dead macbook gpu feat. amd radeon
nothing gives a cs student a heart attack like a dead machine

So I’m sitting in class, setting Windows up to run in VirtualBox off my second internal SSD. VirtualBox did not give me any issues. The next step is to reboot and make sure it is still able to boot up natively. So I shut it down and prepare to go home…

I get home and…

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg

staring.png

4.jpg

IT WAS WORKING 20 MINUTES AGO

jackie-chan.png

questioning.png

Maybe the NVRAM forgot what needs to be booted. Time to give it a kick in the pants:

5.jpg

Holding Option, we get the usual array of what is to be expected:

6.jpg

Odd, my usual SSD custom icons are not showing…already suspicious. Selecting Macintosh HD yields:

7.jpg

staring.png

AAAAAAAAAAND we’re stuck again….

y-u-no-boot.png

Reboot again with attempt at verbose mode:

9.jpg

10.jpg

cereal-guy.png

What in the world…

staring.png

12.jpg

So instead of a white screen, we get a black screen…

double-facepalm.png

Recovery mode?

13.jpg

16.jpg

staring.png

Alright, no recovery mode either then…

Next step….uh… El Capitan installer?

17.jpg

swiss.png

close-enough.png

18.jpg

19.jpg

20.jpg

FANTASTIC, a white screen again.

dark-stare.png

Welp… gonna try the installer in safe boot:

21.jpg

22.jpg

24.jpg

suspicious.jpg

Diagnostics???

25.jpg

3.jpg

deskflip-pokemon-card.jpg

I shall give the installer one more chance in Safe Boot:

29.jpg

30.jpg

kernel-panic.png

What happens if we try to boot Windows?

31.jpg

32.jpg

33.jpg

computer-slice.png

Nope. How about booting my SSD from USB?

34.jpg

35.jpg

36.jpg

37.jpg

38.jpg

39.jpg

40.jpg

41.jpg

42.jpg

Context

This MacBook Pro has two GPUs, an Intel HD 3000 and an AMD 6490M. This generation of dual-GPU MacBooks defaults to the AMD card on boot up. This means that the firmware has the 6490M already selected before any OS starts up. Now, if the 6490M is in fact busted, then I have to find a way to fall back on the Intel HD graphics for the time being. That will be tough, since I have no idea how the PCI graphics controller works on this machine. On my old MBP5,1 it was rather straightforward, since the active GPU was simply the last active GPU when the computer was shut down. Plus, I had the ability to control which GPU was selected through the gpu-power-prefs NVRAM variable. Having done some digging using the rEFIt shell on this machine, I cannot find such a variable. I guess that would make sense, considering the hardware is designed to switch GPUs on the fly with no interruption in video output. There appears to be no explicit setting for power to either GPU (and obviously the Intel GPU is always powered, it is integrated into the CPU).

Screenshots of my rEFIt shenanigans:

43.jpg

44.jpg

45.jpg

46.jpg

47.jpg

48.jpg

49.jpg

There is no gpu-power-prefs variable, and I really do not feel like studying the hex dump for GraphicsOutput xD

Let us see if Apple has us covered…

50.jpg

51.jpg

52.jpg

happy.png

Awwww yeah. Time to get it ready for shipping!

59.jpg

Pulling the main SSD first so I can keep using my system on another Mac…

53.jpg

54.jpg

55.jpg

Wiped and ready for packaging!

56.jpg

Hoping not to screw up these instructions… XD

Meanwhile, my friend’s Apple Pencil came in:

58.jpg

Packaged up and ready to be shipped:

57.jpg

happy-kitteh.png

several-days-later.png

fedex.png

doge.png

60.jpg

61.jpg

62.jpg

63.jpg

64.jpg

65.jpg

66.jpg

Bonus backlit keyboard at night:

67.jpg


Last modified on 2016-09-02

Comments Disabled.