Nvidea GeForce 8600M graphics card and memory leak

[RHD]

I have a year old MacBook Pro with an Nvidea GeForce 8600M GT card.

I recently bought Unity but it turns out the Nvidea GeForce 8600M GT graphics card isn't fully supported because of a memory leak which is a problem with the drivers.
Unity Support have told me to update my drivers. I understood Mac drivers were always built in to the OS and no drivers were available from Nvidea but I see they now have one Mac driver for another card.

What is the actual state of affairs with this graphics card does anyone know? There have been a lot of reports of faulty ones and now this.

This is a just about year old top of the range MacBook Pro and it doesn't support graphics??

 

[RHD]

No one?

 

[iLog.Genius]

On OS X, there are no drivers - everything is released by Apple so if there is nothing in software update, then there's nothing to update.

As for your Unity, you got it backwards. There's nothing wrong with the hardware, it's the software. From the Unity website, the 8600M GT should be more than capable. If there is a memory leak, it's usually caused by software - hardware doesn't do that. If you have any problems, you would have to contact Unity Technologies for support.

The only thing I can think of is if you're running this on Windows, there should be 8600M GT drivers on the nvidia site you can download.

 

[RHD]

I have contacted Unity. They say it's a problem with the drivers. I'm aware the Mac drivers are built in to the OS, see original post.

Nevertheless, if you go to Nvideas site you'll find that for the first time Nvidea are offering a Mac driver themselves for another card.

I'm wondering what that means in the light of my problems with the 8600.

 

[iLog.Genius]

NVIDIA having drivers for Mac for another card means nothing to you. I'm not a pro when it comes to software utilizing the GPU and it's resources but I find it hard to believe that the "memory leak" has to do with the Apple supplied drivers and only affects that application and not others since this is the first time I've really heard about a memory leak regarding the 8600M GT.

The only thing I could suggest to you is to install Windows through Boot Camp and download the installer (or use the one you have if it has installers for both Mac and Windows on the disc) and download/install the latest drivers for the 8600M GT and see if that gives you the same problems or actually fixes it.

(I have to think that if there is a flaw in the 8600M GT, if even for one application like Unity, it would be applicable to other potential software and Apple would patch it up.)

 

[CAPT2102]

NVIDIA 8600M graphics card known defect

My NVIDIA 8600M graphics card has 256mb ram.

My 8/2007 Santa Rosa Core 2 Duo, Model A1226 (fine print on bottom of laptop) MacBook Pro just suffered the GPU failure. Apple replace the logic board and Graphics Card, and also the 630-7933 LEFT SIDE IN / OUT BOARD. I am told that this board is a single unit that includes all of the left side inputs.

In my case, the first thing I noticed was that the display all of a sudden started to display small portions of other, previously opened windows, all over the screen. The computer then froze, and the screen became a pink and white vertical checkerboard, followed immediately by a top to bottom wipe of the screen that turned the pink into dark green and then the DREADED KERNEL PANIC NOTICE, "You must power down computer....."

When I tried to re-boot, it immediately came up in the pink and white mode, with the Apple logo & spinning progress wheel, but then Kernel Panic again. Could not boot in safe mode. The one time I did get into the safe mode, I had the same end result, but it just took longer to get there.

I still have AppleCare, but this part is covered for Three Years regardless.

I called Apple on Saturday, a shipping box arrived Monday, I shipped Monday PM @ FedEx store, and the repaired unit arrived back at home at 10AM Wednesday. I had a full backup, but none of the data on the laptop had been affected.

Hope this helps

 

[iLog.Genius]

My NVIDIA 8600M graphics card has 256mb ram.

My 8/2007 Santa Rosa Core 2 Duo, Model A1226 (fine print on bottom of laptop) MacBook Pro just suffered the GPU failure. Apple replace the logic board and Graphics Card, and also the 630-7933 LEFT SIDE IN / OUT BOARD. I am told that this board is a single unit that includes all of the left side inputs.

In my case, the first thing I noticed was that the display all of a sudden started to display small portions of other, previously opened windows, all over the screen. The computer then froze, and the screen became a pink and white vertical checkerboard, followed immediately by a top to bottom wipe of the screen that turned the pink into dark green and then the DREADED KERNEL PANIC NOTICE, "You must power down computer....."

When I tried to re-boot, it immediately came up in the pink and white mode, with the Apple logo & spinning progress wheel, but then Kernel Panic again. Could not boot in safe mode. The one time I did get into the safe mode, I had the same end result, but it just took longer to get there.

I still have AppleCare, but this part is covered for Three Years regardless.

I called Apple on Saturday, a shipping box arrived Monday, I shipped Monday PM @ FedEx store, and the repaired unit arrived back at home at 10AM Wednesday. I had a full backup, but none of the data on the laptop had been affected.

Hope this helps

I don't think he's having hardware problems. Looks like his application won't run because there seems to lack some sort of support. The OP hasn't mentioned anything that would indicate and hardware failure.

 

[RHD]

I don't think he's having hardware problems. Looks like his application won't run because there seems to lack some sort of support. The OP hasn't mentioned anything that would indicate and hardware failure.

