7 ms·

GPU glitches in 2016 MacBook Pro models

TTPrograms 10y ago
2011 all over again, I guess.
- pier25 10y ago
  The 2011 was worse since it happened after the warranty expired. At least now people can still get a refund or use Apple Care.
jeffhiggins 10y ago
For modern Macs, this seems like expected behaviour. My 2012 MacBook Pro and my late 2014 5k iMac regularly glitch out like this.
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  I assume by 2012 MBP you mean the Retina model? I've never experienced anything like this on my mid-2012 non-Retina MBP. (Hard drive issues, yes, but not video glitches.)
WayneBro 10y ago
Nobody can call the new Macbook Pro "best in class" when they don't even ship with the best in class GPUs from Nvidia. These machines are essentially build beautiful traps. So, please don't give Apple your money. You don't need the most recent Macbook Pro. Just wait 6 months and buy a used one. Please don't support a company that actively works against you in order to secure their infamous 40% profit margin for doing nothing more than severely limiting your choices. I always buy used or third-party refurbished Apple equipment and I avoid buying apps from either of their app stores. I hope you do the same.
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  > Please don't support a company that actively works against you in order to secure their infamous 40% profit margin for doing nothing more than severely limiting your choices. Or, better yet, don't support the people who did support Apple's profit margins, and buy your stuff stuff from a less crappy manufacturer instead.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    Just picked up an XPS 15 9550 from eBay with a quad-core i7-6700HQ, up to 32GB of DDR4-2400 (mine has only 16, but it's SODIMM so upgradable), m2 2280 pcie3x4 + 2.5" sata drive bay, GTX 960m, 4K igzo touchscreen (I don't personally care for the touchscreen) and dimensions slightly smaller than the 2015 15" rMBP. For $1200.
- gcp 10y ago
  when they don't even ship with the best in class GPUs from Nvidia. Bah, when heavily constrained by TDP and being able to (being required to) lower voltage and clock speed accordingly, it's far from clear NVIDIA would have any advantage in those Macbooks. It would bring Polaris cards back into their sweet spot, in fact.
  - moyta 10y ago
    Yeah, given a sizable power budget and the right benchmarks, Nvidia can outperform Radeon cards, but Apple has an exisistung relationship with AMD and there is not a compelling performance case to switch to Nvidia. Plus with Supercomputing Clusters eating up most of Nvidia's production, Apple is not guaranteed to get the quantity & bin of GPUs they need on their schedule. This is the same reason why Apple didn't release any fusion based Macbooks, the bin of chip they wanted was not available in the quantity Apple needed by launch.
- spronkey 10y ago
  Ten years ago, I was a staunch Apple fan. I liked their product line-up - it was simple, easy to understand, and the products were good. If you needed power, you bought a Pro. If you needed value, you bought the non-pro. Both sides had good parts, were generally well built, repairable, and at the time used standard stuff. The OS was improving at a rate of knots as well. Some time in the last 5 years, I've gone from being a big fan, to really not liking Apple much at all. Primarily because they've gone back to their older attitudes toward standardised parts; they've removed user-serviceability on batteries, memory, storage, yet haven't offered any real concessions to their ridiculously expensive upgrade prices. Their non-US pricing is infuriating, too. With current currency conversion rates, the base MacBook Pro is $250 USD more expensive in New Zealand after all taxes are taken into account than it is in the USA, and it only gets worse from there. Computers do not need to be disposable appliances. The used market for Macs is awful now, flooded with 2GB/64GB MacBook Airs that are near useless, and 128GB storage on the lower end rMBPs with only expensive custom third party upgrades available from OWC or Transcend putting a premium on the more spec'd out models. In the past, you could just buy whatever used (or new) Mac is approximately right for your needs, and fill it to the brim with RAM and a fast SSD when you needed to. I got 3 usable years out of my 2006 MacBook, 4 usable years out of my 2008 MacBook Pro, and only 1.5 years out of my 2013 15" rMBP. At the time, it was already just over the limit for my work machine budget, and I had to retire it due to needing more RAM. I'm quite positive I would still be using it today had I been able to upgrade it. But instead I bought a second hand MacBook Air for iOS development and put up with Linux and Windows on an Ivy Bridge-E desktop that I could only use properly half the time. Many things they've been doing recently have been actively hostile to users with basically no legitimate recourse. Pentalobe screws? Bricking iPhones with third party home buttons? Limiting availability of genuine parts, causing Chinese counterfeit market flooding? Multiple proprietary SSD blade card formats that are essentially pin swaps of existing standards? Glueing batteries? Lightning instead of USB? It might be semi alright if you live in the USA near an Apple Store, and can take advantage of some of their better policies, but the point is that they don't need to do any of this stuff in the first place.
shad0wca7 10y ago
