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Can an iPad's GPU die?

M

marty1990

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 25, 2011
418
25
England
So I've been using my iPad on and off all day playing around in iDraw designing a logo. Suddenly, the app slowed to, and the zoom in and out feature went eratic, and suddenly the top of the screen started to flicker (including the part that contains the notification bar) . I pressed home, and went back to the app, it was still being strange, so I closed the app down, reopened it and it seems okay now.

Does that sound like an app issue, or a GPU issue? I hope it was just the app, because I really don't fancy having to get it replaced and being given a refurb.
 
marty1990 said:
So I've been using my iPad on and off all day playing around in iDraw designing a logo. Suddenly, the app slowed to, and the zoom in and out feature went eratic, and suddenly the top of the screen started to flicker (including the part that contains the notification bar) . I pressed home, and went back to the app, it was still being strange, so I closed the app down, reopened it and it seems okay now.

Does that sound like an app issue, or a GPU issue? I hope it was just the app, because I really don't fancy having to get it replaced and being given a refurb.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the app. Could be iOS. Highly unlikely that its a hardware issue.
 
Sounds like the app.

An iPad GPU can die just like any other from nVidia, or ATI. Its far lower power, much less current, so less likely.
 
So, the app could have caused the screen to flicker - even part's of the screen that weren't part of the app? I've never had a problem like this before, and it only happened after using iDraw for a while, and even then, it was only when attempting to add text to my logo.
 
I think it's the app, I restarted my iPad and tested it again, once I start zooming in/using text in iDraw, it starts to lag and flicker. I restart the app, and it's okay again.

... if it were the OS, how would I fix it?
 
Ehhhh, I literally just did a restore last week. Surely I don't need to do another one??

I'll see how it goes, and if there's an update for iDraw soon, it might fix it.

Would reinstalling the app help?
 
Last edited:
the ipad uses a SoC. System on a chip. The GPU is part of the CPU chip, so it can't really die separately from the rest.

It sounds like the app + memory management are to blame. The app may be needing more memory, and the ipad has a very limited amount. If it is an iPad3 it has way to little ram for the resolution on graphic intensive apps. So that is probably why it was slowing down/ erratic zooming until you force quit the app.


Edit: The flickering could be caused by actual hardware issues though. Try testing it on another ipad in an apple store or something. If it is doing it to other ipads then it is most likely the app.
 
It's rare for GPU/CPUs to fail, even more so with system on a chip designs that require no fans to keep it from overheating.

Bug in iOS 6 or buggy app.
 
So my iPad hasn't done any of the flickering thing again, since I haven't been using the app since yesterday. And I realised that when it did flicker, it wasn't including the notification bar at the top of the screen, all the flickering was within the app only - so does that sound like it's the app?

I've reinstalled it either way, so will just have to see if it does the whole flickering/lagging thing again.
 
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