Mac Pro (Late 2013) GPU (Driver) Issues

[twomartoe]

I've been a long time apple user most of their stuff are great and just work. I dont mind sacrificing some features like customisation. Been using macpros in school and work and they look great and stable workhorses. This is the first time I own a macpro and its a beautiful machine but goes into a fit every other day without any explanation. Maybe thats the goal, a machine to look at.

Also there is another point of bad design, how do you clean the dust? We dont all live in a hermetically sealed estate like a posh english tw@t.

 

[AndyUnderscoreR]

I am asking because a would like to find out for the benefit of all of us: does this happans with gpu.restart console errors even if it turns out that GPUs are not the source of the problem.

In my case, GPU-B was definitely the source of the problem.

I'm sorry, but I can't work out exactly what you're asking me.

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What monitor are you using? I have a dell u2711 displayport to mini displayport and another newer dell 2414 hdmi. I still have frequent crashes and powering the dell u2711 on and off made it resposive again. With 10.10.3, when it becomes responsive again, the whole system lags and i'll do save my stuff and restart. With 10.10.2 a monitor off on, will solve any issues with no lag. I'm on d300.

I doubt that its a hardware issue, if it is, it might be the inefficient cooling design metioned here, despite what a posh english dude in California touting the best design ever said. Or highly likely, apple want to be a fashion company and making things work is no longer in their ethos.

I'm using an Apple 30" Cinema Display (the one with the perfect anti-reflective screen technology that nobody seems capable of making any more).

 

[flyingfoxuk]

Just an interesting thought with regard to this issue - how recent are the Mac Pro's people are having this problem on? Mine was a replacement from Apple in mid March which an Applecare representative told me had a Logic Board revision - just wondering whether something changed with this revision which is why relatively few people are experiencing this strange issue?

 

[bax2003]

I'm sorry, but I can't work out exactly what you're asking me

If it turn out in your case to be logic board and not GPU´s fault, it is interesting if it still reports gpu.restart errors in console.

 

[twomartoe]

Just an interesting thought with regard to this issue - how recent are the Mac Pro's people are having this problem on? Mine was a replacement from Apple in mid March which an Applecare representative told me had a Logic Board revision - just wondering whether something changed with this revision which is why relatively few people are experiencing this strange issue?

Are you still getting the erratic crash?

I spoke to an apple senior help person and he said it could be the usb 3 hub causing the problem. I researched on it and some have issues, but my anker usb3 hub has the latest firmware and chipset. Also only the keyboard is connected to the hub at the time of my crash. He also said it could that an external harddrive is making all the fuss. But I use those harddrives on my macbook air without issues. Also if I dont plug in any peripherals , then whats the point of a macpro?

I seem to be seeing a pattern with the crash, it happens mostly when video are playing full screen. VLC/Chrome/Safari ..

 

[flyingfoxuk]

Are you still getting the erratic crash?

I spoke to an apple senior help person and he said it could be the usb 3 hub causing the problem. I researched on it and some have issues, but my anker usb3 hub has the latest firmware and chipset. Also only the keyboard is connected to the hub at the time of my crash. He also said it could that an external harddrive is making all the fuss. But I use those harddrives on my macbook air without issues. Also if I dont plug in any peripherals , then whats the point of a macpro?

I seem to be seeing a pattern with the crash, it happens mostly when video are playing full screen. VLC/Chrome/Safari ..

Still repeatable crash with Photos / Launching Final Cut Pro X / iTunes

Basically there's something in these pieces of software that is causing a GPU reset that others aren't. I've been able to run complicated sound mixes inside Logic Pro X with HD video playing with no issues, I've rendered for the past week with Cinema 4D without a crash.

I have no USB hubs - the crash happened several times whilst screensharing with an Applecare rep with just an Apple Keyboard, Apple Mighty Mouse and a monitor connected!! I don't even work with an external hard drive powered up and connected - just use it for backup at the end of the day - still waiting to here back from Apple but not sure we're going to see a fix until 10.10.4 is released

 

[twomartoe]

Still repeatable crash with Photos / Launching Final Cut Pro X / iTunes

Basically there's something in these pieces of software that is causing a GPU reset that others aren't. I've been able to run complicated sound mixes inside Logic Pro X with HD video playing with no issues, I've rendered for the past week with Cinema 4D without a crash.

