MBP 1,1-10,2 Permanently Disable 2011 15"/17" MacBook Pro Dedicated GPU - gMux IC Bypass

[WilYawn]

Yup. Windows 7 & 10 without AntiVirus / Firewall
It fails while flashing. Server connections are fine.

It fails to read the device id. So it probably is the programmers fault.
Well what can you expect from cheap Chinese knockoff programmers. Am I right?

Yeah it’s a hit and miss unfortunately.
Don’t know if it helps anyone but this is the programmer I bought:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/173667679929

Maybe there are different quality chinese knockoffs.

 

[KvnTM]

Yeah it’s a hit and miss unfortunately.
Don’t know if it helps anyone but this is the programmer I bought:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/173667679929

Maybe there are different quality chinese knockoffs.

Well I am pretty sure it's the programmer. I contacted the ebay seller about the dodgy programmer and explained that it doesn't work. And I just got a "thank you" as response. Kinda hilarious but I'll order another one. I have some MacBooks that are waiting for this awesome piece of software. Fortunately shipping from China to Germany takes around 10-12 days. Thats pretty decent.

 

[mirceac]

Well I am pretty sure it's the programmer. I contacted the ebay seller about the dodgy programmer and explained that it doesn't work. And I just got a "thank you" as response. Kinda hilarious but I'll order another one. I have some MacBooks that are waiting for this awesome piece of software. Fortunately shipping from China to Germany takes around 10-12 days. Thats pretty decent.

Mine arrived also surprisingly fast in MA and worked like a charm, the link to it is in my success story post, 3-4 pages behind.

 

[GLS]

Want to give a shoutout to Dosdude for this fix, and the service he provided me.

Backstory: sister has a 2011 15". After the video failed in early 2018, she gave it to me to look at, for I read up on the boards here about a software fix for her video issues. I could never get any of the patches, scripting, or whatnot to stick. I stuck the laptop in a closet and sort of forgot about it.

Then I came across this thread and was intrigued. I didn't feel comfortable enough with my soldering skills + my diminished eyesight, so I reached out to Dosdude to see if he was receptive to the idea of shipping the laptop to him, letting him perform the procedure and then shipping it back.

He was open to the idea, and after an exchange of addresses I visited my local Fedex store (pro tip: they carry a nice sturdy padded box just for 15" laptops) and shipped it to him. He made the repairs, shipped it back and all is well.

Thank you for the service, and thank you for resuscitating my sister's laptop. Going to run Carbon Copy Cloner on the Air she has been using and put her old trusty laptop back into service.

Thank you again!

 

[dollystereo]

Could apple create a software fix to this? like a firmware fix that would permanently disable the Radeon?\
I am currently using the grub fix and everything runs flawlessly, but hot. And the battery life is short.

 

[dosdude1]

Could apple create a software fix to this? like a firmware fix that would permanently disable the Radeon?\
I am currently using the grub fix and everything runs flawlessly, but hot. And the battery life is short.

They definitely could, but I can tell you for certain that they won't.

 

[rubedizzle]

Just want to share my experience.

Early 2011 MBP 15" that had the logic board replaced twice in the past, and once again, AMD graphics failure occurred. System would turn on and show horizontal lines on screen, but would not finish booting, and then restart repeatedly.

Receive my Lattice USB programmer last week so tackled this yesterday. Like many others in the past few pages, I was receiving the flash failed error, and the programmer.log showed that it could not identify / get the id of the chip. I checked my soldering and it looked fine, but it the issue turned out to be my TCK point. When I first began soldering the wires on, I used a wire about the thickness or maybe slightly more of the breakout wires included with the lattice. This led to me partially pulling up the TCK pad almost immediately after soldering it. I thought I could solder to the point right beside it, but either you can't, or that point was screwed up by me as well. Once I took a multimeter to the board, and began testing alternative TCK points, I realized I had no connectivity between the soldered on wire to the JTAG TCK pad/point and the alternative TCK points. I moved that wire to the really small alternative TCK point below (point 30 of the 40/42 point rectangular area), and my next attempt with the programmer was a success. The screen shut off while the flash was on-going, then after it was done I shut the system off, turned it back on, and everything was working! The wire I had most success with was Kynar 30 awg Wire.

