about this at https://communities.vmware.com/message/2443765 suggesting that "But it appears to be that the problem is with Yosemite running on specific hardware (iMac 12,1 and 12,2). It's not really a Fusion problem at all...it's the fact that there is an interrupt storm going on on CPU 0 (where Fusion happens to live). Even if Fusion is not running on your machine (prior to setting the nvram boot-args flag, you could see the problem by running 'sudo powermetrics -s interrupts"...indicating CPU 0 is having real problems). It's not exactly a hardware problem either... it's something about the way Yosemite interacts with these specific model iMacs. Anyway, the solution will have to come from Apple in the form of a real patch.".
Setting the above seems to take that "interrupt storm" down to acceptable levels... I have done so now and at for VMware Fusion I am back to a working solution. I'll switch Transparency ON again to see if this will bring some change there as well.
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Dec 5, 2014 2:40 PMby deltone,I'm glad you're satisfied. I was responding to facemac. I think a lot of people coming to the forum to seek help might not know that the Radeon cards are warranted for 4 yours.
AND, BTW. . . now I see that nvidia cards are being mentioned?! That software seems to do some damage to video cards!
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Dec 5, 2014 5:27 PMby enricoclaudio,On Thursday I took my two months old MacBook Pro 13" retina into the Apple Store for a display replacement due an accident. Long story short my MacBook was in my backpack and I ran over it with my truck. The screen did not brake but got damage. Even that accidental damage is NOT covered by Apple warranty the Genius Bar girl was kind enough to replace the display for free under warranty. Then I asked her about my mid 2011 iMac and the problem I have after installing Yosemite then she told me to bring the iMac to the store when I come to get my MacBook back. I did that today in the morning, they ran the test and the GPU was totally fine. Then I turned ON transparency and they ran the test again and the GPU failed the test. I asked them to replace the card and they say yes but I need to pay $150 + labor. Then she check with the store manager and even over the phone with their supervisor and they said that it's NOT true that ATI Radeon cards are warranted for 4 years. All the parts and components inside any Apple product (computers, phones, ipads, etc) are covered by Apple warranty and not by the component manufacture. Don't get me wrong here, please, I'm not telling that deltone is lying, my point here is that the same way I got a free display replacement for my MacBook Pro, some others got a free GPU in their iMacs but that's not the rule for everyone. Those that got their GPU replaced is because they are still covered by Apple Care or they were atended by a Genius Bar clerk that was kind enough to replace the GPU for free, not because they are covered by ATI warranty.
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Dec 5, 2014 6:30 PMby K_Rek,Since I started this thread, I thought I would post an update. First, I appreciate all the continued effort in finding a solution. Second, I ended up re-installing the operating system starting with Mavericks. As we all know, this worked great and there were no video card problems. I then upgraded to Yosemite and 10.10.1 immediately gave me pixel problems with a fresh install of the OS. I checked the Reduce Transparency box and rebooted. The problems are gone. Hopefully we get a driver or firmware update in the future that permanently resolves the pixel issue.
As a side note, I have a Mac Developer account and am still waiting on a release that includes a fix. I encourage anyone here who has a Dev account to check those forums and add comments there as well.
For those looking to find answers, this thread has been partially hijacked by those with 27" displays and different models of video cards. I hope everyone gets a driver fix for all models if this does get addressed and lets try be specific about which model of computer and video card when posting or updating the comments.
I don't live in a town with an Apple store, but we do have an authorized repair center here and I have thought about taking it in, but since this seems to be related to a driver problem I have refrained from seeing if they will replace the card.
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Dec 9, 2014 1:43 PMby CarlosVB,Actually my Mac has a problem with the X Yosemite. My machine gives no failure in the picture, just hangs. My Radeon HD 6770M card is not in the replacement program, and there is no problem in it. I did the tests with the Mavericks and did not show any problem. My problem is identical to K_Rek of the problem and Apple does nothing to solve. I live in Brazil and I paid much a machine that today gives me many problems.
