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15" MacBook Pro (late 2011) graphics issue somehow fixed by running target disk mode??

R

RoboCop001

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 4, 2005
1,576
454
Toronto, Canada
Hi everyone.

I have a late 2011 MBP. It was the model that had that repair program because of the faulty graphics chip. I did have to get it repaired (whole board was replaced apparently). And since then it's been working fine. "Since then" being like 2013 lol. These days, the normal usage it sees consists of very light stuff. Email, web browsing, Netflix, YouTube.

A few weeks ago I was having a problem that others seemed to have. When booting up, the display would have horizontal lines on it right from the start with the Apple logo. After the progress bar gets about 75% full, the screen goes blue with vertical lines and it seems to freeze. The fans go up and nothing else happens. After a bit, it shuts itself off.

I tried all the usual things. Resetting P/NVRAM and the SMC. Nothing. Safe mode, single-user mode, internet recovery mode, all the same results. The only "successful" boot was in single-user mode, but the screen would be green with horizontal lines.

Anyway, I wanted to make sure target disk mode was still working so I could recover any data from it. And somehow, as soon as the screen turned on in TDM, there were no lines. I shut it off, booted it up again, and the lines were all gone. And it successfully booted and was completely usable. Having it go to sleep and waking it up is fine too. I haven't tried shutting it off yet.

So my guess is this... previously to this, when the lines were present, something made it use the dedicated GPU. And even after shutting off, it kept that preference and used it even from boot up. The GPU is probably dying again since I'm guessing they didn't actually solve the issue and just replaced it with a new one. And somehow, target disk mode reset it to use the integrated graphics, and since then it's running off of that.

That's just my guess! What do you think?
 
Target mode is not using the radeon graphics, the driver has not loaded. Its just the integrated graphics and they are working. The radeon is failing again.
 
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macguru9999 said:
Target mode is not using the radeon graphics, the driver has not loaded. Its just the integrated graphics and they are working. The radeon is failing again.
Click to expand...
Yeah it's gotten worse since I posted. Definitely failing again. It's too bad they never solved the problem.
 
Sounds like you have "RadeonGate" again.

Be aware that when it was "repaired" in 2013 or so, the replacement board was NOT "an improved version". It was just another of the same board that was still working.
As such, it's as susceptible to failure as was the original.

I'd suggest that it's time to be looking for a replacement...
 
Fishrrman said:
Sounds like you have "RadeonGate" again.

Be aware that when it was "repaired" in 2013 or so, the replacement board was NOT "an improved version". It was just another of the same board that was still working.
As such, it's as susceptible to failure as was the original.

I'd suggest that it's time to be looking for a replacement...
Click to expand...

Oh yeah already have a new iMac since last year, I keep the MacBook Pro for the lazy light stuff.

The iMac had to have the entire board swapped out because they couldn't figure out why the fan was acting all crazy lol
 
RoboCop001 said:
Yeah it's gotten worse since I posted. Definitely failing again. It's too bad they never solved the problem.
Click to expand...
If you really want to salvage the system you can probably have the repair done properly (depends on the specific model and problem), not the way Apple does it. Louis Rossmann (rossmann repair group) performs a lot of repairs that Apple either won't do or doesn't do properly. It's not terribly expensive. However, with the new M1 Macs, unless you need a lot of storage, it's probably time to move on. It's a great of workhorse, but the prices on the M1 machines aren't bad at all when you consider the performance and battery life; the problem with them (and with all recent Apple Laptops) is that if you need a LOT of internal storage the cost absolutely skyrockets beyond any acceptable level. In which case maybe keep your old one so you can slap in one (or two) big SSDs and have tons of fast reasonably priced storage. I've tried using the software fixes several times in the past and they have been really hit-and-miss. Definitely worth a shot, but don't be surprised it if doesn't work reliably.
 
panjandrum said:
If you really want to salvage the system you can probably have the repair done properly (depends on the specific model and problem), not the way Apple does it. Louis Rossmann (rossmann repair group) performs a lot of repairs that Apple either won't do or doesn't do properly. It's not terribly expensive. However, with the new M1 Macs, unless you need a lot of storage, it's probably time to move on. It's a great of workhorse, but the prices on the M1 machines aren't bad at all when you consider the performance and battery life; the problem with them (and with all recent Apple Laptops) is that if you need a LOT of internal storage the cost absolutely skyrockets beyond any acceptable level. In which case maybe keep your old one so you can slap in one (or two) big SSDs and have tons of fast reasonably priced storage. I've tried using the software fixes several times in the past and they have been really hit-and-miss. Definitely worth a shot, but don't be surprised it if doesn't work reliably.
Click to expand...
I was going to (if it was still working properly) pass it along to a family member. But I think at this point it's just more feasible to save up for an M1. They're not gonna be doing any graphics work on it lol
 
I tried the efi fix and it worked for a few days on intel graphics, now nothing .... just a white (or black) screen, no boot menu. reset does not help. nada.
 
Let me just recommend this software here: https://gfx.io

It's very handy to show if the discreet GPU is used or not, and can (within a few limitations) force the internal or the discreet.

You should be able to find older versions of it (it's open source) if the current version isn't compatible with your OS.
 
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