This is a really deep thread, so I'll repeat what I've read earlier, and my own experience...apparently the only true fix (someone please confirm that it's still working after a few months!) is to replace both D300 cards, and some kind of interconnect as well. It takes a ****-ton of persistence because they will refuse to do it all at once. You basically have to get each part replaced one at a time and go back to the store each time. In my case, I've been to the store 4 times and have only gotten the graphics board 'B' replaced, which they did during the 1-2 weeks that it was sent away to the repair facility. They can't do anything in store, they are not equipped (clearly on purpose). Also, I had one of the head geniuses tell me about all of the problems that the trashcans are having and that everyone knows they are junk. He said that there are always tons of problems with the ports on the back, and I think this is related. He then tried to up-sell me to a new iMac for $5k, which doesn't fit my workflow even if I had more money to throw away.
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Mac Pro (Late 2013) GPU (Driver) Issues
- Thread starter bax2003
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This is a really deep thread, so I'll repeat what I've read earlier, and my own experience...apparently the only true fix (someone please confirm that it's still working after a few months!) is to replace both D300 cards, and some kind of interconnect as well. It takes a ****-ton of persistence because they will refuse to do it all at once. You basically have to get each part replaced one at a time and go back to the store each time. In my case, I've been to the store 4 times and have only gotten the graphics board 'B' replaced, which they did during the 1-2 weeks that it was sent away to the repair facility. They can't do anything in store, they are not equipped (clearly on purpose). Also, I had one of the head geniuses tell me about all of the problems that the trashcans are having and that everyone knows they are junk. He said that there are always tons of problems with the ports on the back, and I think this is related. He then tried to up-sell me to a new iMac for $5k, which doesn't fit my workflow even if I had more money to throw away.
There is also a interesting point regarding Mac Pro usage. If its not in some clean machine room, it can very easily fill with dust. You can see dust piling up on the bottom openings, because of the airflow. I don´think that it can be problem for the flat interconnections but it can be for the rest of the electronics.
Really? Damn.. I still haven't taken the top of my 6,1 since I got it a couple of months ago. I'll take a look. Dust or heat can't be a cause of the issue though IMO since I had lockups from day 1 - midway through the first install infact!
So yeah.. machine is on 24/7... inbetween serious use it spends most of the time idling and playing music with VLC. In the past month, I've had to reboot once or twice. Infrequent enough that I'm not acting on it at the moment. I did lose some work in Studio One that could not be recovered or reproduced. That doesn't want to be happening again.
I'm very happy with the machine when it works. I'm very unhappy with the way Apple is treating us as customers.
Finding it very hard to believe they can't communicate something about the nature of the problem. Has anybody tried putting something in writing?
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I've read every single post in this thread with equal parts interest and frustration.
I have a 2013 Mac Pro with the D300s and it also has the intermittent freezing issue. I have had this Mac Pro for two years and have experienced the random freezing issue since the computer was new. I started out thinking that maybe it was a software related issue. I tried difference connectors to hook up my LG 34” monitor but the problem persists. I only have a USB wireless keyboard connected the the Mac Pro so I know it’s not from peripherals.
The random freezing is usually preceded with an audio glitch. In addition, when I upgraded to OS X Sierra, the random freezing stopped but I then started experiencing the random self restarts. Once I logged back in again after the self restart, the Mac Pro would be dead slow, forcing a power cycle.
I run a bookkeeping business so this Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM is a bit of overkill but I wanted a machine I could use for a long time. I don’t run any graphics, video or sound editing apps - I only use Safari, Numbers, and Preview. Once in awhile I use Apertature to organize and edit some pictures. Even with such light usage, the Mac Pro freezes all the time. My little 12 inch MacBook with the same exact OS, Apps, and documents has no issues whatever.
The random freezing got worse and worse to the point I decided to so some research online and stumbled onto this thread and a few others outlining exactly what I have been experiencing. Since learning that this was a common issue, I started documenting the date and time of the random freezes and shooting short videos to show the time/date stamp with the spinning beach ball. In the last 3 months, it has frozen 25 times !
