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What do you think is the source of the graphics issues on Mac Pro (Late 2013) ?

  • Hardware

    Votes: 69 53.1%
  • Software

    Votes: 28 21.5%
  • Hardware & Software

    Votes: 32 24.6%
  • Other

    Votes: 1 0.8%

  • Total voters
    130

iigsie

macrumors regular
Nov 17, 2007
141
116
From my experience I just paid £650 to have my nMP repaired at an Apple store.

I have the standard D300 spec nMP. It exhibited all the symptoms of the recall on the D500 and D700 cards. It progressively got worse until it wouldn't start up. Lights appeared around the usb and thunderbolt ports but it wouldn't start up when pressing the power button.

They changed the power supply and the interconnect board and graphic card B.

I will test it out tomorrow and see if I get any GPU restarts


Sorry to hear you had to pay. I got mine fixed for free and it's nearly 3 years old. I made it quite clear I didn't think this was acceptable for a £2500 computer, and that I knew about the recall, and that I may have to ditch the platform etc etc. The Genius went backstage and a manager authorised free repair, providing there was no water damage.
 

axantas

macrumors 65816
Jun 29, 2015
1,000
1,407
Home
The latest Security Update did a Firmware Update as well - no details, but the bootscreen on TB monitors is back, so they did something. There was also the usual double reboot, that is required for firmware updates.
 

bax2003

Cancelled
Original poster
Dec 25, 2011
947
203
The latest Security Update did a Firmware Update as well - no details, but the bootscreen on TB monitors is back, so they did something. There was also the usual double reboot, that is required for firmware updates.

Yes, that is interesting - why Apple does not mention that in the release notes ?
For example fixed bug/security/performance issue on Mac Pro (Late 2013).
10.13.0 also brought Firmware upgrade, 10.13.1 did not.
 

axantas

macrumors 65816
Jun 29, 2015
1,000
1,407
Home
Yes, that is interesting - why Apple does not mention that in the release notes ?
For example fixed bug/security/performance issue on Mac Pro (Late 2013).
10.13.0 also brought Firmware upgrade, 10.13.1 did not.

It was definitely a firmware update, but probably not only for our MP. The bootscreen vanished after Apple finally brought the long awaited, glittering, gorgeously looking, super duper High Retina bootscreen to all Macs. :D

Other Mac Models did have that TB monitor problem as well (bootscreen only working with secondary MST in my case)
 

pierre1610

macrumors regular
Feb 3, 2009
185
19
Sorry to hear you had to pay. I got mine fixed for free and it's nearly 3 years old. I made it quite clear I didn't think this was acceptable for a £2500 computer, and that I knew about the recall, and that I may have to ditch the platform etc etc. The Genius went backstage and a manager authorised free repair, providing there was no water damage.

Which apple store did you take it too and which GPU did you have? I just got mine back after a £280 repair and it did the same thing 3 times the day i got it back having been 'fixed'
[doublepost=1510173245][/doublepost]So Apple had my machine for nearly 3 weeks, 2 of them were me arguing that its a known fault and a replacing of the D300 card won't do anything if its like for like. Finally i caved and paid for the repair. They kept the machine a week and stress tested it with Board-B replaced only and told me they solved the problem. I handed over £280 and took it home. 2 hours later, same problem. Then again 30 mins after. Spinning beachball then kicked out to login screen. Sierra doesn't seem to log any errors anymore other than the program which in this case is Photoshop. Reinstalled Sierra fresh without time machine, crashed again the same way today. Problem is certainly not solved. Any advise on where i can take this in the UK?
Thanks
 
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MarkJames68

macrumors 6502
Sep 24, 2017
394
246
Which apple store did you take it too and which GPU did you have? I just got mine back after a £280 repair and it did the same thing 3 times the day i got it back having been 'fixed'
[doublepost=1510173245][/doublepost]So Apple had my machine for nearly 3 weeks, 2 of them were me arguing that its a known fault and a replacing of the D300 card won't do anything if its like for like. Finally i caved and paid for the repair. They kept the machine a week and stress tested it with Board-B replaced only and told me they solved the problem. I handed over £280 and took it home. 2 hours later, same problem. Then again 30 mins after. Spinning beachball then kicked out to login screen. Sierra doesn't seem to log any errors anymore other than the program which in this case is Photoshop. Reinstalled Sierra fresh without time machine, crashed again the same way today. Problem is certainly not solved. Any advise on where i can take this in the UK?
Thanks
First I’d get back to where you took it and demand a refund. Then demand to escalate further as it’s clear they can’t fix it right.
 

pierre1610

macrumors regular
Feb 3, 2009
185
19
Summary: if you get WindowServer lockups on High Sierra - it would be worth trying a downgrade to Sierra.

