When I run this command (
$ sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions-off/AMD*.*)
there is a message come out "No such file or directory"
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MBP 1,1-10,2 Force 2011 MacBook Pro 8,2 with failed AMD GPU to ALWAYS use Intel integrated GPU (EFI variable fix)
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- a1286 amd black screen blue and black screen discrete graphics dmg dmg files gfxcardstatus glitching gpu failure gpu panic gpu switch graphic card hardware fault hardware issue logic board failure macbook pro "15 2011 macbook pro (15-inch early 2011) macbook pro 2011 radeongate restart loop white screen
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When I run this command (
$ sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions-off/AMD*.*)
there is a message come out "No such file or directory"
Didn't want to wade through 66 pages, but here's the issue I have now.
2011 15"; distorted video. Macbook was given to me without battery; it had swollen badly and was removed to prevent further damage. Oh, and OSX install was corrupt as well.
Device had been in closet for over a year.
Take device, attach charger, boot off Archlinux, run commands. Display clears up. Boot off USB High Sierra installer, wipe hard drive, install High Sierra. Device reboots, but never finishes installation (screen is clear, but progress bar only goes across about 2/3rds of the way).
Wonder if it is something to do with laptop not having a battery, so purchase battery and install.
Boot off USB installer again, wipe hard drive again, reinstall High Sierra. Device reboots, progress bar gets about 2/3rds across and hangs again. Also, fans are running quite high. Leave device in this state overnight; next morning, no progress. I shut down device.
I try to boot laptop with a known working OSX install (my rescue OSX 10.12 install w/diagnostic tools drive) via USB cable, but progress bar hangs up about halfway across.
I reset PRAM, just in case. Goes back to distorted video (I knew this was a possibility).
TL; DR
So, here's where things are. I've got a Macbook Pro that I can clear up the video with the instructions in the first post. However, I cannot get OSX to install now, or it installs and progress bar hangs. I can't boot off a different OSX install. I can however boot off a High Sierra USB installer.
Any ideas or suggestions?
Thank you everyone.
2011 15"; distorted video. Macbook was given to me without battery; it had swollen badly and was removed to prevent further damage. Oh, and OSX install was corrupt as well.
Device had been in closet for over a year.
Take device, attach charger, boot off Archlinux, run commands. Display clears up. Boot off USB High Sierra installer, wipe hard drive, install High Sierra. Device reboots, but never finishes installation (screen is clear, but progress bar only goes across about 2/3rds of the way).
Wonder if it is something to do with laptop not having a battery, so purchase battery and install.
Boot off USB installer again, wipe hard drive again, reinstall High Sierra. Device reboots, progress bar gets about 2/3rds across and hangs again. Also, fans are running quite high. Leave device in this state overnight; next morning, no progress. I shut down device.
I try to boot laptop with a known working OSX install (my rescue OSX 10.12 install w/diagnostic tools drive) via USB cable, but progress bar hangs up about halfway across.
I reset PRAM, just in case. Goes back to distorted video (I knew this was a possibility).
TL; DR
So, here's where things are. I've got a Macbook Pro that I can clear up the video with the instructions in the first post. However, I cannot get OSX to install now, or it installs and progress bar hangs. I can't boot off a different OSX install. I can however boot off a High Sierra USB installer.
Any ideas or suggestions?
Thank you everyone.
Does anyone know if it is possible to do a clean install of macOS High Sierra? I was able to run the installer and then the screen freezes after the MacBook Pro restarts and doesn't complete the installation of macOS High Sierra.
I would like to start from scratch, then follow the instructions again to get my display working again.
I would like to start from scratch, then follow the instructions again to get my display working again.
You may take your pendrive(8gb) & make it bootable with macOS High Sierra. Then reboot the mbp & hold option key. Then you should see your usb & click it. After that, you should follow the instructions & make it complete.
If you don't have time to read my story (which also describes some interesting technical approaches) just scroll down this thread until a "100% WORKING SOLUTION" text
Discrete AMD GPU of my 2011 MacBook Pro 8,2 has finally failed because of the reasons mentioned here ( http://logicboardmac.blogspot.ru/ ) and there ( https://www.macrumors.com/2015/02/19/2011-macbook-pro-repair-program-apple/ ) . It has been working perfectly for 6 years under quite a high load, even tried SETI@HOME mining at background! So I was confident that my MBP is not affected by bad solder / bad soldering quality and didn't want to bring it to Apple for a free repair program - partially because couldn't find the time to pause my important software projects, partially because I was afraid that Apple might give me a less reliable logic board or refuse a free repair because of the several unrelated repairs that I did manually by myself earlier to save money: changed thermal paste a few times, replaced the internal battery 2 times, replaced a keyboard with broken buttons, etc. But it finally broke down last week: laptop's screen image became distorted, it refused to boot OS X (always freezing half-way), and - Apple free repair program has already ended! I know there are affordable solutions like $50 BGA resoldering at unofficial local repair shop and that its possible to get a new replacement HD 6750M chip from AliExpress for $35 or cheaper ( http://www.aliexpress.com/item/DC-2...0028-216-0810028-BGA-Chipset/32764872143.html or https://www.aliexpress.com/item/DC-2015-New-216-0810001-216-0810001-Graphic-Chipset/32718112928.html , because don't know if this is true - https://www.rossmanngroup.com/board...0604-replace-216-0810005-gpu-with-216-0810028 ) to guarantee a successful repair, so the total price of repair would be either $50 or $50+$35=$85 - less than $100 in any case. But I don't like investing money to the old computers, so I have thought - what if there is some hack to force MBP to use integrated graphics ALL THE TIME, even while booting ? And then started to explore the possible solutions...