I am glad I bought AppleCare (first Mac I have ever bought AppleCare for). I took it an authorized Apple retailer in late Jan for a repair and the ‘geniuses’ there replaced the CPU even though I explained the issue in great detail and showed them this and other threads that pointed out it was an issue with the graphic cards. Needless to say, their repair did not fix the issue as the Mac Pro froze minutes after I booted it after I picked it up.
More phone calls with Apple and remote data capture later, I had another appointment for a repair but this time at an Apple Store. The technician I dealt with at the Apple store acknowledged that there was a known problem with the Mac Pros GPUs and he said they would replace Graphics Cards A and B and also the riser board. However, I was notified before I picked up the Mac Pro that they were only authorized to replace Graphics Card A.
I brought the newly ‘repaired’ Mac Pro home and within 5 mins of boot up, it froze again ! More frustrating phone calls to Apple and now they claim that their technicians have found some Dropbox synching errors during one of the data captures. I will have to completely delete Dropbox from my Mac Pro before they will even consider looking at repairing it again.
I use Dropbox to synch my MacBook and other computers that my subcontractors use so deleting it will disrupt my business greatly. The other computers with Dropbox have zero issues. In addition, they emailed me the Dropbox error logs and when I had a look, they do not even coincide with the time of when my Mac Pro freezes.
As a Mac user for almost 30 years that has had zero hardware issues with countless Macs and Apple products, this is an utter disappointment ! This is the most powerful and expensive Mac I’ve ever owned and most days, I want to throw it out the window.
I feel like Apple is just stalling and finding excuses to not repair my Mac Pro anymore. I am afraid that after wasting more time and hurting my business by deleting Dropbox, the freezing persists and Apple will continue to refuse repairing my Mac Pro any further.
However, they have made it clear that I will need to delete Dropbox and show that the Mac Pro still freezes. Since I have no choice, I will delete Dropbox and hopefully the freezing will happen soon after that so I can get the repair process started again. The best case scenario is the they will replace Graphics Card B and the riser board this time around.
Has anyone here had both their D300s and the riser board replaced and never experience the freezing issue again ?
I've had my D300 A & B replaced (no riser card change as far as I can see on the report) and the freezes have become much less frequent (it'll freeze now I've said that of course!) but I'm always half expecting one. It's gone from a once every 1-2 days to once every few weeks. I can't even remember the last time it crashed (about a month ago perhaps) but I usually rant on here about it
I'm on the public beta for High Sierra (currently 10.13.4) and my machine is a Dec 2016 build.
I don’t fault Apple for wanting to remove Dropbox. I would find a 256GB SSD on eBay, install the barebones MacOS on it and if it freezes then you know it’s not software.
Unfortunately, we already know from many many users on this thread that dropbox isn't related. I don't even have dropbox. And many of us have had multiple versions of OSX installed from scratch, all the way back to El Capitan.
I have now had both graphics boards replaced, as well as part number 923-0500, which is listed as "Cable Flex Graphics Board". Still crashing.
I agree that it is mostly likely not a Dropbox issue and agree that Apple is less than helpful here.
However, if you want to play the AppleCare game, you need to follow the rules. If the system is brought back to a bare OS image and you can get it locking up with documented evidence there are no excuses Apple can make. They will have to keep replacing components until they either admit there is a bigger problem or face a lawsuit which has a very high likelihood of success. At that point either a full refund or an acceptable alternative (such as substituting an equivalent iMac Pro) would be in order.
This is super disappointing to hear. I was hoping to find out that after replacing both cards and the riser board/cable that the freezing would stop but from your experience, it sounds like I was being to hopeful.
Now, I am not sure if it is worth going through the hassle and waste of time and lost revenue to delete my Dropbox and hope that Apple will replace the other graphics card only to find that the repair won't ultimately fix the freezing.
Thanks for the info.
