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Premiere Killing Custom MacBook Pro?
- Thread starter spearsr7
- Start date
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The conversation with you remind me of this:
"If you can't prove that God doesn't exist, then he must exist."
That was random! Let's let it go. I think people can reach their own conclusions about what the facts imply and what they don't.
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Hey, I didn't say what you quote me for
Ha, fixed that!
So anyway...
It's not clear wether it's the fault of the hardware or the software. It's true that Premiere seems to be over-taxing the dGPU to the extent that it's becoming damaged. It's happening during rendering/transcoding so I have no control over how much of the system resources it's using. It's also clear that an industry standard software ideally shouldn't be able to actually cause damage. On my MacPro at work on the rare occasions it gets pushed too far it starts locking applications or simply crashes. That hasn't happened here, damage happens first.
Regardless of which is to blame, the graphics card on my first MBP totally died. The graphics card on my replacement MPB panicked and caused red tint and flickering. I recovered the system but the flickering remains.
Clearly this is not a widespread problem, however it was noted in an article on this website in December as an open ended issue but Apple support has not acknowledged that issue to me. That I've had it happen twice with this config (2.7Ghz and Radeon 460) makes me wonder if there's something specific about this custom config (and probably an uncommon config) that's allowing this to happen.
So the questions I'm asking are:
1) Does anyone have the same config and what is your experience running GPU heavy applications?
2) Has anyone with a more powerful config been running Premiere successfully without issue?
I'm trying to collect information to decide wether this is a problem that can be fixed so I can use Premiere on the machine (it's part of my job) or if I need to return the machine and look at alternatives, possibly even a windows computer.
It's not clear wether it's the fault of the hardware or the software. It's true that Premiere seems to be over-taxing the dGPU to the extent that it's becoming damaged. It's happening during rendering/transcoding so I have no control over how much of the system resources it's using. It's also clear that an industry standard software ideally shouldn't be able to actually cause damage. On my MacPro at work on the rare occasions it gets pushed too far it starts locking applications or simply crashes. That hasn't happened here, damage happens first.
Regardless of which is to blame, the graphics card on my first MBP totally died. The graphics card on my replacement MPB panicked and caused red tint and flickering. I recovered the system but the flickering remains.
Clearly this is not a widespread problem, however it was noted in an article on this website in December as an open ended issue but Apple support has not acknowledged that issue to me. That I've had it happen twice with this config (2.7Ghz and Radeon 460) makes me wonder if there's something specific about this custom config (and probably an uncommon config) that's allowing this to happen.
So the questions I'm asking are:
1) Does anyone have the same config and what is your experience running GPU heavy applications?
2) Has anyone with a more powerful config been running Premiere successfully without issue?
I'm trying to collect information to decide wether this is a problem that can be fixed so I can use Premiere on the machine (it's part of my job) or if I need to return the machine and look at alternatives, possibly even a windows computer.
Correlation is not causation. I'm having a hard time thinking of a mechanism by which a piece of software could cause actual hardware damage to a solid-state component, apart maybe from overheating. If it was overheating, you should have heard the fans going full blast before it happened as the machine tried to cool itself down, but you don't mention that. Isn't it more likely that you got a faulty GPU in your first machine that died randomly after a period of use (rare, but certainly known to happen) and that the second machine's issue is a software one with a driver bug etc.? Maybe you were really really unlucky and got two faulty GPUs in a row, but I doubt it and I doubt it had anything to do with Premiere specifically.
I can imagine some scenarios. Bug in the driver — sending the GPU a wrong power configuration, maybe instantly over-volting it by a healthy margin. Or maybe overwriting some of the GPU's firmware by accident (if the driver has access to it). Would be interesting to know whether it only happens to OP or whether the problem is more widespread. Because if it is only restricted to one person, I would look into the usage environment. Maybe unstable power delivery? Too high humidity? Pet hair? Poltergeists?
The fans were going full blast when I experienced the issue yesterday, but that's pretty standard when processing video. So it's probably is overheating. I could quit the application when that happens but this was only a handful of 4K clips transcoding to 720 proxies, a standard in most workflows.
Not really interested in hashing out if it's the hardware or software at this point, just trying to decide if it's something I return the machine over and wait for next gen or look at other options. After searching Adobe forums I found that this is a common issue amongst Premiere users on the 2016 MBP and Adobe has acknowledged it but neither Adobe nor Apple have offered a fix to date.
I think I've gotten all I'm going to get from the MacRumors forum at this point.
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It's not limited. I found a discussion that has been ongoing for a month over at Adobe. https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2250976
I'm plugged into the same outlet my iMac used, I have no pets, and it's dry and cold in my apartment this time of year, so not my environment.
Ouch. Thanks for the information. I am just starting to use Premier. Do you know if this same issues appear in the 2015 15" rMBP with dGPU?