I was getting the crashes described at the top of the thread on my late 2013 Mac Pro with the D300 graphics card, on El Capitan. About once a day on average.

I upgraded to High Sierra, and continued to get WindowServer crashes, but with a different error message. As before, the WindowServer would lock, with the SBOD. I could log in from another machine. The output of "log show" found that, at the time that WindowServer locked, I would get these messages, repeating until reboot:

WindowServer: (CoreDisplay) [ERROR] - Fallback GPU Display Pipe transaction submission failed

There was no obvious pattern to the lock-up - I replicated it on a fresh install with Apple standard software; it occurred using Safari and Virtualbox, I suppose coincidentally. It would only occur if I was using the GUI.

Apple claimed to have fixed this with a re-install of High Sierra, but I suspect they just didn't wait long enough for the crash to recur. However, they did say that Apple higher-up support said that there might be an incompatibility of the GPUs with High Sierra, and recommended downgrading to Sierra if the problem recurred. I asked them to do that downgrade, and since they did, I have not had the problem (now 4 days).

Cheers,

Matthew

How did you login from another machine to view the logs? Was it whilst the mac had hung or after it corrected itself? Mine for example hangs with SBOD for maybe 10-15 secs then kicks me out to the login screen. Im on Sierra
 

GregX

macrumors newbie
Apr 4, 2008
10
0
This is driving me nuts now.

Late Mac Pro (2013) with twin D300 graphics cards, High Sierra. Same lockups as mentioned in this thread.

I have tried everything, during the HS beta I logged the fault as although it clearly is a hardware issue, it's been emphasised by the OS changes since El Capitan.

I have tried running single monitors, no usb nothing seems to make any sense, it just happens when it wants to. Somedays I can go 3 maybe 4 days without issue and others it can happen 5 or 6 times in a day. Heck once it happened during reboot at the black screen.

The issue was closed by Apple because it was a duplicate, which means I will never know if it has been investigated fixed or just ignored, I think we all know it's the latter.

I have even emailed Tim Cook and as expected nothing happened (although shortly after that the issue was closed...).

Anyway I think it's a disgrace. Apple have turned their backs on all the owners who have purchased this item and I think the expectation is that we just give up and buy the next iMac Pro in the list.

it's no coincidence they don't sell it anymore.

If apple really cared they would either resolve the issue or buy back the faulty units allowing us to move to something that doesn't work.

This really is where legal action should happen, not when someones phone doesn't support the latest OS, maybe it's not such an issue in America.

I think the Trashcan design is the clue here, thats about all it's going to end up as, I don't want to go back to crappy windows but whilst Apple products are great this has really soured my respect and support for them
[doublepost=1510748881][/doublepost]Oh and I forgot to mention this still happens with Sierra so that is not an option. All that is different is somewhere in one of the updates when it hangs long enough it goes back to the lock screen, although that is useless because as soon as you unlock the machine runs like a dog and has to be restarted again.

The only OS this doesn't happen on is El Capitan so are we all consigned to go back to some out of date OS because the big A's can't sort out the issue. Sounds like at least some people have found the problem, so therefore Apple should deal with the issues and offer the replacement.
 

Bill the Cat

macrumors newbie
Jan 12, 2009
4
0
Let me put on my tinfoil hat for a moment and propose a conspiracy theory...

Imagine Apple discovers that the nMP has a critical hardware flaw across all its configurations. Some bean counter runs the numbers and determines that it will cost millions of dollars to fix the problem with a mass recall. But if you don't fix the problem you risk damaging the brand and alienating your professional user base. So someone proposes that they will simply admit that there is a problem, but only with the D500 and D700 models that are more in favor with the pro users. At the same time, an OS or firmware update is released that is designed to make it impossible for any diagnostic program running on the OS to identify the hardware problem. This move will create the illusion that the problem has been addressed while also discouraging the more numerous D300 owners from thinking it is a hardware problem and causing us to blame our custom software configurations as possible culprits. Hell, even when we take it into the Genius Bar and they run their diagnostic tests (software from Apple) nothing will be found. For those users who are persistent enough or lucky enough to have a repeatable freeze, Apple could provide a free fix and still come out ahead. Is this really that far fetched after the VW emission scam?