===
First of all, it is possible to successfully boot a MBP to OS X while still using the failed GPU, after you remove the AMD drivers by booting in command line mode (CMD+S) and entering these commands:
1) fsck -fy (to check a disk)
2) mount -uw / (mount a root filesystem with read/write permissions)
3) sudo mkdir /AMD_Kexts/ (make a directory to store the AMD drivers in case you'll need them in future)
4) sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMD*.* /AMD_Kexts/ (move the AMD drivers)
5) sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/ (remove the AMD drivers cache)
6) sudo mkdir /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/ (just in case OS X will be dumb and will not recreate this directory, I am creating it for OS X)
7) sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/ (to update the timestamps so that new driver caches - without AMD drivers - will be definitely rebuilt)
8) sudo umount / (umount a partition to guarantee that your changes are flushed to it)
9) sudo reboot
The degree of your inconvenience while doing these steps - strongly depends on how heavily a screen's image is distorted in your case. In my case it was even more difficult because the OS X partition became a "read-only" partition (because of too many emergency shutdowns I did while desperately trying to boot OS X with a failed GPU) so I had to remove a hard drive from MacBook Pro and (using a USB to SATA 2.5" adapter taken from my portable HDD) attached it to a computer with Linux, then followed these instructions:
https://superuser.com/questions/961401/mounting-hfs-partition-on-arch-linux (1st answer) - carefully executed a number of commands, calculated a sizelimit for my parition layout, and finally ran sudo mount -t hfsplus -o force,rw,sizelimit=YOURNUMBER /dev/sdb2 /mnt to mount this HFS+ partition to /mnt directory in read-write mode. Then I performed these "1)-7)" steps you see above, and also repaired a filesystem by running sudo fsck.hfsplus -f /dev/sdb2 before unmounting a partition with sudo umount /mnt and putting a hard drive back to MBP...
===
This gave me a MBP which could boot to OS X although STILL using a broken AMD GPU: so it screen's image is very distorted (could browse the Internet but quite inconvenient to read a text), Launchpad is super laggy, and you can't switch to Integrated GPU using gfxCardStatus because: without AMD drivers (which we had to remove to successfully boot to OS X) Macbook Pro thinks its' internal screen is External Display and gfxCardStatus tells it is impossible to switch because External Display is using AMD GPU. Somewhere I found a suggestion that it is possible to rebuild a gfxCardStatus from the source code - https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus - with removed or commented out 156-166 lines in the ./gfxCardStatus/Classes/GSProcess.m to make it to ignore the external display:
// find out if an external monitor is forcing the discrete gpu on
CGDirectDisplayID displays[8];
CGDisplayCount displayCount = 0;
if (CGGetOnlineDisplayList(8, displays, &displayCount) == noErr) {
for (int i = 0; i < displayCount; i++) {
if ( ! CGDisplayIsBuiltin(displays))
[list addObject:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
Str(@"External Display"), kTaskItemName,
@"", kTaskItemPID, nil]];
}
}
So I rebuilt a gfxCardStatus using the instructions from the last reply of this issue -
https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus/issues/229
(also had to download a MacOSX10.11.sdk from here - https://github.com/phracker/MacOSX-SDKs/releases - unpack and copy it to XCode's /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.11.sdk - because of the Apple's stupidity the latest XCode for El Capitan does not include SDK for El Capitan!) However, it still didn't work - gfxCardStatus only pretended that it has switched to Integrated GPU, while in reality OS X did not let it switch! Even after I edited ./gfxCardStatus/Classes/GSGPU.m file to enable the mysterious "Nuke it from orbit switching" option, it still couldn't switch...
===
Then I discovered this interesting repository - https://github.com/0xbb/gpu-switch - which is partially similar by its' source code to gfxCardStatus but also has the "Login Hooks" (install_hooks.sh) to "automate the switching process for login/logout". Sadly it didn't work for me... However, there is a very interesting gpu-switch text file right at the root of this repository, which describes the EFI variables!
https://github.com/0xbb/gpu-switch/blob/master/gpu-switch
After studying it and also reading this issue's comments - https://github.com/0xbb/gpu-switch/issues/11 - I became confident to try this solution, but found out that my MacBook Pro 2011 8,2 with OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 is in a VERY problematic situation:
1) rEFInd is not installed, and to install it - must disable SIP protection. But I cannot boot to Recovery mode (Command+Option+R) or to OS X Installation DVD/USB (hold Option), (to disable SIP), because they freeze while booting! - although I removed AMD kexts from my system, of course these recovery tools are using AMD kexts integrated to their design. Also cannot use Rootfool hack ( https://github.com/gdbinit/rootfool ) to disable SIP during runtime, because it works only at OS X version older than 10.11.4
2) Tried overheating my Macbook Pro on purpose (forcing CPU usage to 100% and putting it to a tightly closed bag) to force it to shutdown from overheating and then quickly reboot so that Integrated graphics will be enabled during the boot time - making it possible to boot to Recovery. But because of the wonderful high end thermal paste I have applied not so long ago - cannot overheat it even after waiting for a long time! At this point I thought that could either: a) remove AMD kexts from Installation media, or b) to connect MBP's hard drive to a Linux machine again and run a bunch of chmods to remove the SIP flags from the directories mentioned here ( http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/193368/what-is-the-rootless-feature-in-el-capitan-really ) which could potentially make a system unbootable, or c) to try installing rEFInd to HFS+ partition directly from a Linux machine with root rights because it will bypass SIP --- but have not explored these options, although some of them might have worked...
3) Wanted to boot a Linux LiveCD to edit the EFI variables from there, but no matter what I did: tried booting straight without GRUB option modifications, tried editing GRUB boot options (with "e" key) to add nomodeset / remove quiet splash / or both in every combination , or like suggested in this article ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBookPro8,1/8,2/8,3_(2011) ) also add i915.modeset=0 radeon.modeset=0 or radeon.modeset=0 i915.modeset=1 i915.lvds_channel_mode=2 ; and then pressed Fn+F10 or Shift+Ctrl+Fn+F10 to boot with these options: but the Linux boot process always failed at different boot stages, no matter what popular user-friendly Linux distribution or what version of it I am trying: tried many releases of Ubuntu / Lubuntu / Fedora , even the old "AMD64 Mac" and "Alternate AMD64 Mac" images, but they always failed - either at the very beginning of boot process (black screen, or a black screen with a blinking or stuck _ character at the left upper corner) or failed at the very end of it - right before it is supposed to show a graphical desktop environment...