Starting from 10.13.4, D300 GPU freezes are now logged as kernel panics on my machine and can be submitted to Apple after a reboot. I hope many users will submit reports to encourage Apple to implement a GPU restart for the D300 in case of this failure. That wouldn't solve the underlying hardware problem, but the behavior would at least be the same as when running Windows: Limited to a short blackout.
I do not understand, why Windows is able to recover the graphics driver to a more or less stable state and the OS X variant just dies and stays that way.
In 10.13.4 there are indeed a lot more log entries - even never seen events. Let's hope this is, because Apple started to log our problems in a different way and not because they simply just added new ways to get our precious trashcan crashing.
The crashes i encountered so far in 10.13.4 are not different from the newly introduced "please press the power button - there is no other way out"-freezes. The boot ROM-update did not chance anything here. BTW: the "defrost"-App from enieschmenie (message on page 56 here) does quite a good job - it properly reboots the machine remotely.
Concerning the dust/overheating problem: Not applicable in my case as i rergularly remove dust with a vacuum cleaner. (yes, with caution...)
Perhaps Windows has a more modern code base and design.
And note that Windows has support for updating drivers without rebooting - which might be related to this case of restarting a graphics driver without rebooting. (Installing a new version of Nvidia drivers doesn't need a reboot - although it might have a scary split-second of the screen reverting to 640x480.)
Those bozos plan to release a new Mac Pro in 2019: https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...and-it-wont-and-shouldnt-make-every-pro-happy
Anyone just using the trash can as a headless server? I'm thinking of just doing this. My freezes occurs less often than before the latest updates (from once a day to one a month). When it does freeze, I'm using doing something important and I want to hit it with a sledge hammer.
I will instead use a macbook pro as my main machine. This might be better for my health
I will instead use a macbook pro as my main machine. This might be better for my health
My “trash can” is now in for repair for the 3rd time.
First attempt, graphics card b replaced.
Second attempt both graphics cards replaced.
Third attempt, logic board, graphics card flex cable and an IO board (I assume this is the board that has usb and thunderbolt ports on it) replaced
Still freezing, it’s got D300s, 3.5ghz, 64gb ram, 1TB SSD. Tried all OS’s. Is there a fix? D500s maybe, tried to get them to try this but they won’t.
First attempt, graphics card b replaced.
Second attempt both graphics cards replaced.
Third attempt, logic board, graphics card flex cable and an IO board (I assume this is the board that has usb and thunderbolt ports on it) replaced
Still freezing, it’s got D300s, 3.5ghz, 64gb ram, 1TB SSD. Tried all OS’s. Is there a fix? D500s maybe, tried to get them to try this but they won’t.
Where are you based? Sounds like 3 attempts to fix failed. Do you have a Lemon Law that you can leverage? Or file in small claims court?
The Uk, it was a business purchase and not direct from Apple. Was bought from Jigsaw
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After having both graphics boards and a cable replaced, my case was sent to Apple engineers. They claim to have discovered that it's a software issue, not hardware, and to "keep the computer updated, a fix should be coming". Basically, a cop-out, so they don't have to replace the computer. Note that no fix is promised, only that "they're working on it". It's basically a delaying tactic until the new Mac Pros come out, and until applecare runs out, so they won't have to deal with the problem. Long before I bought an Apple product (which I had to for work), I recognized that this was their tactic, and that people buy it hook, line, and sinker every time. Even since the first few versions of OSX, I could see that it was every bit as unreliable as Windows, it's just that Apple didn't display any error messages, so it just *looks* like it's more reliable. I am so disappointed about this and I don't see myself buying the 2019 Mac Pro, as I had planned. No way. Not with this level of support and denial of responsibility for selling me a lemon.
Sound like a bad joke - let's hope it is true. I bet, there is also a version of an answer from engineers "Oh, really, never heard about it, just reinstall everything from scratch, this will help"
I am actually on "kernel panics" - at least, that is, what i have in my logs, everytime after having killed the frozen mac with the "defrost pro" app, presented here about two weeks ago. Interestingly enough no more windowserverwhatsoever hangs.