As a side issue to the current crop of first-adopter issues (I'll wait till this model is on its second generation - then I'm sure it will be a great piece of kit). I was thinking about the outrage concerning the denomination of 'Pro' on these models - with people crying that they're no longer suitable for 'Pro' use but I think I've come to the conclusion that the 'Pro' user of 5 years ago is a dying breed - Apple sees a future where they no longer exist. Think about it - music production, video editing, photo editing, graphic design, coding.. These are all things which used to be considered extremely difficult but have now been made easier with fantastic, accessible software. Huge amounts of specialist hardware are no longer necessary or indeed desirable in these fields and the new MacBook Pro recognises this - software development (and other areas) are moving increasingly to the cloud and a huge development machine is no longer a necessity.. I'd suspect that Apple sees the future of its products and services in the cloud and the machines it provides will be slightly different gateways to that future.
- kyriakos 10y ago
  Maybe for when done for personal use. The same tasks are still difficult and demanding in hardware when done for professional purposes.
- rocky1138 10y ago
  I develop virtual reality games professionally. I cannot do that on a Mac Pro or a Macbook Pro.
  - foldr 10y ago
    Can you do it on any currently existing laptop that is not much heavier and much thicker than a Macbook Pro?
    - slantyyz 10y ago
      There are VR capable (gtx 1060) laptops around the size of the 2012 MacBook Pros.
Caballera 10y ago
I purchase one (MBP 15). I did have some issues when using a external video card adapter (using DisplayLink drivers) that was then plugged into a USB2 hub that was then plugged into a USB-C to USB adapter. But since removing the driver (and the video card adapter), I haven't had any issues.
imaginenore 10y ago
That's horrible PR for AMD, whether it's their fault or not. I don't really care about Apple losing some money over this, they are ridiculously rich, they will be fine. AMD, on the other hand, is the only company that forces the CPU and GPU prices down. Though recently they have fallen quite far behind Intel.
- AmVess 10y ago
  This is a bit naive. AMD hasn't been competitive with Intel for almost a decade...there's nothing recent about that. AMD doesn't keep Intel's prices down, the market does.
  - hajile 10y ago
    Here's to a competitive Zen launch.
  - nindalf 10y ago
    > AMD doesn't keep Intel's prices down, the market does. This is a reductionist view. For the market to bring those prices down, there need to be at least 2 manufacturers of the same product who are not colluding. If AMD went under and closed down, the market that you have faith in would not magically create more companies manufacturing x86 components. This is because only Intel and AMD have the patents and the licenses to patents required to manufacture them. It's possible that someone would salvage those patents and licenses from AMD and try competing with Intel... but what sane person would do so after seeing AMD try and fail to do so for a decade. In short, AMD's continued survival and success is required for a healthy x86 market.
the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
What's worse is the battery life. It's ridiculously bad :-/
- qyv 10y ago
  Source?
  - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
    Me using it, collegues using it. It's not good st all for the workload i usually have.
- Alex3917 10y ago
  Go into the activity monitor, and in the energy tab make sure there is nothing that is keeping the GPU on. (Look in the Requires High Performance column.) Just browsing the web battery life is really good, but unfortunately there are a couple apps I use all the time that use the GPU for no reason. And when this happens the battery life instantly goes from 10+ hours to three. With Java apps you can theoretically pass them a command line parameter to prevent them from being able to use the GPU, although I haven't been successful with this yet.
elcct 10y ago
At least those glitches look professional
lsllc 10y ago
Wouldn't be a MacBook Pro if it didn't have some kind of GPU problem.
- pfg 10y ago
  You spelled Wi-Fi wrong. :-) On a more serious note, I haven't had any issues on my 13" MBP with an integrated GPU. Here's hoping this'll be fixed by the time my 15" MBP with a discrete GPU ships ...
- krackers 10y ago
  Why is it that the GPU always seems to be the failure point on mac notebooks? I've personally experienced the external gpu on the 2010, 2011, and 2014 models all fail right around the 3 year mark.
  - joakleaf 10y ago
    ... I had a GPU issue on the 2007 model :-). Was a known issue so Apple paid for the repair in 2009. So yes, very prevalent.
  - emp_zealoth 10y ago
    New 15" MBPs run at 100C under load. Similar with older ones. Apple runs those too hot and they die, easy as that.
  - superdude 10y ago
    The integrated MBP models seem to be a bit more reliable and run cooler. Too bad you can't get a 15" without a discrete GPU anymore.
    - boulos 10y ago
      You can always force the power settings into keeping the discrete GPU off.
  - rasz_pl 10y ago
    Apple doesnt believe in ventilation. Vents are ugly and destroy that iconic Ive look. Every single Apple laptop is cooking inside. Edit: 15" 2016 runs 60 Celsius IDLE, and 99 (heavily throttled) under pure CPU load. Probably same 99 with GPU load.
dictum 10y ago
Hijacking the thread: was the cause of the GPU glitch with mid 2011 iMacs (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203787 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203787) ever determined? Mine had this problem. I've been obsessive about keeping all temperature readings below 50C ever since it came back from repair.