Later, totoe_84 wrote that he was able to boot Ubuntu in graphical mode using the following setup for GRUB:
- To disable the AMD graphics card I added the following lines after set gfxpayload=keep
outb 0x728 1
outb 0x710 2
outb 0x740 2
outb 0x750 0(based on https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2157775 )
- Next I added the following after quiet splash
i915.lvds_channel_mode=2 i915.modeset=1 i915.lvds_use_ssc=0
===
Then I remembered that there are not-mainstream Linux distributions for advanced users, which have a LiveCD without any graphical interface: you are dropped to a pure console and you are supposed to install the system along with only those graphical interfaces and software packages / groups of packages which you explicitly select. For example: Arch Linux (https://www.archlinux.org/) and Gentoo Linux (https://gentoo.org/) . Because their LiveCD does not have a graphical interface, they could be booted without a problem to a pure Linux console and there you could edit the EFI variables ! So here is a...
===
=== 100% WORKING SOLUTION
===
=== Force your MBP to ALWAYS use Intel integrated GPU (EFI variable fix)
===
=== to make it great again !
===
1) Create the Arch Linux LiveCD/LiveUSB :
You need a working computer for that and a spare CD/DVD/USB drive. Download the latest Arch Linux ISO image from this page - https://www.archlinux.org/download/ , at the time of writing it is archlinux-2017.03.01-dual.iso . Then you could either simply burn this ISO to CD/DVD (which later could be either inserted to MBP's SuperDrive or External DVD Drive connected to MBP by two USB cables) or create a bootable USB: use the great detailed instructions from this page, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB_flash_installation_media
2) Boot to it: insert this CD/DVD/USB to Macbook Pro, hold Option key while booting, choose "EFI boot" (that is your bootable installation media), press "e" key to edit the GRUB options of the Arch Linux archiso x86_64 UEFI CD menu entry while it is selected at the main screen, add nomodeset to the end of this line and press Enter. If everything is done correctly, you will find yourself at the Linux console!
3) Edit EFI vars: looks like efivarfs filesystem is mounted by default! So you can already cd /sys/firmware/efi/efivars and ls to explore this directory and see if there is a "gpu-power-prefs-..." variable (where ... is UUID of this variable). If there is such a variable, its better to remove it with rm. In my case the efivarfs has been mounted by default with read/write permissions, but if you are getting the "operation not permitted" message while attempting to rm, it means that in your case efivarfs has been mounted as read-only and you need to remount it with read-write permissions and try again (credits to totoe_84 for this valuable addition) :
*) cd /
*) umount /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/
*) mount -t efivarfs rw /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/
*) cd /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/
If your screen is so distorted that it is difficult to see the letters, just start typing the rm gpu-power-pre and then press TAB key for autocompletion. In my case there were not such a EFI variable, only "gpu-active-..." and maybe somehow related "gfx-saved-config-restore-status-..." . Then I looked again at that gpu-switch text file (mentioned above, https://github.com/0xbb/gpu-switch/blob/master/gpu-switch),
and entered THESE COMMANDS:
*) chattr -i "/sys/firmware/efi/efivars/" <----- skip this command
Actually a gpu-switch script had "${sysfs_efi_vars}/${efi_gpu}" but I didnt have a "gpu-power-prefs-..." variable - so, partially by mistake, I didn't add that efi_gpu suffix and entered this incomplete path accidentally
*) printf "\x07\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00" > /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/gpu-power-prefs-fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9
Did not have a EFI "gpu-power-prefs-" variable so I thought that it will be OK to create a new one with a random UUID - in this case, taken directly from a gpu-switch script
*) chattr +i "/sys/firmware/efi/efivars/gpu-power-prefs-fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9"
http://www.tecmint.com/chattr-command-examples/ - chattr (Change Attribute) is a command line Linux utility that is used to set/unset certain attributes to a file in Linux system to secure accidental deletion or modification of important files and folders, even though you are logged in as a root user.
...
Syntax of chattr ---> chattr [operator] [flags] [filename]
...
A file is set with ‘i‘ attribute (+i as you see in this command) ---> cannot be modified (immutable). Means no renaming, no symbolic link creation, no execution, no writable, only superuser can unset the attribute.
...
Operator
This chattr command is supposed to lock a file to make it accessible only by "superuser" - and so that, while booting, your EFI will have no chance to screw up your gpu-power-prefs-... variable under any circumstances
- + : Adds the attribute to the existing attribute of the files.
- – : Removes the attribute to the existing attribute of the files.
- = : Keep the existing attributes that the files have.
*) cd /
Could not unmount efivars if you are inside this directory, so change to the root directory
*) umount /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/
Guarantees that your EFI variables are flushed to efivarfs filesystem, please unmount it safely before rebooting)
*) reboot
===> IF YOU DID EVERYTHING CORRECTLY, MOST LIKELY THAT YOUR MACBOOK PRO IS NOW USING INTEGRATED GRAPHICS WHILE BOOTING, AFTER BOOTING, AND IS WORKING GREAT AGAIN !
In the future maybe you could need to re-apply this solution if you would have to reset your PRAM / NVRAM / SMC because of some other problems, so remember this solution somewhere... Funny thing: now you can't switch to Discrete GPU even using gfxCardStatus, it is forever stuck at Integrated
I spent two working days to discover this solution, and really hope that it will work flawlessly for every MBP owner with a broken discrete GPU. Good luck!
i can't found "gpu-active-..." or "gpu-power-prefs-..." or "gfx-saved-config-restore-status-...", what is my mistake?
I found these instructions at post #1444 and it worked perfectly! It was so much easier than having to create the archlinux drive and go through the original instructions. After I created the clean install, I migrated all my files from a Time Machine backup and was done.
I've already done ten clean installs of the HighSierra on Macbook Pro 2011.
The problem is in the AMDRadeonX3000.kext that will be loaded on the first or second reboot after half/partial installation.
This is why you have to use the verbose boot to know where the installation is freezing.
Follow The Guide MikeN to move the AMDRadeonX3000.kext and then return to the next step of installing the High Sierra. - #875
0 - Start clean install HighSierra -> copy files to system partition -> reboot -> continue installation -> system try load AMDRadeonX3000.kext -> freeze installation -> if Macbook Pro not auto reboot -> press power button -> force shutdown.