Hope this helps some of you who had trouble with the chip not being detected by the programmer.

Thanks DosDude1

 

[rubedizzle]

Just want to share my experience.

Early 2011 MBP 15" that had the logic board replaced twice in the past, and once again, AMD graphics failure occurred. System would turn on and show horizontal lines on screen, but would not finish booting, and then restart repeatedly.

Receive my Lattice USB programmer last week so tackled this yesterday. Like many others in the past few pages, I was receiving the flash failed error, and the programmer.log showed that it could not identify / get the id of the chip. I checked my soldering and it looked fine, but it the issue turned out to be my TCK point. When I first began soldering the wires on, I used a wire about the thickness or maybe slightly more of the breakout wires included with the lattice. This led to me partially pulling up the TCK pad almost immediately after soldering it. I thought I could solder to the point right beside it, but either you can't, or that point was screwed up by me as well. Once I took a multimeter to the board, and began testing alternative TCK points, I realized I had no connectivity between the soldered on wire to the JTAG TCK pad/point and the alternative TCK points. I moved that wire to the really small alternative TCK point below (point 30 of the 40/42 point rectangular area), and my next attempt with the programmer was a success. The screen shut off while the flash was on-going, then after it was done I shut the system off, turned it back on, and everything was working! The wire I had most success with was Kynar 30 awg Wire.

Hope this helps some of you who had trouble with the chip not being detected by the programmer.

Thanks DosDude1

So after the escapade yesterday, I went and updated the system last night, and it was working. Today however, I noticed that the power light was off on the charger, and the system wouldn't turn on. Opened it up, unhooked the battery, and reconnected, and it booted right up. However it shut off on it's shortly after booting and logging in. I tried variations of turning it on with the battery unplugged and power connected, power unplugged and only battery etc, and each time the system starts, but it appears to shut off more quickly than the previous time.

Anybody run into this side effect? If so, how to resolve this? Each time the system is coming on, the video is appearing just fine (so it is using the Intel graphics).

Thanks

 

[KvnTM]

Sooo I will give it another try.
Will this programmer work?
lattice USB download line FPGA CPLD ISP download simulation HW - USBN - 2A

This is the only one with "fast" shipping available to Germany.
Or maybe someone from Germany is willing to sell his programmer? I'd pay the full amount for it.

 

[16v]

Er kommt trotzdem aus China!!!
Rechne trotzdem mit 4 Wochen.

Still from China.

 

[KvnTM]

Er kommt trotzdem aus China!!!
Rechne trotzdem mit 4 Wochen.

Still from China.

Ja, weiß ich. Trotzdem ist SpeedPAK schneller.

I know. SpeedPAK is still faster than regular shipping from china.

 

[swees21]

Hello. So I tried "Option A" - soldering LVDS as in the schema in the first post on two boards. One board has gpu and vram chips removed and this one gives me white screen only. On another, all chips are present and I see proper picture, but for a while. After the board warms up, screen starts to flicker and is divided into big squares. When I press gmux chip, at the beginning fickering dissapears but after a while all screen turns into white. If the board cools down, I can repeat the procedure. Soldering checked under microscope and is okay. What to look for?

 

[b4554m]

Hi Collin,

I have just found this pogo pin adapter on ebay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-27mm-6-p...560683?hash=item3a787cfe6b:g:5rUAAOSwBahVeMZm

but I don't know whether the space pins fit the jtag pads on board or not ?

Isn't it the same connector you're trying to assemble ?

 

[dosdude1]

Hi Collin,

I have just found this pogo pin adapter on ebay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-27mm-6-p...560683?hash=item3a787cfe6b:g:5rUAAOSwBahVeMZm

but I don't know whether the space pins fit the jtag pads on board or not ?

Isn't it the same connector you're trying to assemble ?

I actually got one of these, but the spacing is wrong unfortunately. I thought it may be close enough, but I could never get it to flash successfully with it. Also the wires are all the same color except pin 1, making it a bit confusing to wire up.

