Some New MacBook Pros Suffer From Major Graphics Issues

Megalith

Megalith

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It seems that plenty of new MacBook Pros are acting up when they are being pushed with intensive tasks, and Apple isn’t sure whether it is a software or hardware issue. Makes for a pretty decent screensaver, though.

...an increasing number of early adopters have reported serious graphics issues on Apple's latest notebooks. The glitches and other problems appear to be most prevalent on built-to-order 15-inch models, but standard 13-inch and 15-inch configurations are also affected. MacRumors reader Jan Becker, for example, said the graphics began to glitch on his new high-end 15-inch MacBook Pro, equipped with built-to-order AMD Radeon Pro 460 graphics, while transcoding video with Adobe Media Encoder in Premiere Pro. The notebook subsequently crashed.
 
I bet it's overheating. Louis Rossmann (NSFW) did a live stream evaluation of one about a week back and the CPU got to 99 C during a video encode. I can only imagine what the video card could reach in terms of temperatures when driven hard with transcoding tasks.
 
Krenum said:
God, when are people going to stop drinking the Koolaid..... These things are absurdly overpriced for the hardware you get.
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Maybe people like the OS and it's easier to just buy a Mac.
 
commissioneranthony said:
Form over function
lets design air vents so inadequately sized and placed that it is impossible to dissipate any heat from critical components.
but you know
vents look bad
countdown until apple blames this on AMD....
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Ha yeah, Just like when they opted not to put enough lifeboats on the Titanic because it looked bad for such a luxurious ship.
 
At work we have some 2011 Macbook Pro's that are having GPU problems. Apple hasn't issued a recall but has agreed to repair them if they are defective. I think they are using AMD GPU's.
I know there is a lot of hate for OSX, but I'll argue it's a solid OS. I use it daily for work. Mac track pads are the best. Bar none.
Apple devices are expensive and I really hate how you can't upgrade/repair your stuff now. If I were to buy a Mac, it would need a replaceable battery, upgrade-able ram, and a user replaceable storage device. Oh yeah, I want a physical ESC key as well. I use Vi. It doesn't work without an ESC key. (Yes, I know the new ones have a virtual key but I don't want to look at the keyboard when I type.)
 
commissioneranthony said:
Form over function
lets design air vents so inadequately sized and placed that it is impossible to dissipate any heat from critical components.
but you know
vents look bad
countdown until apple blames this on AMD....
Click to expand...

you'd be amazed how likely this is to be AMD a fault.

I'm sure those 35w tdp numbers are bullshit. Much like "15w" quad core is more like 30w.

Fast, but never at advertised TDP.
 
As long as it works fine when I put my wash in it, it's okay. OTOH, if it blows up in my face or burns a hole in my wallet...
 
JosiahBradley said:
The 13 inch doesn't even offer a discrete GPU, so how is this AMD's fault? Fuck people who can't even read before jumping to a hateful conclusion.
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Don't let the circle jerk stop you from joining in LOL
 
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Saw the new MacBook ads on TV watching college football today promoting the TouchBar. Apple certainly isn't going broke or anything but they just don't seem to be doing too much ohhh and wow these days. Seriously, a touch bar is reason to by a new laptop? When so many today have touch screens? Neat feature but it just seems so underwhelming in terms of innovation and wowness.
 
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heatlesssun said:
Saw the new MacBook ads on TV watching college football today promoting the TouchBar. Apple certainly isn't going broke or anything but they just don't seem to be doing too much ohhh and wow these days. Seriously, a touch bar is reason to by a new laptop? When so many today have touch screens? Neat feature but it just seems so underwhelming in terms of innovation and wowness.
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Going to have to agree with you here. If they took the same software and used it for a region of the screen, and used a touch screen, then the downsides like looking away from your content and the lack of shortcut keys could be avoided and productivity would go up.
 
I guess the question is, does Apple engineer the chassis around the processor, or select a processor that'll work with the form factor they have chosen? Either way, I'd pin it on Apple for not properly selecting, or designing sufficient cooling for their choice of processor.
 
Soon they will release a copper pad with heat pipes and aluminum fins to sit your Mac book on and call it the transcoding station. It will of course retail for 249.99.
 
Mong00se said:
Soon they will release a copper pad with heat pipes and aluminum fins to sit your Mac book on and call it the transcoding station. It will of course retail for 249.99.
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249$? But copper is pricey and heatpipes carry magic liquid from the tears of Jobs. I'd bet 2,499$.
 
It is only going to get worse when you pick style over function. All apple seems to care about is making it thinner and fuck everything else.
 
Mong00se said:
Soon they will release a copper pad with heat pipes and aluminum fins to sit your Mac book on and call it the transcoding station. It will of course retail for 249.99.
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That's cheap. I was thinking more like 499.99.
 
Ruoh said:
I guess the question is, does Apple engineer the chassis around the processor, or select a processor that'll work with the form factor they have chosen? Either way, I'd pin it on Apple for not properly selecting, or designing sufficient cooling for their choice of processor.
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But it probably worked perfectly while sitting on their custom aluminum test bench in a perfectly controlled 68F room...

I don't usually bother to look too closely into the articles linked because they are usually just another repost from yet another page, but just looking at the screen from the video that's pretty obvious the GPU is flaking out while running those tests. This is definitely a hardware issue that can easily be solved in software. Gimp the automatic overclocking of the GPU and force it to run at a slower speed and it probably won't overheat. But knowing Apple, the fans were probably too loud so they just let the GPU overheat in order to keep the acoustics down. A rework of the fan profile might be all that is needed to fix the problem.
 