0.1 - Disable SIP - boot Recovery Mode Single User - Press Command + R + S at boot:
Code:
csrutil disable0.2 - Restart the system:
Code:
reboot1- Boot into single user-mode by holding
<Cmd>+<s>
2 – enable verbose boot mode:
Code:
nvram boot-args="-v"3 - Verify system partition:
Code:
/sbin/fsck -fy4 – mount root partition writeable - do not forget the last slash "/"
Code:
/sbin/mount -uw /5 - make a kext-backup directory
Code:
mkdir -p /System/Library/Extensions-off6 – only move ONE offending kext out of the way:
Code:
mv -v /System/Library/Extensions/AMDRadeonX3000.kext /System/Library/Extensions-off/7 – let the system update its kextcache:
Code:
touch /System/Library/Extensions/8 – wait for the kextcache process to finish - 1 or 2 minutes -> then
Code:
reboot9 - Boot normal
Continue to install the HighSierra.
10 - After completing the installation of HighSierra -> create login name, etc -> reboot the system and Enable SIP again.
Finder -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal:
Code:
sudo shutdown -r now11 - Enable SIP - boot Recovery Mode Single User - Press Command + R + S at boot:
Code:
csrutil enable
reboot12 - Boot normal.
Do not forget to read the entire MikeN Guide to load (kextload) the AMDRadeonX3000.kext to lower the system temperature and turn off the AMD GPU - #875 .
Do not forget to read this post about MacOS update and AMDRadeonX3000.kext - #1425
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[doublepost=1521319991][/doublepost]Yes!!! I saw your post last night and followed all the instructions and it worked like a charm!
However, now when my MacBook Pro boots up, all I see is single user mode information, then it boots into the graphical user interface. It doesn't affect anything, its just annoying to see all that when I start up my computer each time.
When you have a HighSierra update, then the update will probably put a new AMDRadeonX3000.kext in the /System/Library/Extensions directory again. And you will have to repeat the procedure of moving the AMDRadeonX3000.kext again.
Do not forget to read this post about MacOS update and AMDRadeonX3000.kext - #1425
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I stumbled on this thread because I tried to boot my 2011 MBP into Windows 10 and of course the thing runs using the dGPU which makes the laptop much warmer than usual. I don't use my MBP much anymore. I started using it again to run some VMs, but besides that, it's usually used only for web browsing. I'll look for a post where someone successfully disabled the dGPU in Windows.
For now I consider myself lucky. In May will be 7 years with this laptop. I've never owned any computer equipment that long.
For now I consider myself lucky. In May will be 7 years with this laptop. I've never owned any computer equipment that long.
you can use this terminal command to turn off the verbose mode :
Code:
sudo nvram boot-args=
Last edited:
an additional issue : the laptop can't restart (force shutdown and reboot)
What if you would remove the AMD graphics adapter through Device Manager, with a removal of a driver as well? I'm not a Windows expert but think if you'd do that it should fall back to iGPU for which there's an installed driver
Maybe you need to verify your HFS+ filesystem? Sadly I don't have other ideas...
Any of the methods from this thread could work perfectly for you, but you can't be sure until you try
If my original method is not permanent for you, try some alternative instructions you could find at the more recent pages of this thread
Yes this shouldn't depend on your hard drive; please try resetting your PRAM / NVRAM and try again
@GLS , from the @nsgr signature : Follow The Guide @miken to decrease AMD GPU and System temperature - Page 35 - #875 https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...fi-variable-fix.2037591/page-35#post-24956091 . Follow this helpful post by @nsgr for the instructions on how to do a clean install to your new hard drive: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...fi-variable-fix.2037591/page-66#post-25903222
So far my experience with AliExpress has been very positive, just make sure to order from a reputable seller who has a high rating and a lot of 5 star detailed customer reviews for that battery, preferably with at least one review containing a screenshot of some statistics
[doublepost=1521562305][/doublepost]
Maybe its possible that windows works fine until you'd install the AMD graphics drivers there, since they aren't installed by default (at least for Windows 7) . However, it doesn't make much sense to use bootcamp because a Parallels Desktop is good enough. About 5 years ago I've done the Geekbench/Cinebench cross-platform benchmarks to compare the performance of host OS vs Windows OS running inside a Parallels Desktop virtual machine: and it was like minus 1-2% for CPU, while -35% for GPU performance. So its fine for CPU, and while -35% for GPU could seem a lot to some people: that was like 5 years ago, perhaps the modern Parallels is much better and the performance difference between host vs VM is not big enough to justify all these extra bootcamp inconveniences (rebooting between OS, partitioning, etc.) The only two major issues with a VM: 1) it is RAM hungry, so you need to upgrade to 8 GB or maybe to 16 GB of RAM if you could 2) there are a few USB devices which do not work if you'd attach them to VM, only directly. Also, there are some situations like, i.e. you need to upgrade the firmware of your USB card reader - it is more safe to do under the native windows OS, because if something goes wrong you could end up with a brick that could be difficult to recover back into a card reader
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If you'd update your OS you'd have to repeat the fix - that includes removing the AMD drivers again
Are you sure that you've followed all the instructions? If you've done them partially then yes, your Mac will boot but will be slow, you have to complete them (or maybe repeat them from scratch) to enjoy the "normal speed"
if you'd be running your MBP without a battery and just powering it by a power supply - yes, it will slowdown as a precautionary measure against the sudden power-offs in a case your MBP consumes slightly more power at some point of time. I don't know a software solution for this, but that could be solved if e.g. if you don't want to pay $120 to Apple for the battery replacement - order the same battery from AliExpress for $40 from a good seller with a lot of battery reviews and replace it by yourself, saving $80 as result. Just make sure to get those rare screwdrivers necessary for a battery removal
[doublepost=1521564066][/doublepost]
Maybe he just wrote a wrong quote character. Some keyboards have the quotation marks like “ ” in addition to ", and those weird quote characters are a source of many problems...