I have no USB hubs - the crash happened several times whilst screensharing with an Applecare rep with just an Apple Keyboard, Apple Mighty Mouse and a monitor connected!! I don't even work with an external hard drive powered up and connected - just use it for backup at the end of the day - still waiting to here back from Apple but not sure we're going to see a fix until 10.10.4 is released

damn, I did the screen sharing thing but no crash. U mentioned apple told u that their engineers are aware of this issue. I wonder how serious this problem is. I just had another gpu.restart

Rendering drives the temperature up, so I dont think it's a cooling issue. And u said screensharing caused a crash. My crashes happens with chrome/safari video, and a couple of time streaming video from the network.

Could this be related to their infamous network issue? Maybe bluetooth?

http://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/the-worst-bugs-in-os-x-yosemite-and-how-to-fix-them-1652690924
http://www.imore.com/still-plugging-leaks-os-x-yosemite-boat-problem-discoveryd

But that does not explain why my 2012 macbook air is performing wonderfully.

 

[twomartoe]

apparently macbookpros are getting gpu panics. Interestingly many are getting them when viewing videos

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6786954
http://www.macnn.com/articles/14/11...ds.discussing.issue.related.to.gpu.switching/

I wonder if the problems r somehow linked.

 

[flyingfoxuk]

On my system the Apple Care rep was able to see the crash caused by something else whilst Screen Sharing - the screen share itself wasn't responsible. I don't have blue tooth turned on or wifi. This is my work machine so it isn't usually even on the internet at all - I keep nudging them to see if there's any news but it's got to be sorted one way or the other.

Regarding cooling - my first 2013 Mac Pro ran much, much hotter than the new revision - they've ramped the fan speeds in the firmware I think.

 

[bax2003]

I seem to be seeing a pattern with the crash, it happens mostly when video are playing full screen. VLC/Chrome/Safari ..

Before Apple changed my GPU-B I had crashes in those apps very often. VLC video on one monitor and Safari on the other and bum.

Still repeatable crash with Photos / Launching Final Cut Pro X / iTunes

There is some kind of logic for Final Cut startup crash (or any app which is OpenCL based). One GPU is working, but OpenCL code in FCP X is initializing second GPU and checking if it is free for computing.

 

[flyingfoxuk]

Before Apple changed my GPU-B I had crashes in those apps very often. VLC video on one monitor and Safari on the other and bum.

Did changing GPU-B totally fix the problem for you?

 

[bax2003]

Before Apple changed my GPU-B I had crashes in those apps very often. VLC video on one monitor and Safari on the other and bum.

Did changing GPU-B totally fix the problem for you?

Not a single problem after GPU-B change....since April 29th, so for 2 weeks now.

 

[stingray88]

The production company I work for bought one nMP back in November 2014 to test it out. We got the 6-core, D700s, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. It's had almost no issues since we got it.

However since then we bought 4 more of the exact same specs in February 2015... they worked fine until the end of April. At first it was just one machine having issue, but it slowly started happening to all 4 of them. They're all exhibiting the same symptons as everyone here, GPUdumprestart, GPU hangstate loops, the whole system locking up and rebooting. We had Apple replace the GPUs in two of the machines, and that fixed the issues in one of them so far... but the second just started locking up again yesterday. Going back to the Apple store for the third time today.

These are production machines... how are we supposed to meet our deadlines when our $5000 workstations keep crashing? This is not the kind of quality I expect from Apple.

 

[flyingfoxuk]

The production company I work for bought one nMP back in November 2014 to test it out. We got the 6-core, D700s, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. It's had almost no issues since we got it.

