The corruption was on everything, even the dock. Anything that refreshed at all showed artifacts. Scroll bars, entire windows, and the dock became corrupted. This started happening earlier so I tried switching to the dGPU, which fixed everything. I was watching the temps and noticed everything started to rise, and when the fan noises picked up I immediately checked it and saw the CPUA diode was registering 58 degrees C. Not smoking hot, but pretty toasty. I switched back to the iGPU, and that's when everything became unusable. I rebooted, reverted back to 1.5, and have had no problems since with identical load. Keep in mind this was all under light usage. Web surfing and chat only. Oh, and I have an i7 15".
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Found way to know what GPU is in use!
- Thread starter gatepc
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The corruption was on everything, even the dock. Anything that refreshed at all showed artifacts. Scroll bars, entire windows, and the dock became corrupted. This started happening earlier so I tried switching to the dGPU, which fixed everything. I was watching the temps and noticed everything started to rise, and when the fan noises picked up I immediately checked it and saw the CPUA diode was registering 58 degrees C. Not smoking hot, but pretty toasty. I switched back to the iGPU, and that's when everything became unusable. I rebooted, reverted back to 1.5, and have had no problems since with identical load. Keep in mind this was all under light usage. Web surfing and chat only. Oh, and I have an i7 15".
First i'd like to thanks bitninja and ah- for helping us to bypass Apple's limitation.
I have noticed with iStat Menus that both GPUs are powered when you use gfxCardStatus 1.6 to force the system to switch back to Intel HD running on a 15" i7.
See the 3 attached screenshots (GPU1 = 330M, GPU2 = Intel HD).
1st = Forced to switch back to Intel HD, both GPU are powered.
2nd = Intel HD automatically activated, it seems no GPUs are powered???.
3nd =330M automatically activated, seems OK.
I'm not sure if we can really rely on iStat Menus for these results.
Is there any other way to check the GPUs state?
I have noticed with iStat Menus that both GPUs are powered when you use gfxCardStatus 1.6 to force the system to switch back to Intel HD running on a 15" i7.
See the 3 attached screenshots (GPU1 = 330M, GPU2 = Intel HD).
1st = Forced to switch back to Intel HD, both GPU are powered.
2nd = Intel HD automatically activated, it seems no GPUs are powered???.
3nd =330M automatically activated, seems OK.
I'm not sure if we can really rely on iStat Menus for these results.
Is there any other way to check the GPUs state?
Attachments
Just had to create a user to say thanks for the awesome program!
However i've also experienced a bug using Chrome with forced Intel HD graphics. When using Gmail, this would freeze up and crash. This happened continuously until it was allowed to use the 330m.
But the program is nonetheless great! keep up the good work, i really appreciate it
cheers
edit: I'm on a 15" - 2.4 i5
However i've also experienced a bug using Chrome with forced Intel HD graphics. When using Gmail, this would freeze up and crash. This happened continuously until it was allowed to use the 330m.
But the program is nonetheless great! keep up the good work, i really appreciate it
cheers
edit: I'm on a 15" - 2.4 i5
Very interesting. I haven't been able to reproduce artifcacting or graphics corruption or the bump in temperature/fan speed. Looks like we have some investigating to do.
vendettabass said:
Thanks! I appreciate it.
ThinkThink said:
No problem! That's one of the things I suspected...I'm not 100% sure the implementation currently in v1.6 completely disables the 330M. Can you confirm that the 330M isn't powered when on the Intel GPU without manually switching to it at all?
I've also seen some issues where, when running Chrome, manually switching can cause the Flash plugin (as well as some websites) to break and crash.
I'm going to reiterate ah's kitten killing disclaimer - this feature should still be considered experimental and should be used with a small amount of caution. As we've seen, some apps may crash or become graphically broken after switching.
Cody
Just had to create a user to say thanks for the awesome program!
However i've also experienced a bug using Chrome with forced Intel HD graphics. When using Gmail, this would freeze up and crash. This happened continuously until it was allowed to use the 330m.
But the program is nonetheless great! keep up the good work, i really appreciate it
cheers
edit: I'm on a 15" - 2.4 i5
No problem! Thanks for the feedback.
I've experienced the same thing with Chrome. Haven't had the chance to test ah's latest round of code, maybe that will fix it. If not, we've got some more detective work to do.Thanks!
Cody
v1.6.1 is up with some minor enhancements (doesn't have ah's latest code in it yet, I just wanted to add a disclaimer and an "experimental" tag to the GPU switching), added an about window, and it hides the dependency list if the Intel GPU is in use. v1.7 will be out within a couple days with ah's latest code to test out.
Thanks!
Cody
Thanks!