2011 all over again, I guess.

pier25 10y ago
The 2011 was worse since it happened after the warranty expired. At least now people can still get a refund or use Apple Care.

For modern Macs, this seems like expected behaviour. My 2012 MacBook Pro and my late 2014 5k iMac regularly glitch out like this.

SyneRyder 10y ago
I assume by 2012 MBP you mean the Retina model? I've never experienced anything like this on my mid-2012 non-Retina MBP. (Hard drive issues, yes, but not video glitches.)

WayneBro 10y ago

Nobody can call the new Macbook Pro "best in class" when they don't even ship with the best in class GPUs from Nvidia. These machines are essentially build beautiful traps. So, please don't give Apple your money. You don't need the most recent Macbook Pro. Just wait 6 months and buy a used one. Please don't support a company that actively works against you in order to secure their infamous 40% profit margin for doing nothing more than severely limiting your choices. I always buy used or third-party refurbished Apple equipment and I avoid buying apps from either of their app stores. I hope you do the same.

Nullabillity 10y ago
> Please don't support a company that actively works against you in order to secure their infamous 40% profit margin for doing nothing more than severely limiting your choices. Or, better yet, don't support the people who did support Apple's profit margins, and buy your stuff stuff from a less crappy manufacturer instead.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  Just picked up an XPS 15 9550 from eBay with a quad-core i7-6700HQ, up to 32GB of DDR4-2400 (mine has only 16, but it's SODIMM so upgradable), m2 2280 pcie3x4 + 2.5" sata drive bay, GTX 960m, 4K igzo touchscreen (I don't personally care for the touchscreen) and dimensions slightly smaller than the 2015 15" rMBP. For $1200.
gcp 10y ago
when they don't even ship with the best in class GPUs from Nvidia. Bah, when heavily constrained by TDP and being able to (being required to) lower voltage and clock speed accordingly, it's far from clear NVIDIA would have any advantage in those Macbooks. It would bring Polaris cards back into their sweet spot, in fact.
- moyta 10y ago
  Yeah, given a sizable power budget and the right benchmarks, Nvidia can outperform Radeon cards, but Apple has an exisistung relationship with AMD and there is not a compelling performance case to switch to Nvidia. Plus with Supercomputing Clusters eating up most of Nvidia's production, Apple is not guaranteed to get the quantity & bin of GPUs they need on their schedule. This is the same reason why Apple didn't release any fusion based Macbooks, the bin of chip they wanted was not available in the quantity Apple needed by launch.
spronkey 10y ago
Ten years ago, I was a staunch Apple fan. I liked their product line-up - it was simple, easy to understand, and the products were good. If you needed power, you bought a Pro. If you needed value, you bought the non-pro. Both sides had good parts, were generally well built, repairable, and at the time used standard stuff. The OS was improving at a rate of knots as well. Some time in the last 5 years, I've gone from being a big fan, to really not liking Apple much at all. Primarily because they've gone back to their older attitudes toward standardised parts; they've removed user-serviceability on batteries, memory, storage, yet haven't offered any real concessions to their ridiculously expensive upgrade prices. Their non-US pricing is