[doublepost=1521564624][/doublepost]
Again this "dquote" at one of the screenshots. Judging by that you are French and have a different keyboard, now it seems even more likely that this solution fails for you because the quote symbol on your keyboard is different. Alternatively, maybe that is a problem of the latest Arch Linux ISO, in which case I recommend either to download its' earlier version or to download a live ISO of some other Linux, e.g. Gentoo Linux
[doublepost=1521564881][/doublepost]
If my solution isn't permanent in your case, there are some alternative solutions from the recent pages of this thread which could be permanent for you
Maybe you haven't completed correctly some of the steps of instruction, judging by that you still have the artifactsSince I did this trick, the startup sound has gone
Explain this problem to a person, recommend him not to reinstall OS X without a good reason, and show him this thread with solutions where he could go for a free tech support
[doublepost=1521565109][/doublepost]
From the @nsgr signature : Follow The Guide @miken to decrease AMD GPU and System temperature - Page 35 - #875 https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...fi-variable-fix.2037591/page-35#post-24956091
[doublepost=1521565661][/doublepost]
Would if work if you just open a Terminal and write " sudo reboot " ?
[doublepost=1521593873][/doublepost]Any ideas would be much appreciated Ran this fix and it seemed to work.If you don't have time to read my story (which also describes some interesting technical approaches) just scroll down this thread until a "100% WORKING SOLUTION" text
Discrete AMD GPU of my 2011 MacBook Pro 8,2 has finally failed because of the reasons mentioned here ( http://logicboardmac.blogspot.ru/ ) and there ( https://www.macrumors.com/2015/02/19/2011-macbook-pro-repair-program-apple/ ) . It has been working perfectly for 6 years under quite a high load, even tried SETI@HOME mining at background! So I was confident that my MBP is not affected by bad solder / bad soldering quality and didn't want to bring it to Apple for a free repair program - partially because couldn't find the time to pause my important software projects, partially because I was afraid that Apple might give me a less reliable logic board or refuse a free repair because of the several unrelated repairs that I did manually by myself earlier to save money: changed thermal paste a few times, replaced the internal battery 2 times, replaced a keyboard with broken buttons, etc. But it finally broke down last week: laptop's screen image became distorted, it refused to boot OS X (always freezing half-way), and - Apple free repair program has already ended! I know there are affordable solutions like $50 BGA resoldering at unofficial local repair shop and that its possible to get a new replacement HD 6750M chip from AliExpress for $35 or cheaper ( http://www.aliexpress.com/item/DC-2...0028-216-0810028-BGA-Chipset/32764872143.html or https://www.aliexpress.com/item/DC-2015-New-216-0810001-216-0810001-Graphic-Chipset/32718112928.html , because don't know if this is true - https://www.rossmanngroup.com/board...0604-replace-216-0810005-gpu-with-216-0810028 ) to guarantee a successful repair, so the total price of repair would be either $50 or $50+$35=$85 - less than $100 in any case. But I don't like investing money to the old computers, so I have thought - what if there is some hack to force MBP to use integrated graphics ALL THE TIME, even while booting ? And then started to explore the possible solutions...
===
First of all, it is possible to successfully boot a MBP to OS X while still using the failed GPU, after you remove the AMD drivers by booting in command line mode (CMD+S) and entering these commands:
1) fsck -fy (to check a disk)
2) mount -uw / (mount a root filesystem with read/write permissions)
3) sudo mkdir /AMD_Kexts/ (make a directory to store the AMD drivers in case you'll need them in future)
4) sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMD*.* /AMD_Kexts/ (move the AMD drivers)
5) sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/ (remove the AMD drivers cache)
6) sudo mkdir /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/ (just in case OS X will be dumb and will not recreate this directory, I am creating it for OS X)
7) sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/ (to update the timestamps so that new driver caches - without AMD drivers - will be definitely rebuilt)
8) sudo umount / (umount a partition to guarantee that your changes are flushed to it)
9) sudo reboot
The degree of your inconvenience while doing these steps - strongly depends on how heavily a screen's image is distorted in your case. In my case it was even more difficult because the OS X partition became a "read-only" partition (because of too many emergency shutdowns I did while desperately trying to boot OS X with a failed GPU) so I had to remove a hard drive from MacBook Pro and (using a USB to SATA 2.5" adapter taken from my portable HDD) attached it to a computer with Linux, then followed these instructions:
https://superuser.com/questions/961401/mounting-hfs-partition-on-arch-linux (1st answer) - carefully executed a number of commands, calculated a sizelimit for my parition layout, and finally ran sudo mount -t hfsplus -o force,rw,sizelimit=YOURNUMBER /dev/sdb2 /mnt to mount this HFS+ partition to /mnt directory in read-write mode. Then I performed these "1)-7)" steps you see above, and also repaired a filesystem by running sudo fsck.hfsplus -f /dev/sdb2 before unmounting a partition with sudo umount /mnt and putting a hard drive back to MBP...
===
This gave me a MBP which could boot to OS X although STILL using a broken AMD GPU: so it screen's image is very distorted (could browse the Internet but quite inconvenient to read a text), Launchpad is super laggy, and you can't switch to Integrated GPU using gfxCardStatus because: without AMD drivers (which we had to remove to successfully boot to OS X) Macbook Pro thinks its' internal screen is External Display and gfxCardStatus tells it is impossible to switch because External Display is using AMD GPU. Somewhere I found a suggestion that it is possible to rebuild a gfxCardStatus from the source code - https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus - with removed or commented out 156-166 lines in the ./gfxCardStatus/Classes/GSProcess.m to make it to ignore the external display:
// find out if an external monitor is forcing the discrete gpu on
CGDirectDisplayID displays[8];
CGDisplayCount displayCount = 0;
if (CGGetOnlineDisplayList(8, displays, &displayCount) == noErr) {
for (int i = 0; i < displayCount; i++) {
if ( ! CGDisplayIsBuiltin(displays))
[list addObject:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
Str(@"External Display"), kTaskItemName,
@"", kTaskItemPID, nil]];
}
}
So I rebuilt a gfxCardStatus using the instructions from the last reply of this issue -
https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus/issues/229
(also had to download a MacOSX10.11.sdk from here - https://github.com/phracker/MacOSX-SDKs/releases - unpack and copy it to XCode's /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.11.sdk - because of the Apple's stupidity the latest XCode for El Capitan does not include SDK for El Capitan!) However, it still didn't work - gfxCardStatus only pretended that it has switched to Integrated GPU, while in reality OS X did not let it switch! Even after I edited ./gfxCardStatus/Classes/GSGPU.m file to enable the mysterious "Nuke it from orbit switching" option, it still couldn't switch...