So how does one debunk this conspiracy theory? Assuming this could not be all implemented in firmware, there should be a way to pin the flaw down by running some other software. If the coverup is implemented at the OS level then one would need to run a non-Apple OS. Whatever the OS it would have to be one that is compatible with all the hardware (thunderbolt2 and GPU support).

So lets say you run linux or Windows and find a specific flaw. What then? If you go into the Genius Bar aren't they just going to run their same tests and say nothing is wrong and then blame your non-Apple OS for the problems you are experiencing.
 

MarkJames68

macrumors 6502
Sep 24, 2017
394
246
I don’t think it’s necessarily a tinfoil hat conspiracy, but you could also argue that by enabling eGPU it also lets people with D300 cards (underpowered in 2017) use an external solution and no longer stress them, also getting Apple out of a jam.
 

Bill the Cat

macrumors newbie
Jan 12, 2009
4
0
I don’t think it’s necessarily a tinfoil hat conspiracy, but you could also argue that by enabling eGPU it also lets people with D300 cards (underpowered in 2017) use an external solution and no longer stress them, also getting Apple out of a jam.

Yes, exactly. If I'm a conspirator at Apple trying to avoid doing the mass recall I might suggest that the fast pace at which computers improve will render the issue irrelevant in a few years as users pay for their own upgrades. The eGPU option instead of internal upgrade options also obviates the need to fix what appears to be a problem with how the stock GPUs connect with the motherboard.
 

matthew.brett

macrumors newbie
Nov 6, 2017
3
0
How did you login from another machine to view the logs? Was it whilst the mac had hung or after it corrected itself? Mine for example hangs with SBOD for maybe 10-15 secs then kicks me out to the login screen. Im on Sierra

Oops - sorry - I only just noticed this reply. I was on a work network, and I happened to know my machine's IP. I just logged in via ssh, in fact from a Linux machine. This was all from a terminal, no GUI - and all while the Mac GUI was hung with the SBOD.
 

iigsie

macrumors regular
Nov 17, 2007
141
116
Which apple store did you take it too and which GPU did you have? I just got mine back after a £280 repair and it did the same thing 3 times the day i got it back having been 'fixed'
[doublepost=1510173245][/doublepost]So Apple had my machine for nearly 3 weeks, 2 of them were me arguing that its a known fault and a replacing of the D300 card won't do anything if its like for like. Finally i caved and paid for the repair. They kept the machine a week and stress tested it with Board-B replaced only and told me they solved the problem. I handed over £280 and took it home. 2 hours later, same problem. Then again 30 mins after. Spinning beachball then kicked out to login screen. Sierra doesn't seem to log any errors anymore other than the program which in this case is Photoshop. Reinstalled Sierra fresh without time machine, crashed again the same way today. Problem is certainly not solved. Any advise on where i can take this in the UK?
Thanks


I feel your pain. I've just had a similar experience, although I got card B replaced for free as I'd already taken it in while under warranty last year. Same as yourself - problem back same day as collection.

Took it back today and the guy's initial advice was to try and stop using windowserver for a few weeks. He followed that with "there's no circular interconnect board in this model". Great.
[doublepost=1511829521][/doublepost]
Let me put on my tinfoil hat for a moment and propose a conspiracy theory...

It's not every single Mac Pro that's affected by this issue though. The majority appear to be manufactured between February 8 2015 and April 11 2015.
[doublepost=1511829831][/doublepost]
Which apple store did you take it too and which GPU did you have? I just got mine back after a £280 repair and it did the same thing 3 times the day i got it back having been 'fixed'

If you can try Regent Street. I know of several people who've gone there and had a free upgrade to a 6 core.
 

voyager77

macrumors member
Jun 25, 2012
82
29
Update in my situation:

After two months of waiting and nagging, apple caved in and gave me a replacement (new) mac pro.