As a matter of fact I've been having the early symptoms of the graphic card issue pretty much since I bought the thing and I wondered if it was related.
Weird artifacts, screen blank on awaking from sleep, all sorts of stuff. I do sort of allude to this in my signature.

Waiting for the chip to totally die before getting the motherboard replaced as it means loosing my computer for two weeks in the UK.

Other people with the 8600 are reporting the same memory leak issue with Unity and Unity support appear to be trying to fix Unity to work around it.

If you run a search you do find memory leaks associated with this card but mostly on PCs.

Looks like no one really knows much about it on Macs.

 

[RHD]

Turns out all the problems I've been having with SketchUp for the last year are down to the same problem. Google's support page (is something wrong with my display?) just says effectively turn off the graphics card if you have a Mac as you can't update the drivers.

Not only is the 8600 known to be prone to failure but it isn't even fit for purpose when it's alive as even if it's sort of working the drivers are so faulty on the Mac that even Google don't support it.

 

[gumbyx84]

Turns out all the problems I've been having with SketchUp for the last year are down to the same problem. Google's support page (is something wrong with my display?) just says effectively turn off the graphics card if you have a Mac as you can't update the drivers.

Not only is the 8600 known to be prone to failure but it isn't even fit for purpose when it's alive as even if it's sort of working the drivers are so faulty on the Mac that even Google don't support it.

Find that hard to believe. The drivers are fine. The actual graphics card is the problem, and that falls on nVidia.

Also, how do you shut off the graphics card on a laptop? Without one, you can't display anything. Is anyone else as confused by this as I am?

 

[RHD]

Find that hard to believe. The drivers are fine. The actual graphics card is the problem, and that falls on nVidia.

Also, how do you shut off the graphics card on a laptop? Without one, you can't display anything. Is anyone else as confused by this as I am?

Well if you don't know anything about it why bother posting?

http://groups.google.com/group/SketchUp/web/faqs-for-fixing-problems?version=29


Many, many other examples, run a search.


Graphics drivers for the Nvidea cards are a problem for a variety of 3D applications. Look it up.

Googles answer is to turn off fast feedback in SketchUp's preferences which means SketchUp does the calculations instead of your graphics card. It's very, very slow.

 

[iLog.Genius]

Well if you call up AppleCare and they can't help you, the only thing you can do is install Windows through Boot Camp and run it through there. At this point, I doubt that Apple will be releasing support for the 8600M GT.

 

[RHD]

Well if you call up AppleCare and they can't help you, the only thing you can do is install Windows through Boot Camp and run it through there. At this point, I doubt that Apple will be releasing support for the 8600M GT.

I've got Windows on bootcamp but I don't see how it helps install a driver for the Mac side.
I can't buy SketchUp Pro and Photoshop and all the other associated programs again just to run it on the PC side of things. So far Unity are the only ones enlightened enough to sell a cross platform license.

Calling Apple just costs £30 UK whether they fix it or not and is usually fairly pointless.

I hoped someone here would have some ideas for a work around. Maybe I should try the Hackintosh folk.

 

[iLog.Genius]

I've got Windows on bootcamp but I don't see how it helps install a driver for the Mac side.
I can't buy SketchUp Pro and Photoshop and all the other associated programs again just to run it on the PC side of things. So far Unity are the only ones enlightened enough to sell a cross platform license.

Calling Apple just costs £30 UK whether they fix it or not and is usually fairly pointless.

I hoped someone here would have some ideas for a work around. Maybe I should try the Hackintosh folk.

I didn't know you had the application for the Mac side. Why don't you try to contact the developer and see if you can void the license for the OS X version and get one for Windows? Some developers allow you to do that. You could try the hackintosh way but I think you'll find you will run into the same problem. The hackintosh drivers are tweaked or optimized, they're just cooked to work and that's all.

 

[RHD]

I didn't know you had the application for the Mac side. Why don't you try to contact the developer and see if you can void the license for the OS X version and get one for Windows? Some developers allow you to do that. You could try the hackintosh way but I think you'll find you will run into the same problem. The hackintosh drivers are tweaked or optimized, they're just cooked to work and that's all.

No software company allows you to transfer licences from Mac to PC. You try phoning Adobe about it if you think different.

Why would I want to go to all that trouble when I don't want a PC anyway? If I wanted a PC, I would have bought one.

What I want is the very expensive Apple laptop I bought in good faith to function as described at the point of sale.

 

[iLog.Genius]

No software company allows you to transfer licences from Mac to PC. You try phoning Adobe about it if you think different.

Why would I want to go to all that trouble when I don't want a PC anyway? If I wanted a PC, I would have bought one.

What I want is the very expensive Apple laptop I bought in good faith to function as described at the point of sale.

Actually, cross-transfer licenses are possible depending on the situation. Adobe allows it for a fee.

Truth is, most of us here would like a Mac-only environment but it still is a Windows/PC world where some applications do run better or have better support than OS X. If this is something for work, it's a no brainer - use Windows.

Clearly this is more of an isolated problem than something that majority of users are experiencing given the amount of responses or actions in this forum and on the net. If Apple can't help you, I guess you're out of luck. Like I said, you might hate it or disagree but the only option is to use Windows if the software developer allows you to do so since it's obvious you can't run it in OS X.