===
Then I discovered this interesting repository - https://github.com/0xbb/gpu-switch - which is partially similar by its' source code to gfxCardStatus but also has the "Login Hooks" (install_hooks.sh) to "automate the switching process for login/logout". Sadly it didn't work for me... However, there is a very interesting gpu-switch text file right at the root of this repository, which describes the EFI variables!
https://github.com/0xbb/gpu-switch/blob/master/gpu-switch
After studying it and also reading this issue's comments - https://github.com/0xbb/gpu-switch/issues/11 - I became confident to try this solution, but found out that my MacBook Pro 2011 8,2 with OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 is in a VERY problematic situation:
1) rEFInd is not installed, and to install it - must disable SIP protection. But I cannot boot to Recovery mode (Command+Option+R) or to OS X Installation DVD/USB (hold Option), (to disable SIP), because they freeze while booting! - although I removed AMD kexts from my system, of course these recovery tools are using AMD kexts integrated to their design. Also cannot use Rootfool hack ( https://github.com/gdbinit/rootfool ) to disable SIP during runtime, because it works only at OS X version older than 10.11.4
2) Tried overheating my Macbook Pro on purpose (forcing CPU usage to 100% and putting it to a tightly closed bag) to force it to shutdown from overheating and then quickly reboot so that Integrated graphics will be enabled during the boot time - making it possible to boot to Recovery. But because of the wonderful high end thermal paste I have applied not so long ago - cannot overheat it even after waiting for a long time! At this point I thought that could either: a) remove AMD kexts from Installation media, or b) to connect MBP's hard drive to a Linux machine again and run a bunch of chmods to remove the SIP flags from the directories mentioned here ( http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/193368/what-is-the-rootless-feature-in-el-capitan-really ) which could potentially make a system unbootable, or c) to try installing rEFInd to HFS+ partition directly from a Linux machine with root rights because it will bypass SIP --- but have not explored these options, although some of them might have worked...
3) Wanted to boot a Linux LiveCD to edit the EFI variables from there, but no matter what I did: tried booting straight without GRUB option modifications, tried editing GRUB boot options (with "e" key) to add nomodeset / remove quiet splash / or both in every combination , or like suggested in this article ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBookPro8,1/8,2/8,3_(2011) ) also add i915.modeset=0 radeon.modeset=0 or radeon.modeset=0 i915.modeset=1 i915.lvds_channel_mode=2 ; and then pressed Fn+F10 or Shift+Ctrl+Fn+F10 to boot with these options: but the Linux boot process always failed at different boot stages, no matter what popular user-friendly Linux distribution or what version of it I am trying: tried many releases of Ubuntu / Lubuntu / Fedora , even the old "AMD64 Mac" and "Alternate AMD64 Mac" images, but they always failed - either at the very beginning of boot process (black screen, or a black screen with a blinking or stuck _ character at the left upper corner) or failed at the very end of it - right before it is supposed to show a graphical desktop environment...
Later, totoe_84 wrote that he was able to boot Ubuntu in graphical mode using the following setup for GRUB:
- To disable the AMD graphics card I added the following lines after set gfxpayload=keep
outb 0x728 1
outb 0x710 2
outb 0x740 2
outb 0x750 0(based on https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2157775 )
- Next I added the following after quiet splash
i915.lvds_channel_mode=2 i915.modeset=1 i915.lvds_use_ssc=0
===
Then I remembered that there are not-mainstream Linux distributions for advanced users, which have a LiveCD without any graphical interface: you are dropped to a pure console and you are supposed to install the system along with only those graphical interfaces and software packages / groups of packages which you explicitly select. For example: Arch Linux (https://www.archlinux.org/) and Gentoo Linux (https://gentoo.org/) . Because their LiveCD does not have a graphical interface, they could be booted without a problem to a pure Linux console and there you could edit the EFI variables ! So here is a...
===
=== 100% WORKING SOLUTION
===
=== Force your MBP to ALWAYS use Intel integrated GPU (EFI variable fix)
===
=== to make it great again !
===
1) Create the Arch Linux LiveCD/LiveUSB :
You need a working computer for that and a spare CD/DVD/USB drive. Download the latest Arch Linux ISO image from this page - https://www.archlinux.org/download/ , at the time of writing it is archlinux-2017.03.01-dual.iso . Then you could either simply burn this ISO to CD/DVD (which later could be either inserted to MBP's SuperDrive or External DVD Drive connected to MBP by two USB cables) or create a bootable USB: use the great detailed instructions from this page, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB_flash_installation_media
2) Boot to it: insert this CD/DVD/USB to Macbook Pro, hold Option key while booting, choose "EFI boot" (that is your bootable installation media), press "e" key to edit the GRUB options of the Arch Linux archiso x86_64 UEFI CD menu entry while it is selected at the main screen, add nomodeset to the end of this line and press Enter. If everything is done correctly, you will find yourself at the Linux console!