 

[mirceac]

Leave the adapters alone, focus on fully implementing the functionality of the mux, we are chewing our fingernails here !!!

Seriously now, the pin spacing looks OK, but there is no chance to hold it fest enough with one hand, while manipulating the PC with the flashing program, to not have some noise that will screw-up the programming. You'll have to do a contraption to hold it in position and this will really not make any sense both for a professional (where the soldering will not be any problem) and to the amateur, where the cost of this adapter will add to the cost of the programmer. And the longer wires will not help the signal integrity either.

 

[Brettfcars]

Recently, I figured out a very good solution to PERMANENTLY disable the dedicated AMD video card on a 2011 15"/17" MacBook Pro (MacBookPro8,2/8,3)! For those of you who don't know, MacBook Pros that utilize dynamic GPU switching between a dedicated GPU and integrated GPU use an IC known as the "gMux" chip. This is simply an off-the-shelf micro-controller, programmed with special firmware that switches active GPUs on-the-fly in a MacBook Pro system. This IC has 3 sets of LVDS lines connecting to it: The LVDS output lines from the dedicated GPU, the LVDS output lines from the integrated GPU, and the LVDS lines connecting to the connector for the display. In order to accomplish dynamic GPU switching, all this IC does is, when told to by the system, routes the correct set of LVDS lines to the display's LVDS output on the logic board.

In order to permanently keep the dedicated GPU disabled, there are 2 options:

- Option A, which will be detailed below, is to hard-wire the LVDS output lines from the integrated graphics straight to the lines connecting to the display.
- Option B would be to re-program the gMux IC (which is simply a Lattice LFXP2 FPGA), with a custom firmware to disable the GPU switching functionality. I may experiment with this in the future, but doing so requires special hardware that I don't have. This would, of course, be the optimal solution, though. EDIT: I have now done this, and it works perfectly! More details can be found by watching my video demonstrating my custom gMux IC firmware.

Performing the Modification ("Option A")

Before I get started with the explanation, I just want to make it clear this this is a VERY tedious modification, and requires precision soldering equipment. Use of a microscope is recommended.

To begin, here is a brief look at the schematic, and the main premise of this mod. In the following pictures, you can see how the LVDS data lines appear for both the integrated graphics output, dedicated graphics output, and the LVDS output for the display (EG for dedicated GPU, IG for integrated GPU, and CONN of course for connector). You can see how this data line corresponds with each set of LVDS lines. There are 12 total LVDS lines (6 pairs).

View attachment 777903 View attachment 777904 View attachment 777905

In order to perform this modification, the first thing that needs to be done is to remove the gMux IC. EDIT: Do NOT remove the gMux IC. After further experimentation, I found that leaving it in place will allow you to achieve full graphics acceleration WITHOUT flashing the system firmware at all. Simply proceed with the wiring, with the gMux IC in place.

Once the chip is removed and the pads are cleaned, each LVDS data line from the LVDS_IG side needs to be connected to its corresponding data line on the LVDS_CONN side. Of course, to do this, the use of small bodge wires is required. I used 0.1MM jumper wire (which can be purchased here). A wire needs to be used to connect each IG data line to its respective point on the CONN side.

Here is a wiring diagram that will help you do this very easily. This one is for a 15" machine, but I will update this post with the 17" one once I make it.

View attachment 779000

Once all the data lines are soldered properly, there are still a couple more lines that need to be soldered. We'll start with the clock lines. If you look on the schematic, you will notice that there is one set of clock lines on the LVDS_IG side (LVDS_IG_A_CLK), but 2 sets on the LVDS_CONN side (LVDS_CONN_A_CLK and LVDS_CONN_B_CLK). All you need to do in this instance is connect the A_CLK pair from the IG side to the A_CLK resistor pair on the CONN side. Then, simply connect the A_CLK pair to the B_CLK pair on the CONN side as well.

The next thing we need to do is pull the LVDS_DDC_SEL_IG rail high. To do this, all you need to do is connect the high side of this rail's pulldown resistor (R6982) to the PP3V3_S0 rail. I connected it to a capacitor near the backlight IC (C9711), as it was the easiest and closest source of PP3V3_S0 to that point of the board. This routes the necessary LVDS DDC clock lines to the integrated GPU.

