yosemite graphics problem on macbook

Are you connected to an external display?

My MacBook Pro 6,2 is a mid 2010 machine and has very similar probems that many report here: all of a sudden black screen and hard reboot.

However, having fiddled around with Linux (Ubuntu 14.04LTS) on the same machine, I have experienced similar problems whenever I switched to the (proprietary) driver that NVIDIA recommends to use! As long as I use the standard open source driver it is fine. Therefore I believe it is the driver of NVIDIA themselves that creates the problem. I do not think Apple will rewrite their own hardware drivers...yet they should push NVIDIA to release stable drivers!

let's hope for a solution. For myself and for now, I went back to 10.6.8. since I had preserved my old hard drive :-)

When swiching among applications my screen gets random pixelated glitches,

this issue has been happening after installed Yosemite 3 weeks ago.

I also had other issues which took my Macbook Pro to the Apple care support and got the motherboard and graphics card replaced

(it was still covered by my Apple Care Protection Plan).

I do not think this could be and hardware problem (since I'm running brand new hardware), more likely an Yosemite bad software implementation.

I have meanwhile disabled Yosemite's transparencies and the problem persists.

MacBook Pro (late 2011) | 2,5GBz Intel Core i7 | 8GB Ram, 1333 MHz DDR3 | AMD Radeon HD 6670M 1024 MB | OSX Yosemite 10.10.1 | 750GB storage

After some days of break, the issue appeard once again on my system too just today.

It has to be a software problem. If I boot from Mavericks on an external disk it doesn't happen, moreover all graphic transitions are generally smoother (and it's even running on an external disk plus it's my old system which was updated from Lion to Mountain Lion and then to Mavericks).

Have you had also a kernel panic?

You went back to Snow Leopard?

I had the same issue. Wiping the MBP 8.2 completely twice and reloading Yosemite and then Maverick. Even though Maverick was more stable the problem returned when using the Video card for things like Photoshop (after 1-2 hrs) of use.

Apple finally relaxed my Logic board. The machine is working 100% better now. I still am running Maverick since I do not want to press me luck. I will wait maybe 6 months or so before upgrading to get the bugs worked out and give the other software companies time to update their code and drivers to be compatible with Yosemite.

I don't think Photoshop has anything to do with this issue. I got them prior re-intalling Adobe CC software on my Yosemite clean install. I got tge logic board of my MBPro early 2011 replaced about one year ago.

Have you also had a kernel panic after installing Yosemite?

Perhaps I was not clear. I don't believe I said that Photoshop was the issue. The problem got worse for me and was more immediate when I used Photoshop. But if I did not run Photoshop, I still will see severe graphics issues, crashes, and yes I received "kernel panics". It would just take longer.

Apple in their typical fashion was trying to convince me that it was an application issue and not a Mac HDW or OSX issue. I insisted that 1st level support and Sr. level support go through the system logs so we can look for a smoking gun. I am not sure why their engineers are not trained to do that 1st.

Basically you are saying that the issue persists even on Mavericks on your system? Have you had the logic board replaced before? Do you also use an external monitor?

So far on Mavericks I don't have any graphic problem nor slowdowns. While on Yosemite as the system switches to discrete graphic card there are at least slowdowns if not the graphic glitches.

If you have both systems bootable you can try it yourself just having a bunch of desktops opened in Spaces, then check the carousel animation.

On Macericks I got no slowdowns with both graphic cards (and it's also running on an external FireWire 800 hard disk), on Yosemite it goes smooth when using the integrated GPU, while when the discrete GPU kicks in (either by having an app that let it kick in or having the MBPro attached to a Thunderbolt Display), it's clunky.

To me this is a sign of a problem with the latest GPU drivers. I could be wrong…

When the bad banding/glitch starts on Yosemite I've noticed that doing a fast user switch will make it stop, or otherwise disconnecting the computer from the external display and then re-connecting it will do that trick too.

Perhaps you can post your tests too as well, it might help other users too in order to wrap up our heads around this issue.

I upgraded to Yositeme and started getting graphics problems.

I then per Apple's instructions wiped my MBP and put a clean install of Yositeme. The problem persisted.

I wiped my machine agin and and installed Mavericks for a USB stick. The MBP seemed more stable and able to function fine even load Photoshop. I was fooled at the time to believing my system was fine and was able to get some work done. But after further use. I realized the problem was still there though not as immediate or as obvious. It would manifest itself a bit faster when using Photoshop.