3) Edit EFI vars: looks like efivarfs filesystem is mounted by default! So you can already cd /sys/firmware/efi/efivars and ls to explore this directory and see if there is a "gpu-power-prefs-..." variable (where ... is UUID of this variable). If there is such a variable, its better to remove it with rm. In my case the efivarfs has been mounted by default with read/write permissions, but if you are getting the "operation not permitted" message while attempting to rm, it means that in your case efivarfs has been mounted as read-only and you need to remount it with read-write permissions and try again (credits to totoe_84 for this valuable addition) :
*) cd /
*) umount /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/
*) mount -t efivarfs rw /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/
*) cd /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/
If your screen is so distorted that it is difficult to see the letters, just start typing the rm gpu-power-pre and then press TAB key for autocompletion. In my case there were not such a EFI variable, only "gpu-active-..." and maybe somehow related "gfx-saved-config-restore-status-..." . Then I looked again at that gpu-switch text file (mentioned above, https://github.com/0xbb/gpu-switch/blob/master/gpu-switch),
and entered THESE COMMANDS:
*) chattr -i "/sys/firmware/efi/efivars/" <----- skip this command
Actually a gpu-switch script had "${sysfs_efi_vars}/${efi_gpu}" but I didnt have a "gpu-power-prefs-..." variable - so, partially by mistake, I didn't add that efi_gpu suffix and entered this incomplete path accidentally
*) printf "\x07\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00" > /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/gpu-power-prefs-fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9
Did not have a EFI "gpu-power-prefs-" variable so I thought that it will be OK to create a new one with a random UUID - in this case, taken directly from a gpu-switch script
*) chattr +i "/sys/firmware/efi/efivars/gpu-power-prefs-fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9"
http://www.tecmint.com/chattr-command-examples/ - chattr (Change Attribute) is a command line Linux utility that is used to set/unset certain attributes to a file in Linux system to secure accidental deletion or modification of important files and folders, even though you are logged in as a root user.
...
Syntax of chattr ---> chattr [operator] [flags] [filename]
...
A file is set with ‘i‘ attribute (+i as you see in this command) ---> cannot be modified (immutable). Means no renaming, no symbolic link creation, no execution, no writable, only superuser can unset the attribute.
...
Operator
This chattr command is supposed to lock a file to make it accessible only by "superuser" - and so that, while booting, your EFI will have no chance to screw up your gpu-power-prefs-... variable under any circumstances
- + : Adds the attribute to the existing attribute of the files.
- – : Removes the attribute to the existing attribute of the files.
- = : Keep the existing attributes that the files have.
*) cd /
Could not unmount efivars if you are inside this directory, so change to the root directory
*) umount /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/
Guarantees that your EFI variables are flushed to efivarfs filesystem, please unmount it safely before rebooting)
*) reboot
===> IF YOU DID EVERYTHING CORRECTLY, MOST LIKELY THAT YOUR MACBOOK PRO IS NOW USING INTEGRATED GRAPHICS WHILE BOOTING, AFTER BOOTING, AND IS WORKING GREAT AGAIN !
In the future maybe you could need to re-apply this solution if you would have to reset your PRAM / NVRAM / SMC because of some other problems, so remember this solution somewhere... Funny thing: now you can't switch to Discrete GPU even using gfxCardStatus, it is forever stuck at Integrated
I spent two working days to discover this solution, and really hope that it will work flawlessly for every MBP owner with a broken discrete GPU. Good luck!
However I had no brightness control.
I tried to update Mac OS, now I’m getting stuck in a boot loop (image attached) its using the integrated gpu but it’s getting Stuck on gioscreenlockstate
Attachments
Big thanks to the wonderful human beings in this forum, my mac died 2 years ago and is now alive again thanks to you!
I have used the fix in @MikyeN s post Force 2011 MacBook Pro 8,2 with failed AMD GPU to ALWAYS use Intel integrated GPU (EFI variable fix)
I am now able to boot into my clean install of Sierra. Everything is just perfect for some minutes, but after a while kernel_task takes up a 100-something% of cpu and everything becomes sluggish. I have tried clean install a couple of times and reapplied the fix, no luck! Always the same, it boots, works fine, but slowly the system uses about 95% of cpu.
I am fairly certain I have done the fix correctly as I now have probably executed it about 10 times.
Anyone else experience similar things?
I am now considering trying the GRUB fix instead to see if this will help.
I have used the fix in @MikyeN s post Force 2011 MacBook Pro 8,2 with failed AMD GPU to ALWAYS use Intel integrated GPU (EFI variable fix)
I am now able to boot into my clean install of Sierra. Everything is just perfect for some minutes, but after a while kernel_task takes up a 100-something% of cpu and everything becomes sluggish. I have tried clean install a couple of times and reapplied the fix, no luck! Always the same, it boots, works fine, but slowly the system uses about 95% of cpu.
I am fairly certain I have done the fix correctly as I now have probably executed it about 10 times.
Anyone else experience similar things?
I am now considering trying the GRUB fix instead to see if this will help.
I also used the MikyeN's fix and I didn't noticed such issue, did you checked your Library ? do you have the good folder with the good .kext inside ? (/System/Library/Extensions-off) ? My laptop works pretty good, just have some issues, sometimes, rarely, when I try to reboot or shutdown the machine.
[doublepost=1521655207][/doublepost]
If you'd update your OS you'd have to repeat the fix - that includes removing the AMD drivers again Are you sure that you've followed all the instructions? If you've done them partially then yes, your Mac will boot but will be slow, you have to complete them (or maybe repeat them from scratch) to enjoy the "normal speed" if you'd be running your MBP without a battery and just powering it by a power supply - yes, it will slowdown as a precautionary measure against the sudden power-offs in a case your MBP consumes slightly more power at some point of time. I don't know a software solution for this, but that could be solved if e.g. if you don't want to pay $120 to Apple for the battery replacement - order the same battery from AliExpress for $40 from a good seller with a lot of battery reviews and replace it by yourself, saving $80 as result. Just make sure to get those rare screwdrivers necessary for a battery removal
[doublepost=1521564066][/doublepost] Maybe he just wrote a wrong quote character. Some keyboards have the quotation marks like “ ” in addition to ", and those weird quote characters are a source of many problems...
[doublepost=1521564624][/doublepost] Again this "dquote" at one of the screenshots. Judging by that you are French and have a different keyboard, now it seems even more likely that this solution fails for you because the quote symbol on your keyboard is different. Alternatively, maybe that is a problem of the latest Arch Linux ISO, in which case I recommend either to download its' earlier version or to download a live ISO of some other Linux, e.g. Gentoo Linux
[doublepost=1521564881][/doublepost] If my solution isn't permanent in your case, there are some alternative solutions from the recent pages of this thread which could be permanent for you Maybe you haven't completed correctly some of the steps of instruction, judging by that you still have the artifacts Explain this problem to a person, recommend him not to reinstall OS X without a good reason, and show him this thread with solutions where he could go for a free tech support
[doublepost=1521565109][/doublepost] From the @nsgr signature : Follow The Guide @miken to decrease AMD GPU and System temperature - Page 35 - #875 https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...fi-variable-fix.2037591/page-35#post-24956091
[doublepost=1521565661][/doublepost] Would if work if you just open a Terminal and write " sudo reboot " ?