The last few things we need to wire up are the enable rails for the LCD backlight and LCD panel power, as well as the PWM signal for the backlight. The first wire simply needs to bridge the following rails: LCD_PWR_EN, LVDS_IG_PANEL_PWR, and LCD_BKLT_EN.

The last wire will be used to wire the backlight PWM signal. The purpose of this signal is to control the backlight brightness level. Now, normally, the PWM signal is generated by the gMux IC. However, since the gMux IC is no longer in place, it cannot provide this signal (and even if you were to leave it in place, it still would not be able to provide this signal. I may be wrong on this, but feel free to test if you want.) As such, we will simply be wiring this rail to the LVDS_IG_BKL_ON rail. Unfortunately, what this means is that the backlight will remain at a fixed brightness, and be uncontrollable from the OS.

UPDATE: I have finished working on a new solution for backlight brightness control! You can read about, and see this modification in action here.

Finally, once all that is wired up, the system should be good to go! The final product will look something like this:

View attachment 777906

Last Step

After all your wiring is complete, you will need to cut power to the dedicated GPU, otherwise it will simply produce waste heat. To do so, all you need to do is remove the resistor that supplies power to the GPU VCORE regulator IC, R8911.

At last, once all that is complete, you are now done! You will now have a fully working 2011 15" or 17" MacBook Pro, running off ONLY integrated graphics! No OS X modifications are necessary, and it is not reliant on any NVRAM variable (obviously). This, short of making custom firmware for the gMux chip, is the BEST solution for rectifying the defective AMD GPU issue on these machines. The only issues are the lack of brightness control as mentioned earlier, and the external display port will not work. Other than that, though, everything works perfectly!

I have a video showing the mod in detail here.

View attachment 777910

Hi,
I have had one of these fail, a 17” early 2011. It’s been in the back of a cupboard since a shop looked at it 2 years ago.
As I have some time on my hands and off work, I was scouring the internet discovering this solution.
i have every thing I need but find the shop has removed the GPU !
guessing they were thinking to replace but none available.
will the mod work? Or is there some interconnection. Good news don’t need to remove the resistor
thanks
brett

 

[mirceac]

@Brettfcars This is most excellent, if they've removed the GPU, the power consumption will go lower and a source of possible troubles is gone, but it is still a good thing to remove the resistor to disable the the power supply for it as well.
The mux reprogramming will work like a charm if they've cleaned correctly the GPU area and didn't unsoldered any other parts.
Best of luck.

 

[evil3dm]

Hi, at fist want to say thanks to dosdude1 for a great work.
Want to ask - if I have zero soldering skills - I should not even try to do all this stuff ? I did some things with macbook , replaced heat sink, replaced hhd to ssd, but it's too easy think to compare it with soldering those programmer.

 

[mirceac]

@evil3dm Well, from the picture you look as young healthy guy, that should have good eye sight and steady hands, so what you're probably missing is some exercise. Because I did a couple of these in less than 20min and I'm close to 60 and blind as a bat.
First thing first, get yourself a not-crappy soldering iron with a fine chisel tip, like 1-1.5mm, a tube of flux, some LEADED 1mm diamerer solder and eventually a helping hands tool:
Random helping hands from ebay
The cheapest soldering iron that you can get on with:
Poor-man soldering iron

Then from an old transformer or electromagnet get some enamel (magnet wire) wire 0.2-0.5mm, you only need some 5 pcs x 4-5cm to extend the thin wires of the programmer.

Before doing anything on your get from somewhere a piece of junk electronic with a PCB and exercise, exercise, then take a break and exercise again. Learn to control your soldering iron temperature, so is not too hot to burn the flux and the trace, but not too cold to not melt the solder correctly.
See how to apply flux, look at Louis Rossmann videos on YouTube and gazillion others teaching the basic of soldering, and then when you're able to repeatedly solder your thin wires on the junk PCB, without making shorts or destroying the traces, then open your mac and solder the wires and do the programming.
You can also read my previous post about it and watch @dosdude1 videos regarding the whole operation.

