Hi guys!! My 2011 macbook pro 15 has issues with booting up past safe mode.. its a nice i7 my grandpa gave me and i want to make it right for him :)

[ashleytransxo]

basically, the macbook boots fine in safe mode, but when going into the OS normally (any OS), it will get stuck in a reboot loop.

verbose shows UNSUPPORTED CPU and PCH, so i installed opencore on the high sierra install, and it didnt help. i can nolonger boot into safe mode on that drive now.

when in safe mode, it at first said the discrete card was still there, but then i did the tweaks and locked the efi and now it says the intel chip is there only (which is what i wanted obviously).

i could rip the verbose but it's hard because i would have to type it out.

i ran the ECCRE stuff to check and it said nothing was wrong, apple hardware diag said nothing was wrong too.

it only shuts down at a certain point in the boot where gpu begins to be mentioned in verbose. any help pls )

 

[Fishrrman]

2011 MBP 15" (or 17") ??

Do a search on "RadeonGate", because your MBP probably has it.

This is a failed discrete GPU.
Can't be fixed.

There is a LONG thread that describes how to DISABLE the discrete GPU, so the MBP can run (with limitations). Look at it here:
Force 2011 MacBook Pro 8,2 with failed AMD GPU to ALWAYS use Intel integrated GPU (EFI variable fix)

But really... time to retire this old MBP and get something new (or at least, "newer") ...

 

[Queen6]

It might not be the dGPU as it's booting up in safe mode. If the chip has completely failed the 2011's don't generally boot or if they do the display has artifacting/colour issues. TBH they are difficult to deal with as there are two differing platforms; Early & Late. While there's a lot of knowledge in the linked thread many do not identify the HW/SW status in detail which confuses as they are very different.

Personally I'd look to getting it back to stock on High Sierra and go again with the upgrade to a newer version of MacOS, say Monterey. Ive left mine on High Sierra, from what I've read you can disable the dGPU in OCLP during the install which is the preferred method by those who have installed new versions of macOS on the 2011's. There are some good guides on Mr Macintosh's site and his YT channel.

If you decide to stick with High Sierra gSwitch 1.9.7 is a solution that has worked for me for many years.

FWIW


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