Sorry, because I'm french (or just silly), I don't understand what you said : I should reboot (or shutdown) every time via Terminal to avoid the system freeze ?
I downloaded the latest version, but that I'm French does not help to solve some problems, for sure, here I fail because of a wrong quotation mark, finally, the MikeyN's solution was probably more adapted for me, I set smcfancontrol at 3500-4000 rpm by default, and since, as we say in france : je touche du bois...
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- I just performed the fix. Everything went smoothly as far as I was able to ascertain. Thanks for the effort, Mikey! I haven't been able to see any visible results, as my system was only just starting to fail and was still usable. So I had the privilege of being able to prevent a full failure - hopefully!
Anyway, the two quotes above confuse me in that they seem to conflict. The first says to move back the kext to the original folder before an update, but the second says that if the kext is in the original folder, it will lead to hangs etc. So I'm confused. Can you clarify?
Thanks.
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Hi Folks
I tried modifying the efivars as mentioned early in the thread. However I did so fairly recently and the info was probably out of date. So my modifying at first was unsuccessful until I deleted and recreated the prefs. But I clearly broke something in the efivars because now the macbook pro won't boot. Just bongs and stays at a white screen. No logo or anything. Resetting PRAM and SMC has no effect. Ditto Cmd+F, Option, Cmd+V, or even unplugging the hard drive. Ugh. Anyone have any suggestions on how to get the EFI back to factory?
Thanks in advance!
Joe
I tried modifying the efivars as mentioned early in the thread. However I did so fairly recently and the info was probably out of date. So my modifying at first was unsuccessful until I deleted and recreated the prefs. But I clearly broke something in the efivars because now the macbook pro won't boot. Just bongs and stays at a white screen. No logo or anything. Resetting PRAM and SMC has no effect. Ditto Cmd+F, Option, Cmd+V, or even unplugging the hard drive. Ugh. Anyone have any suggestions on how to get the EFI back to factory?
Thanks in advance!
Joe
Hi guys.
Thanks for this thread @AppleMacFinder.
I've got the same model MBP as yours - and it's good to see other like-minded people, on the case.
At present, i've got the latest Arch Image iso on a USB and i'm able to startup the laptop - holding down the alt / option key..
The drive comes up, as it should (labelled 'EFI Boot'), and I select it.
However, when I do, I don't get the main menu.
There's is no auto-boot countdown, giving me the option to press 'e'.
The system seems to panic and initialise the default kernel, which then sends the screen blank.
Has anyone come across this? Is there a keystroke I can use to force the main menu up, at boot?
Many thanks.
Thanks for this thread @AppleMacFinder.
I've got the same model MBP as yours - and it's good to see other like-minded people, on the case.
At present, i've got the latest Arch Image iso on a USB and i'm able to startup the laptop - holding down the alt / option key..
The drive comes up, as it should (labelled 'EFI Boot'), and I select it.
However, when I do, I don't get the main menu.
There's is no auto-boot countdown, giving me the option to press 'e'.
The system seems to panic and initialise the default kernel, which then sends the screen blank.
Has anyone come across this? Is there a keystroke I can use to force the main menu up, at boot?
Many thanks.
Read together in context the two quotes should convey:
For normal operation and normal boot-up, with the fix in place, X3000 needs to be where macOS cannot find it/load it.
But and update will write most components or a whole new X3000 to the default location.
Therefor, before an update is about to take place,
it is a good idea to boot with X3000 out of the way,
then to move X3000 back to its default location,
then apply the update.
The next boot will then predictably not work, since an updated X3000 is in its default location and has to moved away again. Then it will work again, as before.
But this information is now a bit outdated. See below the break.
---
Sidenote: Since Apple does not really update the systems below High Sierra anymore, with new features or new drivers, this procedure was a belt&suspenders approach for the past couple of updates on ELCapitan and Sierra.
On 10.11 and 10.12 it is not really needed anymore since all Apple updaters I've seen – including ComboUpdaters – will install an incomplete AMDRadeonX3000.kext.
It is missing a plist file, rendering that kext in itself broken anyway when installed while X3000 is not in its default location.
Some 100% confirmed examples for this were the last security updates and the 10.12.6 ComboUpdater. You can confirm the fishiness by just comparing the filesizes of a boot-breaking X3000 with a verson extracted from the updater. The last one is one file short of being able to do anything on its own.
To repeat: an X3000 kext just from updates will not load on boot!
If you count on hell freezing over anytime soon, and that Apple will issue a real update or a fixed one with a complete kext file, then it might still be necessary to move the originally installed X3000 kext back. But you will very probably notice when the boot hangs. Of course, High Sierra is still being developed and now, in March 2018 slowly approaching beta-quality, so things may be different there.
Apple getting so damned sloppy overall and in this case it's actually conveniently good news for us? Who expected that?
- Thanks. I get it now.
Another question: Does the initial NVRAM command only tell the system to use the iGPU on boot, or does it also disable the dGPU in macOS? In the first case, wouldn't the step of loading the moved kext allow the system to use the dGPU again, thus leading to video problems if the dGPU is invoked in macOS?
I ask because I experienced video distortion in macOS earlier today after having done all of the steps yesterday, and I'm not sure if some accidental reversal of one of the two (the NVRAM command or the kext loading in macOS) might have caused it. I fixed it by unloading the kext as well as redoing the NVRAM command from Single User mode. Though I'm unsure if only one of them caused the issues, or if it was some combination.
Thanks again!
Hello. I have the macbook pro early 2011 17" with ssd and high sierra. Both integrated and discrete gpus work fine. I would like to use only the integrated gpu. Is the most efficient way to use gfxCardStatus?