Best of luck, you will never succeed if you don't try.

 

[evil3dm]

@mirceac Thank you very much for this detailed reply. I don't know where it fetched my picture, but its rather old tho )
But I think that I'm leaning towards sell the old macbook for parts and forget about this nigthmare. Because now the battery also dies (I've used it for a while with NVRAM hack of turning off the videochip) .
So to get it to work I need bettery+ programmer+license + equipment for soldering + time to do all this stuff.
So does anyone need macbook 2011 for parts?))

 

[slimmy18222]

@KvnTM Then it's something else, you don't need re-solder the wires without knowing what caused the issue, and I'm reasonable sure that the JTAG bus exposed there is to be used without removing any parts form the board.

My best bet is to download the Lattice programming software and see if the FPGA is getting detected when scanning JTAG. I did and I was able to see it on the bus, of course it was not possible to read it back because of the code protection bit was on but at least the model and serial number of the FPGA should be visible.

http://www.latticesemi.com/programmer#_20C94305815A4B3AAAFEA8B83943B751

Also this will test your drivers and programmer, if it's not seen correctly by the Lattice programming application, then it won't work anyway with Collin's app.

I can't get the flash to work. It's two days that i'm trying over and over. How can i check that my programmer is not bad? Also i can't find L2406 on my 17'' late 2011 board

 

[slimmy18222]

That's whay i get in two board ( two 17'' late2011 ) . In both two flashing keep failing. The chip is not recognized, that's correct?

 

[dosdude1]

View attachment 868621


That's whay i get in two board ( two 17'' late2011 ) . In both two flashing keep failing. The chip is not recognized, that's correct?

Please use the DeMux tool to flash DeMux firmware on your machine. Ensure the Lattice programmer USB driver is installed correctly. If the flashing continues to fail, place a 7 to 17pF capacitor between the TCK pin and ground.

 

[slimmy18222]

Please use the DeMux tool to flash DeMux firmware on your machine. Ensure the Lattice programmer USB driver is installed correctly. If the flashing continues to fail, place a 7 to 17pF capacitor between the TCK pin and ground.

I know Colin, I was just try to test if the programmer can actually detect che chip, as mirceac said, to exclude the problem is from mine lattice programmer. I will try whit capacitor! Anyway it's possibile to have same problem in two diferent boards? Or i'm just unlucky as hell

 

[mirceac]

@mirceac Thank you very much for this detailed reply. I don't know where it fetched my picture, but its rather old tho )
But I think that I'm leaning towards sell the old macbook for parts and forget about this nigthmare. Because now the battery also dies (I've used it for a while with NVRAM hack of turning off the videochip) .
So to get it to work I need bettery+ programmer+license + equipment for soldering + time to do all this stuff.
So does anyone need macbook 2011 for parts?))

Well, your (supposed) picture is displayed by the forum software as well as my cat picture. If it's your actual picture or some pop star/actor pic, I don't know, nowadays I'd rather read a book or repair something instead of wasting time on what's called "entertainment".

Regarding the Macbook, I've had the same problem, I've asked in the forum if someone has already a programmer in Germany that could lend, nobody answered, so I bit the bulled and bought myself one.
Being a radioamateur I've already got some electronics tools (soldering iron and helping hands) so for me it was just the expense of the programmer and the license.
I will keep the programmer until @dosdude1 gets the full functionality implemented and then eventually I'll sell it, because I've also said in the forum that I could reprogram the gmux for some 10EUR + License cost + back shipping cost, but nobody was interested, so it doesn't seem to be some kind of business opportunity to even recover the costs of programmer, at least in Germany, I guess not many MBSs 2011 are left standing .

I can offer asylum to your MBP, but I don't think I can pay anything more than the shipping costs rounded to 10's of EUR.

Anyways, my offer stands, if someone in Germany or EU want to have his gMux reprogrammed the costs are: 10EUR + License cost + back shipping cost. The 10EUR will get some food for my cat, I actually want to try L.Rossmann Greenies stuff .

I don't do this out of altruism, but to keep the pressure up on @dosdude1 to finish the full implementation of the software, the more people pestering him to do it, the better .