Doesn't seem so, but I haven't been looking specifically. Considered trading in for a 2015 model but it looks like the configs Apple sells only include the Intel Iris Pro graphics, and don't allow for an upgrade option. I think the 2016 MBP are the only Mac laptops with dGPU's currently available.
Ugh... then its a terrible bug and Apple should fix it IMMEDIATELY. Does Adobe have a bug report with Apple? Did you reach out to Adobe's customer service about this?
One of their Premiere experts is supposed to contact me today. Also have someone from Apple Support calling me today too. Going to try and get to the bottom of this and will update once I know more.
Sorry to have clogged up your thread, but we may have settled whether God exists.
That's an interesting discussion at Adobe. One thing that stands out is how much Adobe reps participate. Props to them, even if they can't always say very much. They seem reasonable and as helpful as they can be. It's unfortunate that the recognition of the problem coincided with Christmas vacation for Adobe, so basically there was no one home to deal with it early on.
Adobe isn't saying whether this is a software issue, but chances are very high that it is, since it's specific to Adobe software. Chances are good it will be resolved in some way, but how good the resolution is remains to be seen.
The only software fix that seems to work so far, as a slow but more or less usable emergency stopgap, is to stop using the dGPU by switching to Software Only. Not a suitable solution longterm of course. OpenCL/Metal works for some. It's also suggested to use gfxCardStatus to switch to the integrated GPU only, which should allow GPU support from that more limited resource. Should beat software only, but that hasn't been tested much.
Adobe doesn't get the machine in advance to test with, and Apple doesn't feel it's their place to be testing Adobe's software for them, so this kind of thing is bound to happen. And based on past experience, it often does, though not always with such striking failures.
An irony of this, to the extent it's Apple's fault the machines behave so badly with what Adobe's trying to do, is that this might actually help FCPX. Several posters were saying they've gone back to it and are marveling at how much blazingly faster it is, though they still value some points that Premiere Pro offers.
That's an interesting discussion at Adobe. One thing that stands out is how much Adobe reps participate. Props to them, even if they can't always say very much. They seem reasonable and as helpful as they can be. It's unfortunate that the recognition of the problem coincided with Christmas vacation for Adobe, so basically there was no one home to deal with it early on.
Adobe isn't saying whether this is a software issue, but chances are very high that it is, since it's specific to Adobe software. Chances are good it will be resolved in some way, but how good the resolution is remains to be seen.
The only software fix that seems to work so far, as a slow but more or less usable emergency stopgap, is to stop using the dGPU by switching to Software Only. Not a suitable solution longterm of course. OpenCL/Metal works for some. It's also suggested to use gfxCardStatus to switch to the integrated GPU only, which should allow GPU support from that more limited resource. Should beat software only, but that hasn't been tested much.
Adobe doesn't get the machine in advance to test with, and Apple doesn't feel it's their place to be testing Adobe's software for them, so this kind of thing is bound to happen. And based on past experience, it often does, though not always with such striking failures.
An irony of this, to the extent it's Apple's fault the machines behave so badly with what Adobe's trying to do, is that this might actually help FCPX. Several posters were saying they've gone back to it and are marveling at how much blazingly faster it is, though they still value some points that Premiere Pro offers.
Yeah, after working in video world for 5 years professionally and years before that even as a student, these kind of things never go as smoothly as you'd hope. Avid/Premiere/FinalCut all have their flaws and kinks that can crop up in rather nasty ways in unexpected ways.
Hoping to get some more info directly from Apple and Adobe today to decide what next steps are. Would love to have a Mac but also need to keep working in Premiere.
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Hoping to get some more info directly from Apple and Adobe today to decide what next steps are. Would love to have a Mac but also need to keep working in Premiere.
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Well look at that! Gonna give it a shot this week.
General and I am downloading it now. I really hope it helps with other graphics glitching I get in a number of programs.
as to the OP. I do have the same unit, 2.7/460/2T and am currently on my fourth machine. 2 of which are blown dGPU's these machines to my opinon cant take the temperatures and don't kick the fans in fast enough or throttle back fast enough in some applications from , Adobe, Autodesk and AVID. ( issues I had with 2012 and 2013 rMBP's as well )
I am one of those in that Adobe forum as well although my solution I flipped to most would call not ideal, was to do my heavy lifting and rendering on large windows based workstations such as the P70 and Precision models. ( started doing that back in 2011 with my first 32GB laptop )
as to the OP. I do have the same unit, 2.7/460/2T and am currently on my fourth machine. 2 of which are blown dGPU's these machines to my opinon cant take the temperatures and don't kick the fans in fast enough or throttle back fast enough in some applications from , Adobe, Autodesk and AVID. ( issues I had with 2012 and 2013 rMBP's as well )
I am one of those in that Adobe forum as well although my solution I flipped to most would call not ideal, was to do my heavy lifting and rendering on large windows based workstations such as the P70 and Precision models. ( started doing that back in 2011 with my first 32GB laptop )
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And ouila there's the software update that fixed the problems that we have been saying for weeks are...software and driver issues.