MacBook Pro's graphics are possibly dying?

[wickedking94]

So I've had a new problem crop up with my MacBook Pro, Mid 2010, 13".

At random moments, my MacBook Pro will completely lock up. The screen freezes, and it keeps looping the last few seconds of whatever sound was playing a the time. The only way out of this is to hold down the power button until its turns off. This happens in both Mac OS 10.8.2 and under my Windows XP bootcamp partition. I've done clean re-installs of both my OS's, reset the PRAM, and reset the SMC, and it still happens.

Its seems to happen more frequently when im doing heavier-duty stuff like playing games, and I've also noticed that the whole body of my MacBook Pro gets scorchingly hot (Its never done that before, even playing the same games I am now) and the spot on my desk where my MBP sits is also very hot to the touch. I've dusted out the fans and vents and no improvement.

I think it may be the GPU because sometimes when I start up my MBP the screen is filled with various vertical coloured lines until it gets to the login screen.

I still have a warranty from Future Shop, should I take it in and explain the problem and see if they'll send it to apple for them to have a look?

Specs:
Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz dual core
8GB DDR3 RAM
GeForce 320M 256MB
640GB HDD (540GB Mac OS partition, 300GB free. 100GB Windows Partition)

 

[wickedking94]

No. My laptop might be dying, but lets help the idiots discuss weather we should turn our computers off when we travel, or how we keep our computers clean, because thats a vital issue.

 

[justperry]

So I've had a new problem crop up with my MacBook Pro, Mid 2010, 13".

At random moments, my MacBook Pro will completely lock up. The screen freezes, and it keeps looping the last few seconds of whatever sound was playing a the time. The only way out of this is to hold down the power button until its turns off. This happens in both Mac OS 10.8.2 and under my Windows XP bootcamp partition. I've done clean re-installs of both my OS's, reset the PRAM, and reset the SMC, and it still happens.

Its seems to happen more frequently when im doing heavier-duty stuff like playing games, and I've also noticed that the whole body of my MacBook Pro gets scorchingly hot (Its never done that before, even playing the same games I am now) and the spot on my desk where my MBP sits is also very hot to the touch. I've dusted out the fans and vents and no improvement.

I think it may be the GPU because sometimes when I start up my MBP the screen is filled with various vertical coloured lines until it gets to the login screen.

I still have a warranty from Future Shop, should I take it in and explain the problem and see if they'll send it to apple for them to have a look?

Specs:
Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz dual core
8GB DDR3 RAM
GeForce 320M 256MB
640GB HDD (540GB Mac OS partition, 300GB free. 100GB Windows Partition)

Try Apple Hardware Test, hold D at startup and follow instructions, do you get any error, also look inside the logs, you should have crash logs, if you have them copy one and post it here.

Pretty sure your GPU is giving the problems, you have two I think, when you do heavy work it switches to the other one and it will crash, the on chip GPU seems to be OK though, bring it in, they should fix it for you, the Logic board will be replaced.

 

[xShane]

No. My laptop might be dying, but lets help the idiots discuss weather we should turn our computers off when we travel, or how we keep our computers clean, because thats a vital issue.

First of all, you're not the only person here and that doesn't make you the top priority. Insulting other members of this forum won't help either.

You should take it into Apple and see what they have to say. You should also try a SMC reset.

 

[wickedking94]

I did reset the SMC, and I live in Atlantic Canada which apparently apple doesn't care enough about to put one single apple store in my province.

And I only have one GPU. Just my 320M, its a 13" from 2010 with a core 2 duo. No intel on chip graphics.

Ran the extended apple hardware test, it reported back fine.

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And I made the comment about my laptop dying because I knew that would actually get a response.

 

[xShane]

I did reset the SMC, and I live in Atlantic Canada which apparently apple doesn't care enough about to put one single apple store in my province.

And I only have one GPU. Just my 320M, its a 13" from 2010 with a core 2 duo. No intel on chip graphics.

Ran the extended apple hardware test, it reported back fine.

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And I made the comment about my laptop dying because I knew that would actually get a response.

There's likely not enough Apple owners where you live for there to be a nearby Apple store. If Apple felt it was economically efficient and it would increase profits, they would.

And you took it too far by calling most of us idiots and rambling on about it.

Anyways... Have you tried using an external monitor to see if the problem still persists? Could be a screen issue if the GPU reports back fine.

 

[justperry]

I did reset the SMC, and I live in Atlantic Canada which apparently apple doesn't care enough about to put one single apple store in my province.

And I only have one GPU. Just my 320M, its a 13" from 2010 with a core 2 duo. No intel on chip graphics.

Ran the extended apple hardware test, it reported back fine.

----------

And I made the comment about my laptop dying because I knew that would actually get a response.

Yeah, looked it up in MacTracker, had to search a bit, it's always good to include the Model Identifier.

You should try what xShane says above, if you still have problems it must be the GPU, AHT sometimes does come out clean without errors even when the HW is not OK.

 

[wickedking94]

Yeah when plugged into my external monitor the lines appear on that screen too at startup then like on my built-in display go away once the login screen appears.

The only problem I can see with brining my macbook in to FutureShop is explaining the problem to them, since it doesn't happen every single time, I can already picture them turning it on, nothing happening, and getting the typical "It looks fine to me" response. Somehow me being a industry rated computer technician, and them being a industry rated (at least I hope they are) technician, I can never convey what my problem is to them.

 

[justperry]

Yeah when plugged into my external monitor the lines appear on that screen too at startup then like on my built-in display go away once the login screen appears.

The only problem I can see with brining my macbook in to FutureShop is explaining the problem to them, since it doesn't happen every single time, I can already picture them turning it on, nothing happening, and getting the typical "It looks fine to me" response. Somehow me being a industry rated computer technician, and them being a industry rated (at least I hope they are) technician, I can never convey what my problem is to them.

If Futureshop isn't far away, leave it on, don't close the lid, this way they can see that there is a problem.

 

[wickedking94]

Yeah but leaving it on wont work because it goes away after a minute, and it mostly happens when im connected to my external monitor. Also shoukd have mentioned that my external display occasionally fills with a little bit of static (like i can still use my screen, but if i look a bit closer i can see static)