Cody
As the second screenshot in my previous post showed it, iStat Menus shows that both GPUs are not powered. It seems that it doesn't fully support the new i5/i7 models yet.
I've also noticed the Intel HD has only one video output directly connected to the internal LCD. It doesn't really matter because if you want to connect your Macbook Pro i5/i7 to an external display, you will certainly not use it on battery.
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It's probably related to an Intel HD Framebuffer corruption, because gfxCardStatus 1.6 doesn't seem to turn the 330M off when you force the system to switch back to Intel HD GPU.
How to revert back to version 1.5??? gfxcardstatus
Does anyone know how to revert back to version 1.5 of gfxcardstatus? I love this app, but fear the stability issues of 1.6, 1.6.1. Also, when I recently updated to 1.6, a pop-up option asked me if I wanted to update this app automatically in the future...How to I change it back to manually updating app on my own?
Does anyone know how to revert back to version 1.5 of gfxcardstatus? I love this app, but fear the stability issues of 1.6, 1.6.1. Also, when I recently updated to 1.6, a pop-up option asked me if I wanted to update this app automatically in the future...How to I change it back to manually updating app on my own?
@thinkthink
Thanks thinkthink!!!how would I change the updating status of the app to ask me if I want to update instead of automatically updating?
Thanks thinkthink!!!how would I change the updating status of the app to ask me if I want to update instead of automatically updating?
Click the gfxCardStatus icon at the top, then click on Preferences, then uncheck the box that says "Check for updates on launch".
Concerns abouT versions 1.6., 1.6.1???
Does anyone share my concerns about running versions 1.6 or 1.6.1 on their MacBook pros like I do foefear of damaging something. As bit ninja said; apparently when one switches the gpu manually the other one stays on....
@ bitninja; is it possible for you to put out an update to remove the manual switching option until you get all the bugs worked out?? Thanks in advance.
Does anyone share my concerns about running versions 1.6 or 1.6.1 on their MacBook pros like I do foefear of damaging something. As bit ninja said; apparently when one switches the gpu manually the other one stays on....
@ bitninja; is it possible for you to put out an update to remove the manual switching option until you get all the bugs worked out?? Thanks in advance.
Switching GPU's manually requires you to click on the icon and then clicking "Switch GPU's", otherwise 1.6.1 is the same as all other releases as far as the safety of your system is concerned (Very safe). If you dont feel comfortable with manually switching, just dont use that feature and gfxCardStatus will do nothing but monitor and tell you which GPU is active.
Switching GPU's manually requires you to click on the icon and then clicking "Switch GPU's", otherwise 1.6.1 is the same as all other releases as far as the safety of your system is concerned (Very safe). If you dont feel comfortable with manually switching, just dont use that feature and gfxCardStatus will do nothing but monitor and tell you which GPU is active.
Right-o. Nothing new happens until you actually click "swich GPUs." Thanks, ThinkThink, for posting the update link while I was asleep and couldn't answer. I'm going to have to post this on my site...got a lot of emails asking for a link to revert because they fear it will damage their computers.
Nice work bitninja and ah-, featured on the front page of Engadget!!
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/08/macbook-pros-with-nvidia-geforce-gt-330m-graphics-get-discrete-s/
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/08/macbook-pros-with-nvidia-geforce-gt-330m-graphics-get-discrete-s/
A followup to my earlier issue with Tweetie not showing its sidebar after switching: I rebooted my machine and gave it another try, and after switching to the intel gfx Path Finder's sidebar didn't disappear, and still worked. Tweetie's sidebar disappeared, but if I quit and restarted it, the sidebar reappeared and everything seemed okay.
My completely uninformed guess is the parts of a window that use Core Animation or CoreImage are buffered somewhere, and when you force the graphics change, the buffer location is lost (?) and that part of the window disappears.
I wonder if there's a way to force the OS to dump its window buffer - I assume there is, but I know more about speaking the language of dogs and cats than I do about cocoa, so, ignore me at will.
My completely uninformed guess is the parts of a window that use Core Animation or CoreImage are buffered somewhere, and when you force the graphics change, the buffer location is lost (?) and that part of the window disappears.
I wonder if there's a way to force the OS to dump its window buffer - I assume there is, but I know more about speaking the language of dogs and cats than I do about cocoa, so, ignore me at will.
Commence server hammerage.
lol yea. backup ur site to your computer if dreamhost kills ur acct.
Another story about gfxCardStatus, albeit on 9to5mac..
http://www.9to5mac.com/gfxCardStatus?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+9To5Mac-MacAllDay+%289+to+5+Mac+-+Apple+Intelligence%29
http://www.9to5mac.com/gfxCardStatus?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+9To5Mac-MacAllDay+%289+to+5+Mac+-+Apple+Intelligence%29