New Macbook Pro is getting beaten by old Macbook pro, driver issues

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New Macbook Pro is getting beaten by old Macbook pro, driver issues

Broke my old Macbook Pro Retina 13, early 2013 (drop it, broke screen). 😟 Was running Windows 8.1, and it took a while, but eventually was an awesome machine and experience.

Bought another 13" Retina, better specs than the old one (i7, 3.1Ghz, 16GB, 512GB). Very nice machine.

Installed Windows 8.1 via bootcamp. Installed drivers (via bootcamp download). Start installing program. blue screen. Reboot. Continue. Blue screen. Reboot. Hard lock. Try Mac OS. fine, no problems, lasts days at a time. Went back to windows. Crashing when sleeping. Crashing when using network.

Checked that OSX was upto date. It was. Reformated the whole thing, installed the latest OSX from internet, then let that update, then installed Windows 8.1. Still crashes, and performance seems slow. Narrowed it down to the "broadcom 802.11ac network adapter driver". Doesnt seem to crash anymore, but Youtube wont play, and chrome/IE will crash. Installed latest Graphics and Intel chipset drivers.

Did a stress test, measured 103c in both windows and OSX. Old mac hit max of 93c in the same tests. Ran windows bench mark on both. Old Mac beat new Mac by quite a bit. Rebooted into OSX. Ran benchmark, new mac beats old, by a tiny amount.

So i think I have driver problems, but i am also getting weird issues in eventvwr, ACPI power errors and something about the firmware limiting the max frequency of the processor. These appear once on boot up under load, then dont appear again til next boot.

I have tried finding a different Broadcom driver, but windows rejects all of them, and if i force it, the driver wont start (code -10). Tried tricking it with editing INF files, no go.

So i am out of options. My new Mac gets spanked by my old Mac, and my Old mac has started working again, so using that at the moment! Any ideas?!!?!?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, Windows 8

Posted on Jul 20, 2015 8:16 AM

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Answer 1

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Jul 20, 2015 8:46 AM in response to SunesisF

SunesisF wrote:

Bought another 13" Retina, better specs than the old one (i7, 3.1Ghz, 16GB, 512GB). Very nice machine.

Better specifications (better clock speeds, size) != Better Customer Experience. 😉

Checked that OSX was upto date. It was. Reformated the whole thing, installed the latest OSX from internet, then let that update, then installed Windows 8.1. Still crashes, and performance seems slow. Narrowed it down to the "broadcom 802.11ac network adapter driver". Doesnt seem to crash anymore, but Youtube wont play, and chrome/IE will crash. Installed latest Graphics and Intel chipset drivers.

If the OSX side is stable, but Windows is not, this is a reasonable assumption. Do you have similar issues with a wired connection on Windows? There are many environmental factors on the Wireless side, apart from the drivers. I have a distributed (roaming) WiFi network at home, only 802.11n (no 802.11ac equipment) and have had very few issues that I could not address myself.

Did a stress test, measured 103c in both windows and OSX. Old mac hit max of 93c in the same tests. Ran windows bench mark on both. Old Mac beat new Mac by quite a bit. Rebooted into OSX. Ran benchmark, new mac beats old, by a tiny amount.

You can make some adjustments via Power Options, but they may not address all your heat issues. Windows (7/8+) kernel is based on the old NT. The OSX kernel is far more efficient. W10 should change all this.

So i think I have driver problems, but i am also getting weird issues in eventvwr, ACPI power errors and something about the firmware limiting the max frequency of the processor. These appear once on boot up under load, then dont appear again til next boot.

Do not use Sleep/Hibernate in W7/W8+. It is very buggy and adds to the already painful driver issues, by not being abel to load drivers properly when woken up.

I have tried finding a different Broadcom driver, but windows rejects all of them, and if i force it, the driver wont start (code -10). Tried tricking it with editing INF files, no go.

Can you switch back to the BC driver and test? Inspect your environment and check if it can be tuned. The old Mac working properly indicates that there may be just a small gap. You can compare driver versions, etc.

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