However since then we bought 4 more of the exact same specs in February 2015... they worked fine until the end of April. At first it was just one machine having issue, but it slowly started happening to all 4 of them. They're all exhibiting the same symptons as everyone here, GPUdumprestart, GPU hangstate loops, the whole system locking up and rebooting. We had Apple replace the GPUs in two of the machines, and that fixed the issues in one of them so far... but the second just started locking up again yesterday. Going back to the Apple store for the third time today.

These are production machines... how are we supposed to meet our deadlines when our $5000 workstations keep crashing? This is not the kind of quality I expect from Apple.

I know exactly what you're going through! This is my main work machine for 3D computer animation, at the minute I'm still able to render with Cinema 4D without it going into a GPU hang, but I can't even compile the assembled frames in Final Cut Pro X right now which is frustrating. I've passed your experience onto my Apple Care rep. I'm wondering whether your 4 later machines have the new logic board revision (mine was replaced earlier in the year after another 3 months of hell with an earlier nMp) - I'm trying hard to get to the bottom of this since I also can't afford this kind of down-time!

 

[flyingfoxuk]

The production company I work for bought one nMP back in November 2014 to test it out. We got the 6-core, D700s, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. It's had almost no issues since we got it.

However since then we bought 4 more of the exact same specs in February 2015... they worked fine until the end of April.

Just out of interest - in April did you update these systems to 10.10.3 or Yosemite - my problem only began with this update (I had to do an internet recovery after an unrelated crash and it moved me from 10.10.2 to 10.10.3 - as far as I can tell this is key to the problem from my point of view)

 

[Infrared]

Back on 10.10.2 I had a couple of "graphics problem has been detected" messages. After updating to 10.10.3 those messages were not seen. However, the machine was locking up in 10.10.3 - I can't recall if it ever did on 10.10.2.

The new machine is going strong still and has not frozen once. It is also not exhibiting some of the occasional quirks that were noticeable on the previous machine.

 

[flyingfoxuk]

Back on 10.10.2 I had a couple of "graphics problem has been detected" messages. After updating to 10.10.3 those messages were not seen. However, the machine was locking up in 10.10.3 - I can't recall if it ever did on 10.10.2.

The new machine is going strong still and has not frozen once. It is also not exhibiting some of the occasional quirks that were noticeable on the previous machine.

I didn't have any graphics problem messages until 10.10.3 - there was occasionally some sluggish graphical performance in the finder but nothing like this, sadly I don't have 10.10.2 to roll back to or I'd do it in a shot!

 

[twomartoe]

there was update to apple remote desktop client 3.8.4
I also deactivated my wifi on the macpro. so far i havent had any crashes with the update.

Anyone getting crashes after the remote desktop client update?

 

[flyingfoxuk]

there was update to apple remote desktop client 3.8.4
I also deactivated my wifi on the macpro. so far i havent had any crashes with the update.

Anyone getting crashes after the remote desktop client update?

Sorry, I don't even have Remote desktop installed and still get crashes using FCPX and any photo manipulation

 

[twomartoe]

Sorry, I don't even have Remote desktop installed and still get crashes using FCPX and any photo manipulation

It comes with all macs and there are periodic updates. I think apple fix something with the infamous yosemite networking stack. And I havent had any crashes so far. I know it's weird, network causes gpu to crash.

 

[twomartoe]

Nope, I was wrong. Crashed again. this time vlc fullscreen stream media from another mac. Problem still persist.

 

[flyingfoxuk]

Nope, I was wrong. Crashed again. this time vlc fullscreen stream media from another mac. Problem still persist.

Sorry to hear it didn't fix it - hadn't got round to trying it yet - I'm hoping 10.10.4 is going to sort this but won't hold my breath!

 

[twomartoe]

Sorry to hear it didn't fix it - hadn't got round to trying it yet - I'm hoping 10.10.4 is going to sort this but won't hold my breath!

I wonder if this problem with the new macpro is a widespread thing

 

[Infrared]

Update: still no issues with the replacement machine. The machine is a about a month old now.

 

[flyingfoxuk]

Update: still no issues with the replacement machine. The machine is a about a month old now.

Are you running 10.10.3 on this machine?