It's called overheating. It's something that was very common on HP laptops using AMD cards. Why I stopped buying HP with discrete graphics. Actually, kind of just stopped buying HP in general and went back to Dell/Alienware. My old HP Envy 17' works, so long as I keep it on the integrated graphics. I may eventually tear it apart and stick it inside a suitcase with a cheap desktop heatsink.

Seems Apple is running into the same issue. Not engineering a good enough cooling solution.
 
krotch said:
It's called overheating. It's something that was very common on HP laptops using AMD cards. Why I stopped buying HP with discrete graphics. Actually, kind of just stopped buying HP in general and went back to Dell/Alienware. My old HP Envy 17' works, so long as I keep it on the integrated graphics. I may eventually tear it apart and stick it inside a suitcase with a cheap desktop heatsink.

Seems Apple is running into the same issue. Not engineering a good enough cooling solution.
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pretty much every Dell ive had with an issue was bad graphics, worse off they were XPS and precision lines, not the cheap consumer crap...
 
Krenum said:
God, when are people going to stop drinking the Koolaid..... These things are absurdly overpriced for the hardware you get.
Click to expand...

Agreed. What people fail to realize is that outside of the fancy casing, there is nothing special about a MacBook. Its produced in the same factories as their PC counterparts and Apple manufacturers none of it themselves. Like everything else in the increasingly cut throat world of mobile computing, margins get cut so costs need to be cut to compensate for that. Apples does it the same as anyone else.

Zepher said:
Maybe people like the OS and it's easier to just buy a Mac.
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If you like the OS, then fine. Buying a Mac isn't easier than buying anything else.
 
Putz said:
pretty much every Dell ive had with an issue was bad graphics, worse off they were XPS and precision lines, not the cheap consumer crap...
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Never ran into issues with mine. My old Inspiron, Alienware m11x, or current Alienware 13. Didn't have issues with my HP TM2T tablet but it was integrated graphics, but did with the Envy 17.

I've only see Dells have overheating issues when they get old. Which happens to majority of laptops. The crap thermal paste gives out, dust all over the vents, everything. I open it up, clean it out, and put on new thermal grease and good to go. No such luck with my Envy 17 when I did that.
 
Ruoh said:
I guess the question is, does Apple engineer the chassis around the processor, or select a processor that'll work with the form factor they have chosen? Either way, I'd pin it on Apple for not properly selecting, or designing sufficient cooling for their choice of processor.
Click to expand...

This is classic apple engineering. Frankly I'm shocked I own a 2012 RMBP, and that among the reasons I do is that it seemed to be one of the few laptops I could purchase at the time that was slim AND had a nicely designed air path and apparently sufficient cooling. A really nice screen and the fact the trackpad wasn't horrifically offset rounded out the reasons for skipping the wintel offerings at the time. It appears we are back to form with apple designing in insufficient thermal dissipation.
 
Dan_D said:
Agreed. What people fail to realize is that outside of the fancy casing, there is nothing special about a MacBook. Its produced in the same factories as their PC counterparts and Apple manufacturers none of it themselves. Like everything else in the increasingly cut throat world of mobile computing, margins get cut so costs need to be cut to compensate for that. Apples does it the same as anyone else.



If you like the OS, then fine. Buying a Mac isn't easier than buying anything else.
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I mean buying a Mac with MacOS is easier than building a PC and trying to get MacOS on it.
 
The older models were inadequately cooled, no surprise this one is too. Probably worse if anything. My old Mid 2012 MBP would hit 100c in the winter time under load. A low profile single heatpipe cooler can only do so much and restricting the air by not having vents on the sides or bottom makes it even worse.
 
don't they use the large unibody as heatsink?
 
Zepher said:
I mean buying a Mac with MacOS is easier than building a PC and trying to get MacOS on it.
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Fair enough. If you like Mac OS then there really is no better way to experience it. That said, if you aren't tied to the OS then often times the hardware isn't a good buy. Many people think that there is some magical synergy between the hardware and the OS because "Apple created both" of them. That may be the public perception of the Mac platform but it isn't quite true. Apple may or may not even do the bulk of the design work. Regardless of how much design work they actually handle Apple gives specs to a company like Foxconn or Flextronics and they do the build work along side their work for Dell and every other company they work with. Apple doesn't manufacture anything. Apple computers use the same capacitors, the same ASICs and components. Apple builds to the same VRD specifications that every other PC manufacturer uses. Apple systems cut corners in the same places everyone else does. The only difference is you get a fancy case with the MacBook.

Granted, driver issues are much more rare with Mac OS than they are with Windows. Hell driver issues on the Windows side aren't as bad as they once were either.
 
Putz said:
pretty much every Dell ive had with an issue was bad graphics, worse off they were XPS and precision lines, not the cheap consumer crap...
Click to expand...
My Dell laptop with a 960m has never had a graphics problem. The one problem it does have is the wired NIC seems to cause weird pausing after a random period of use and I have to reboot to resolve it. Wifi works perfectly though.
 
I have an imac 5k I got for 1499, only mac I think thats worth the fuckin money. Macbooks and MacPros, apple can shuv it up their ass. I would never buy these new touchshit overpriced macbooks. Seriously I could get a yoga 910 4k with 512gb ssd for 1299 for goodness sake.
 
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