According to the apple shop, they tried replacing the main board and a few other parts with no avail, so they finally gave up and requested a replacement from apple.

I now have the current base model, a D500 six core, so i'm not complaining that much. It's a small compensation for the time lost.

The reason i got a replacement was apple care and the fact that i had reported my problems early on and numerous time to apple.

The new one is working ok so far, it doesn't feel much faster but then my D300 never felt slow either.

Just had a few black screen flashes (screen on one monitor goes black for a second and comes back with no loss). No idea what's up with that but given my experience i'm skittish about screen glitches now.
 
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SpencerHarrison

macrumors newbie
Dec 2, 2017
3
2
This is driving me nuts now.

Late Mac Pro (2013) with twin D300 graphics cards, High Sierra. Same lockups as mentioned in this thread.

I have tried everything, during the HS beta I logged the fault as although it clearly is a hardware issue, it's been emphasised by the OS changes since El Capitan.

I have tried running single monitors, no usb nothing seems to make any sense, it just happens when it wants to. Somedays I can go 3 maybe 4 days without issue and others it can happen 5 or 6 times in a day. Heck once it happened during reboot at the black screen.

The issue was closed by Apple because it was a duplicate, which means I will never know if it has been investigated fixed or just ignored, I think we all know it's the latter.

I have even emailed Tim Cook and as expected nothing happened (although shortly after that the issue was closed...).

Anyway I think it's a disgrace. Apple have turned their backs on all the owners who have purchased this item and I think the expectation is that we just give up and buy the next iMac Pro in the list.

it's no coincidence they don't sell it anymore.

I signed up to drop a reply on this thread for anyone dealing with this. I believe I have a solution.

I was stuck in the cycle of having the machine freeze constantly, making an apple store appointment, having it sent off, have nothing discovered, get the mac back and have it freeze constantly. The beachball freeze on a D300, full force.

Then the breakthrough: Turn on the flurry screensaver, at maximum settings and let the machine sit. It WILL freeze. Might take 20 minutes, might take 40 hours. But it WILL freeze.

Armed with that, I made another mac store appointment and told them to let it sit for at least 48 hours. They did. It froze. The dam broke! Apple techs started ordering parts and OKing repairs. They tried A graphics card first, nothing. Then ordered B graphics card, new RAM and a new riser board. They are testing it now, but if the freeze continues they have already agreed to give me a new machine.

TLDR: Turn on the screensaver with the flurry of colored lines and max the settings for thickness and speed. If you're getting the beachball freeze, you will also get this freeze. This makes it a reproducible issue for apple techs.
 
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MarkJames68

macrumors 6502
Sep 24, 2017
394
246
I signed up to drop a reply on this thread for anyone dealing with this. I believe I have a solution.

I was stuck in the cycle of having the machine freeze constantly, making an apple store appointment, having it sent off, have nothing discovered, get the mac back and have it freeze constantly. The beachball freeze on a D300, full force.

Then the breakthrough: Turn on the flurry screensaver, at maximum settings and let the machine sit. It WILL freeze. Might take 20 minutes, might take 40 hours. But it WILL freeze.

Armed with that, I made another mac store appointment and told them to let it sit for at least 48 hours. They did. It froze. The dam broke! Apple techs started ordering parts and OKing repairs. They tried A graphics card first, nothing. Then ordered B graphics card, new RAM and a new riser board. They are testing it now, but if the freeze continues they have already agreed to give me a new machine.

TLDR: Turn on the screensaver with the flurry of colored lines and max the settings for thickness and speed. If you're getting the beachball freeze, you will also get this freeze. This makes it a reproducible issue for apple techs.
Thanks - going to try this with and without eGPU as well.
 
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mikeboss

macrumors 68000
Aug 13, 2009
1,546
862
switzerland
yup, I can confirm this 100%. the flurry screensaver will crash an affected machine at some point. also, regarding the time it takes until crash, I experienced the same. sometimes it takes maybe 10-20 minutes, sometimes up to two days until the screensaver freezes. IMHO it's not necessary to turn the settings of the screensaver to maximum values.

even though the screensaver crashes, Apple Service Diagnostics will pass without any errors.
 
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iigsie

macrumors regular
Nov 17, 2007
141
116
I have physically seen Flurry crash my faulty D300 machine on two occasions.

