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macjoshua

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 4, 2011
524
624
Nashville, TN
Occasionally, my computer (a mid 2014 rMBP) freezes and the only solution is to power it off and restart. I get a message that says a graphics problem was detected. I can tell that it's usually when the graphics cards are switching (often when I'm using Safari, but also occasionally when opening Photoshop, etc.)

The only solution I've had is to turn graphics switching off, which sucks for battery life. I'm curious if anyone else is having this issue, or if it's something I should take to the Genius Bar.
 

Riccardo83

macrumors member
Jan 29, 2014
72
12
Berlin
Im having this too with a mid 2014 15 inch retina model. did u take it to apple yet? it happened like 2 or 3 times for me within 3 months or so.

the last time it was when trying to import images into lightroom from a card reader.

one question i have for you all, how do i see what card is used? and if i use an external screen, does it mean the internal or nvidia card is used?
 

jozeppy26

macrumors 6502a
Jul 8, 2008
534
83
St. Louis
Im having this too with a mid 2014 15 inch retina model. did u take it to apple yet? it happened like 2 or 3 times for me within 3 months or so.

the last time it was when trying to import images into lightroom from a card reader.

one question i have for you all, how do i see what card is used? and if i use an external screen, does it mean the internal or nvidia card is used?

You could try using gfxCardStatus, it'll let you know which graphics card is being used and notify you when it changes. It also lets you "force" the integrated or discrete card.
 

Riccardo83

macrumors member
Jan 29, 2014
72
12
Berlin
My 2013 rMBP was doing this several times a day (it's just two weeks old). I had an appointment and took it into the Genius Bar today. I showed the console logs of many crashes over the past couple of weeks; I also had done fresh installs and haven't yet used Migration Assistant to move everything over, so my Adobe suite a few other programs were all that I had (installed fresh too). It doesn't crash everytime, but it is a couple times a day.

Along with a really loud creaking just by placing hands on the palm rest to type, and a black flash on the screen when going in and out of programs that switch between dGPU and iGPU, the genius thought it was serious enough that he sent it out for a replacement logic board. The programs I had that definitely switched cards were Photoshop, Illustrator, Google Earth, and Trimble SketchUp.

So two weeks old, and away for a week (they didn't have the board in stock).

Can you report back if it solved anything? Kind Regards
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,675
Its a nasty bug in the Yosemite graphics driver, so changing the logic board will probably not help. I say 'nasty' because it is apparently quite difficult to track down — it occurs randomly and leaves no crash repot. Still not fixed in in 10.8.2
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,675
Thanks for the conjecture, but I wasn't willing to trust your guess (I don't know your credentials). So the logic board was replaced.

Since I had it replaced, you can now say "changing the logic board does not help" because I've proven this for my case.

Fair enough :) And you are absolutely right that this was a conjecture (as is anything else I write ;) ). I have observed this issue on different machines, none of which I would have otherwise suspected as having a defective GPU (thus my guess that its a driver bug). On my work machine, the crashes are indeed very random — usually once per several weeks (used to be more frequent in the developer preview). I do hope they fix it soon.
 

jays94

macrumors newbie
Oct 29, 2014
21
0
I've experienced the same thing many times!

Crashes are very random, sometimes with lots of programs running and sometimes with nothing but mail open.

Some weeks I get a couple but for the last couple of weeks have not experienced any.


I'm on a Late 2012 13" rMBP.
 
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cstm

macrumors regular
Jul 1, 2012
195
34
I have this exact same issue. 2012 mid rmbp 15 inch. Happened to me now like 10-15 times since I installed mavericks. Never happens when running discrete
 

jahall05

macrumors 6502
Jul 30, 2013
370
131
Believe it or not, but I believe I have seen this happen one time on my cMBP Mid-2012 model...

I went to disk utility and repaired permissions and there was something about the graphics...I could be wrong though :rolleyes:
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,675
Have you tried the 10.10.2 update? I installed the update and switched back to "Automatic graphics switching" and haven't had a crash in two days. Maybe it's either been fixed or the problem reduced.

I think it is too early to tell but I am a bit sceptical. I have had the issue popping up very rarely over the course of 10.2.2 betas (like once per month). The 10.2.2 prerelease candidate was actually particularly bad — the crashes were coming every few hours. So far, no crash on the final 10.2.2 but I'd like to wait for at least a crash-free month or two before I can be convinced that its fixed.
 

philosopherdog

macrumors 6502a
Dec 29, 2008
759
532
For some this problem is connected to automatic graphics switching. This seems to primarily affect 2012 rMBP. if you have a warranty return you machine since it could be hardware related. There may be many causes, but it does appear in some cases to be software related since the problem occurs with Yosemite but not prior versions.
 

Mark0

macrumors 6502a
Sep 11, 2014
516
3,399
SW Scotland
I've started getting this problem yesterday when launching Photoshop on my Mid 2014 MBP Retina 15". I went to energy saver and disabled switching.

Anyway I installed the latest Yosemite update and not had a problem since. My screen flickered a wee bit there but not had a crash since the update (touch wood!). I've re-enabled graphics switching and with photoshop open, it's still using Iris Pro when it would normally use the Nvidia graphics. If I uncheck the graphics switching, it will use the Nvidia chip.

I do hope the problem gets addressed properly though as I'm not convinced yet!
 
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koolaid-drinker

macrumors 6502
Sep 20, 2012
457
22
Kingsport,Tn
I have had the exact same issue.

Called Applecare and insisted I submit logs to engineers but got brushed off.

In regards to the disk permissions, it did show errors:

Permissions differ on private/var/db/GPURestartReporter/
Permissions differ on private/var/db/displaypolicyd/


Issue is on Late 2013 rMBP
 
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