infuriating, too. With current currency conversion rates, the base MacBook Pro is $250 USD more expensive in New Zealand after all taxes are taken into account than it is in the USA, and it only gets worse from there. Computers do not need to be disposable appliances. The used market for Macs is awful now, flooded with 2GB/64GB MacBook Airs that are near useless, and 128GB storage on the lower end rMBPs with only expensive custom third party upgrades available from OWC or Transcend putting a premium on the more spec'd out models. In the past, you could just buy whatever used (or new) Mac is approximately right for your needs, and fill it to the brim with RAM and a fast SSD when you needed to. I got 3 usable years out of my 2006 MacBook, 4 usable years out of my 2008 MacBook Pro, and only 1.5 years out of my 2013 15" rMBP. At the time, it was already just over the limit for my work machine budget, and I had to retire it due to needing more RAM. I'm quite positive I would still be using it today had I been able to upgrade it. But instead I bought a second hand MacBook Air for iOS development and put up with Linux and Windows on an Ivy Bridge-E desktop that I could only use properly half the time. Many things they've been doing recently have been actively hostile to users with basically no legitimate recourse. Pentalobe screws? Bricking iPhones with third party home buttons? Limiting availability of genuine parts, causing Chinese counterfeit market flooding? Multiple proprietary SSD blade card formats that are essentially pin swaps of existing standards? Glueing batteries? Lightning instead of USB? It might be semi alright if you live in the USA near an Apple Store, and can take advantage of some of their better policies, but the point is that they don't need to do any of this stuff in the first place.

shad0wca7 10y ago

As a side issue to the current crop of first-adopter issues (I'll wait till this model is on its second generation - then I'm sure it will be a great piece of kit). I was thinking about the outrage concerning the denomination of 'Pro' on these models - with people crying that they're no longer suitable for 'Pro' use but I think I've come to the conclusion that the 'Pro' user of 5 years ago is a dying breed - Apple sees a future where they no longer exist. Think about it - music production, video editing, photo editing, graphic design, coding.. These are all things which used to be considered extremely difficult but have now been made easier with fantastic, accessible software. Huge amounts of specialist hardware are no longer necessary or indeed desirable in these fields and the new MacBook Pro recognises this - software development (and other areas) are moving increasingly to the cloud and a huge development machine is no longer a necessity.. I'd suspect that Apple sees the future of its products and services in the cloud and the machines it provides will be slightly different gateways to that future.

kyriakos 10y ago
Maybe for when done for personal use. The same tasks are still difficult and demanding in hardware when done for professional purposes.
rocky1138 10y ago
I develop virtual reality games professionally. I cannot do that on a Mac Pro or a Macbook Pro.
- foldr 10y ago
  Can you do it on any currently existing laptop that is not much heavier and much thicker than a Macbook Pro?
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    There are VR capable (gtx 1060) laptops around the size of the 2012 MacBook Pros.