Apple called me yesterday to say they couldn't make it crash. I told them to leave it on the screensaver for a few days. Today (less than 24 hours later) they call me to say they can't make it crash and won't be doing any more testing and I need to collect the machine.

It really isn't the issue so much as the incompetent way Apple is dealing with these issues that annoys me. It gives me serious reservations about buying an Apple computer ever again.
 

axantas

macrumors 65816
Jun 29, 2015
1,000
1,407
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yup, I can confirm this 100%. the flurry screensaver will crash an affected machine at some point. also, regarding the time it takes until crash, I experienced the same. sometimes it takes maybe 10-20 minutes, sometimes up to two days until the screensaver freezes. IMHO it's not necessary to turn the settings of the screensaver to maximum values.

even though the screensaver crashes, Apple Service Diagnostics will pass without any errors.

Problem is not the screensaver. I made my D300 do things that you could have fried eggs on it - it did not crash. Problem is, that CAN crash just because it is running - doing nothing but beeing switched on and displaying the desktop.

Still on the most recent version of Sierra they re-introduced the oldest variant of the crash: "freeze and wait until angry user cuts power". I liked the "I will freeze, crash and show you the login screen" a littlt bit more.

I might be repeating older statements: I still cannot understand, why I can run Windows 10 bootcamp all day long, mabye even longer without any interruption, but still do have problems with Mac OS.

...Maybe it was not really "Made for Mac OS" but Windows - who knows.
 

MarkJames68

macrumors 6502
Sep 24, 2017
394
246
Problem is not the screensaver. I made my D300 do things that you could have fried eggs on it - it did not crash. Problem is, that CAN crash just because it is running - doing nothing but beeing switched on and displaying the desktop.

Still on the most recent version of Sierra they re-introduced the oldest variant of the crash: "freeze and wait until angry user cuts power". I liked the "I will freeze, crash and show you the login screen" a littlt bit more.

I might be repeating older statements: I still cannot understand, why I can run Windows 10 bootcamp all day long, mabye even longer without any interruption, but still do have problems with Mac OS.

...Maybe it was not really "Made for Mac OS" but Windows - who knows.
And it’s not just Sierra or HS. I did a search on Flurry and it seems to have been doing this since Lion on other machines too like the Mini.
 

SpencerHarrison

macrumors newbie
Dec 2, 2017
3
2
I have physically seen Flurry crash my faulty D300 machine on two occasions.

Apple called me yesterday to say they couldn't make it crash. I told them to leave it on the screensaver for a few days. Today (less than 24 hours later) they call me to say they can't make it crash and won't be doing any more testing and I need to collect the machine.

It really isn't the issue so much as the incompetent way Apple is dealing with these issues that annoys me. It gives me serious reservations about buying an Apple computer ever again.

Take video on your phone of it happening. Make another appointment. Ask to speak to the manager and offer to email them the videos. Don't stop.
[doublepost=1512510806][/doublepost]
Problem is not the screensaver. I made my D300 do things that you could have fried eggs on it - it did not crash. Problem is, that CAN crash just because it is running - doing nothing but beeing switched on and displaying the desktop.

Still on the most recent version of Sierra they re-introduced the oldest variant of the crash: "freeze and wait until angry user cuts power". I liked the "I will freeze, crash and show you the login screen" a littlt bit more.

I might be repeating older statements: I still cannot understand, why I can run Windows 10 bootcamp all day long, mabye even longer without any interruption, but still do have problems with Mac OS.

...Maybe it was not really "Made for Mac OS" but Windows - who knows.

The weirdest thing for me has been the general confusion of the Apple techs. This is a symptomatically identical issue across all early 2013 Mac Pros. It requires replacement of the GPU riser board or a new machine.

There is a ton of evidence of it and it's been around for years.

Yet they act as if it's the most baffling issue ever described, each time you go in or call.
 
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iigsie

macrumors regular
Nov 17, 2007
141
116
Problem is not the screensaver. I made my D300 do things that you could have fried eggs on it - it did not crash. Problem is, that CAN crash just because it is running - doing nothing but beeing switched on and displaying the desktop.

No the screensaver is not the problem, but it is probably the best way to replicate the issue. It can take minutes or days but it will crash eventually if you leave Flurry running.
 
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