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Anyone else having issues with the 2012 MBP's (15.4, non-Retina) graphics switching?

B

BlackbookGuy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 21, 2012
134
3
I'm loving this machine, but one day in and its stuck in "dedicated graphics" mode and won't use the Intel HD 4000. Even when all apps are closed (and the battery has been calibrated, etc).

I've called Apple support and that didn't resolve it so I've made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon at the Apple Store.

Anyone else finding their new computer only uses the Nvidia card?

I believe there was a similar issue in a previous model.

I don't want to rely on some app that requires me to control the GPUs all the time. It chews through the battery pretty fast in this mode, so kind of annoying in that regard.
 
Well, I guess I'm the only one. That's good I suppose - apparently I got the only dud so far...

A bit annoying if I'm being honest ;)
 
Haven't heard of this before.

When you can, could you post the results of the Genius Bar discussion?

@Braniff: gfxCardStatus
 
Gata said:
Haven't heard of this before.

When you can, could you post the results of the Genius Bar discussion?

@Braniff: gfxCardStatus
Click to expand...

Any way for retina mbp? App doesn't want to work. Looks like it needs an update
 
Braniff747SP said:
If I may ask, out of curiosity (I'll be showing my lack in advanced OSX knowledge) how can one see what graphics card is being currently used?
Click to expand...

Go to the black (or blue) Apple icon on the top left of your menu bar (top of screen) and click it. Then click About this Mac. Click More Info, and see what is says beside Graphics - does it say NVIDIA or Intel? That is how you check which one is being used. The Intel is the integrated one btw.

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Gata said:
Haven't heard of this before.

When you can, could you post the results of the Genius Bar discussion?

@Braniff: gfxCardStatus
Click to expand...



Yeah, I took it in, they said they could keep it for the weekend to check it over as they were very busy at the time and hadn't updated their tools yet (boot drive to boot my system into a different build of OS X to check if it was a hardware or software problem).

That seemed a hassle so I just exchanged it for a new computer - which is good service but annoying as I had to migrate again etc.

The new one is using HD 4000 with the correct apps. One or two set it off that shouldn't, but not every one now. See this article on Core Animation is you wish:




Anyways, the new computer seems to be great. Happy with this process and that it led to a happy conclusion.

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Gata said:
Needs to be updated with support for the retina MBP.
Click to expand...

Yeah, at first I didn't think it was working for my 15.4 either, which is not a Retina. But upon closer inspection it does seem be working even though it said it wasn't a compatible computer. Its not fully functional (the menu bar icon doesn't name the card being used) but the "i" and "D" icons in the menu bar accurately reflect which card is being used, so that's all that matters.

I may post this info in case anyone is interested.
 
Last edited:
Sorry you had an issue but another great example of customer service. If you clone your hard drive on to a backup hard drive using Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner then you won't have to go through the whole migration process if that ever happens again. YOu can just clone it back to your new drive and carry on where you left off.

You should really do that out of habit. It's a great advantage with macs to be able to.
 
Philly said:
Sorry you had an issue but another great example of customer service. If you clone your hard drive on to a backup hard drive using Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner then you won't have to go through the whole migration process if that ever happens again. YOu can just clone it back to your new drive and carry on where you left off.

You should really do that out of habit. It's a great advantage with macs to be able to.
Click to expand...

I have a CCC image on a separate disk. Is it faster than TM? What are the advantages of using a clone vs. TM to get a new computer up and running?
 
BlackbookGuy said:
I have a CCC image on a separate disk. Is it faster than TM? What are the advantages of using a clone vs. TM to get a new computer up and running?
Click to expand...



Time machine makes small incremental backups. A clone is an exact copy and so long as it's on a firewire or faster hard drive you can boot up from it.

I work on the road a lot and my internal hard drive failed on me once but I was able to plug in my external firewire hard drive and boot up from there until I got home. You can not do that with Time machine.

The downside to a clone would be that every time you clone your hard drive (I do it once a week) you write over your last clone. If you were writing a script, for instance, and you wrote something every day, with time machine you could go back through your backups as far as you wanted. But it isn't bootable and I don't use TM at all. I just clone.

I have never had to get a hard drive back up and running from TM, but a clone just needs to be copied or cloned back over and you are immediately back where you left off.
 
Issue resolved

I should mention that the issue was resolved after returning the computer and getting a new one. Once gfxCardStatus was updated, it has been running exclusively on HD 4000 unless I switch it for some Minecraft or image processing.
 
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