With much do respect. I was exactly in the same place you were a few weeks ago, convinced it was a driver issue. I was going crazy trying to trouble shoot the issue with Apple. I even considered downloading graphic drivers from the graphics card manufacture. Well it certainly maybe a graphics driver that "triggered" or maybe better yet, exposed the problem, but I think there is a bigger hardware issue that many 2011 MBP users are experiencing. Check out this excerpt and link below before it is removed by the monitors of this blog.

"One of the more recent hardware snafus that Apple’s systems have encountered is a graphics error in its 2011 MacBook Pro line, where both 15-inch and 17-inch models for many users have shown graphics anomalies. So far Apple has not acknowledged the problem and issued fixes for affected owners, and many have had to pay for expensive logic board replacements."

From:

http://www.macissues.com/2014/10/28/class-action-law-suit-filed-against-apple-fo r-2011-macbook-pro-graphics-issues/

I've also signed that class action having had to spend €500,00 on a logic board replacement on my MacBook PRO around one year ago (the computer was 2 yrs old and just out of guarantee by one month or so…). One year earlier I had to also get the GPU replaced on a 2008 iMac 24"…

Needless to say I understand you very well.

By the way I've just managed to try this workaround suggested on this forum: Guide: How to solve Yosemite memory leaks and CPU usage

The graphic slowdowns in Yosemite while on discrete GPU seems gone now. I haven't yet tested it on Thunderbolt Display.

The Spaces carousel for opened desktops is now working smoothly when discrete GPU is being used, as well as the graphic transition triggered by the four fingers swipe gesture is now smooth as it was in Mavericks.

Do you also have cloned your old system and tried to boot from that?

I do not have a cloned drive as of yet, but I am strongly considering it. Do you use the Mac OSX native "Disk Utility" method or some 3rd party software such as CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner)?

I was cloning manually via rsync, I then switched to CCC which BTW uses rsync to do its job. You might give it a try for 30 days and decide if you want to register it or not. IMHO it's a great tool for backups, especially if you need to adopt certain backup policies that cannot be implemented with Time Machine (bootable clone in first instance).

Generally speaking: with such low costs for storage nowadays, it's better to have one more backup than not.

I now am trying the system on the Thunderbolt display after having applied that procedure I linked in my previous post, and it's graphically performing as bad as before. Quite strange. On the builtin monitor and using the discrete GPU everything was going very well and smooth after that procedure.

Thank you for sharing your experience with CCC. I really appreciate it.

Regarding your issue. The Yosemite graphics driver and the MBP 2011 appears to be a bad combination for some reason. You may want to consider taking some drastic measures and do a fresh install of Maverick instead. Warning this is a bit of surgery. I had to create a Maverick USB to get this going before wiping clean my drive, and re-partitioning it as well. Your problem won't go away fully, but you may then get a a semi-usuable system like I did , at least for awhile. But I fear my friend that a new logic board may be required in your future unless Apple send out some workaround patch for a problem they are not owing up to. Sorry.

In my case I was still under extended warranty and received a new logic board at their cost. I am stable and running Maverick's for now and will wait for as long as I can before trying the upgrade again. Though to be honest, there is a good argument for me to try upgrading again to Yosemite while I am under warranty. I just have no desire to go through this aggravation again anytime soon.

I can' speak for Apple, but I am wondering if they are buying time, hoping that those of us that have extended warranties would just expire so they don't have to pay for the fix. Class action suits typically just makes the lawyers richer, often what happens, at least with cars, is they may offer a discount on a purchase of a brand new Mac for about $150-$500 dollars. I am hopeful that Apple will acknowledge the problem and have an acceptable solution to its loyal customers in the near future.

My system is actually working with Yosemite. Not as it should do, still.

I can revert anytime to my old Mavericks install and also go for a clean install of Mavericks having had made bootable installer disks for both systems. I don't think this time is a problem related with hardware, but with the software instead.

When I had to change the logic board the system wouldn't even start in target mode at the Genius Bar.

Though no big deal with that, aside of the annoyance of putting everything back in place. And spending time on it instead of actually using it. Something that if I loved to do (as many other people do) I'd have chosen a Windows or Linux system and then spend my time with configurations, latest drivers, etc. Not on a Mac. Not on a PRO machine.

Let me say that I haven't seen a kernel panic in about 8-9 years 'till now…as well as all this troubleshooting… never ever needed to do it on Mac OS X. Maybe on 9.

BTW all this stuff is far from what Apple products expierence have been for the last decade. Including not having the MBPro logic board failure recognized as an issue by Apple despite it happened to so many customers. Getting back even half the money I had to spend for that would be better than zero at this point, this is why I signed for the class action. I don't like to do speculations on Apple's policy, having never had a single problem with the quality of their products 'till this MBPro. Though I don't agree with your "wonderings".

You're welcome about CCC.