Caballera 10y ago

I purchase one (MBP 15). I did have some issues when using a external video card adapter (using DisplayLink drivers) that was then plugged into a USB2 hub that was then plugged into a USB-C to USB adapter. But since removing the driver (and the video card adapter), I haven't had any issues.

imaginenore 10y ago

That's horrible PR for AMD, whether it's their fault or not. I don't really care about Apple losing some money over this, they are ridiculously rich, they will be fine. AMD, on the other hand, is the only company that forces the CPU and GPU prices down. Though recently they have fallen quite far behind Intel.

AmVess 10y ago
This is a bit naive. AMD hasn't been competitive with Intel for almost a decade...there's nothing recent about that. AMD doesn't keep Intel's prices down, the market does.
- hajile 10y ago
  Here's to a competitive Zen launch.
- nindalf 10y ago
  > AMD doesn't keep Intel's prices down, the market does. This is a reductionist view. For the market to bring those prices down, there need to be at least 2 manufacturers of the same product who are not colluding. If AMD went under and closed down, the market that you have faith in would not magically create more companies manufacturing x86 components. This is because only Intel and AMD have the patents and the licenses to patents required to manufacture them. It's possible that someone would salvage those patents and licenses from AMD and try competing with Intel... but what sane person would do so after seeing AMD try and fail to do so for a decade. In short, AMD's continued survival and success is required for a healthy x86 market.

the_mitsuhiko 10y ago

What's worse is the battery life. It's ridiculously bad :-/

qyv 10y ago
Source?
- the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
  Me using it, collegues using it. It's not good st all for the workload i usually have.
Alex3917 10y ago
Go into the activity monitor, and in the energy tab make sure there is nothing that is keeping the GPU on. (Look in the Requires High Performance column.) Just browsing the web battery life is really good, but unfortunately there are a couple apps I use all the time that use the GPU for no reason. And when this happens the battery life instantly goes from 10+ hours to three. With Java apps you can theoretically pass them a command line parameter to prevent them from being able to use the GPU, although I haven't been successful with this yet.

elcct 10y ago

At least those glitches look professional

lsllc 10y ago

Wouldn't be a MacBook Pro if it didn't have some kind of GPU problem.

pfg 10y ago
You spelled Wi-Fi wrong. :-) On a more serious note, I haven't had any issues on my 13" MBP with an integrated GPU. Here's hoping this'll be fixed by the time my 15" MBP with a discrete GPU ships ...
krackers 10y ago
Why is it that the GPU always seems to be the failure point on mac notebooks? I've personally experienced the external gpu on the 2010, 2011, and 2014 models all fail right around the 3 year mark.
- joakleaf 10y ago
  ... I had a GPU issue on the 2007 model :-). Was a known issue so Apple paid for the repair in 2009. So yes, very prevalent.
- emp_zealoth 10y ago
  New 15" MBPs run at 100C under load. Similar with older ones. Apple runs those too hot and they die, easy as that.
- superdude 10y ago
  The integrated MBP models seem to be a bit more reliable and run cooler. Too bad you can't get a 15" without a discrete GPU anymore.
  - boulos 10y ago
    You can always force the power settings into keeping the discrete GPU off.
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  Apple doesnt believe in ventilation. Vents are ugly and destroy that iconic Ive look. Every single Apple laptop is cooking inside. Edit: 15" 2016 runs 60 Celsius IDLE, and 99 (heavily throttled) under pure CPU load. Probably same 99 with GPU load.

dictum 10y ago

Hijacking the thread: was the cause of the GPU glitch with mid 2011 iMacs (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203787 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203787) ever determined? Mine had this problem. I've been obsessive about keeping all temperature readings below 50C ever since it came back from repair.