Apple finally EOS'd my Mac Pro

Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
These days windows machines are pretty good as well. Old Thinkpads last forever and can easily be upgraded. Some of the MacBooks had fatal hardware flaws that are difficult or impossible to repair according to some YouTube channels.

2010 Lenovo that cost me $699 Canadian new (like $500 us) still working, but slowing down a bit since it was lower end specs. 2012-2013 high end Thinkpad seems as fast as anything in daily tasks. I also have a 2012ish desktop and a 2013 Samsung laptop my gf uses which are both running well.

The technology doesn't change like it used to. I remember PC's slowing down within a couple of years, blue screen of death etc. Not anymore luckily.


Pretty sure you are talking about the MBP's with NVidia chipsets. This plagued PC's as well; certainly wasn't isolated to Apple products. Most of those PC's got junked, whilst, given the cost of the Apple units, people were swapping boards, trying to fix them...etc. So the issue became much more broadly known.

And yes, it's quite impressive how hardware that's seemingly long in the tooth will satisfactorily run Windows 10.


I wasn't aware of the Nvidia problem. My Thinkpad from 2014 has an Nvidia video card too. No issues so far. It was used for CAD every day at work for a number of years until someone upgraded.

I was thinking of motherboard issues and screen issues talked about on Louis Rossman's YouTube channel. He definitely is biased against apple though since they are trying to kill off people's ability to get their stuff fixed.


The NVidia chipsets (not video cards) were the motherboard issues. I've never experienced screen issues, but I have a bit of experience doing board swaps and the like on the NVidia chipset MBP's.
 
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
These days windows machines are pretty good as well. Old Thinkpads last forever and can easily be upgraded. Some of the MacBooks had fatal hardware flaws that are difficult or impossible to repair according to some YouTube channels.

2010 Lenovo that cost me $699 Canadian new (like $500 us) still working, but slowing down a bit since it was lower end specs. 2012-2013 high end Thinkpad seems as fast as anything in daily tasks. I also have a 2012ish desktop and a 2013 Samsung laptop my gf uses which are both running well.

The technology doesn't change like it used to. I remember PC's slowing down within a couple of years, blue screen of death etc. Not anymore luckily.


Pretty sure you are talking about the MBP's with NVidia chipsets. This plagued PC's as well; certainly wasn't isolated to Apple products. Most of those PC's got junked, whilst, given the cost of the Apple units, people were swapping boards, trying to fix them...etc. So the issue became much more broadly known.

And yes, it's quite impressive how hardware that's seemingly long in the tooth will satisfactorily run Windows 10.


I wasn't aware of the Nvidia problem. My Thinkpad from 2014 has an Nvidia video card too. No issues so far. It was used for CAD every day at work for a number of years until someone upgraded.

I was thinking of motherboard issues and screen issues talked about on Louis Rossman's YouTube channel. He definitely is biased against apple though since they are trying to kill off people's ability to get their stuff fixed.


The NVidia chipsets (not video cards) were the motherboard issues. I've never experienced screen issues, but I have a bit of experience doing board swaps and the like on the NVidia chipset MBP's.


Okay I understand. Didn't realize Nvidia made their actual chipsets, I always think of them as video card makers.
 
Originally Posted by caprice_2nv


Okay I understand. Didn't realize Nvidia made their actual chipsets, I always think of them as video card makers.


Yep, NVidia and ATI have both made chipsets over the years, despite primarily been known for their video cards. Of course ATI is now part of AMD.
 
Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
These days windows machines are pretty good as well. Old Thinkpads last forever and can easily be upgraded. Some of the MacBooks had fatal hardware flaws that are difficult or impossible to repair according to some YouTube channels.

2010 Lenovo that cost me $699 Canadian new (like $500 us) still working, but slowing down a bit since it was lower end specs. 2012-2013 high end Thinkpad seems as fast as anything in daily tasks. I also have a 2012ish desktop and a 2013 Samsung laptop my gf uses which are both running well.

The technology doesn't change like it used to. I remember PC's slowing down within a couple of years, blue screen of death etc. Not anymore luckily.


I don't know. W10 upgrades and service packs make much more recent computers far more sluggish and poorly running than my Macs.

My hp 820 is practically useless at this point for anything beyond rudimentary functions.
 
Originally Posted by JHZR2
Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
These days windows machines are pretty good as well. Old Thinkpads last forever and can easily be upgraded. Some of the MacBooks had fatal hardware flaws that are difficult or impossible to repair according to some YouTube channels.

2010 Lenovo that cost me $699 Canadian new (like $500 us) still working, but slowing down a bit since it was lower end specs. 2012-2013 high end Thinkpad seems as fast as anything in daily tasks. I also have a 2012ish desktop and a 2013 Samsung laptop my gf uses which are both running well.

The technology doesn't change like it used to. I remember PC's slowing down within a couple of years, blue screen of death etc. Not anymore luckily.


I don't know. W10 upgrades and service packs make much more recent computers far more sluggish and poorly running than my Macs.

My hp 820 is practically useless at this point for anything beyond rudimentary functions.


What processor is in that? And what kind of tasks do you use it for? I'm not doing any kind of photo editing or anything. Web browsing, YouTube, email, transferring files, and occasionally running AutoCAD is all I use mine for.

It's an i7 3520m dual core 2.9ghz, 8gb ram and an SSD. Rudimentary function's it does with basically no lag. My parents bought a new laptop last Christmas (entry level - not sure what the specs are) and it turned out to be pretty slow. It seems like it's better to by a several years old high end machine than any budget machine.
 
For a variety of reasons, I'm avoiding Catalina completely on all but my backup-to-a-backup 2012 MBA. I'm sticking with Mojave(or earlier) for everything else-we have a couple more years of security updates on it, I don't want to give up a lot of my older 32 bit apps, and I'll miss Dashboard which I use multiple times a day.

There's no shame in running Mojave, even though a Mac Pro 5,1 can run Catalina without any issues.

BTW, Apple has had two notable cases of GPUs frying-the first was the nVidias on the 2007/early 2008 MBP, and the second the Radeons on the 2011 15 and 17" MBPs. Apple developed a repair program for the 2007/2008 ones and eventually implemented a "permanent" fix. For the ones that didn't get it, dosdude1 linked above for a relatively modest fee will replace the GPU with the permanently fixed one. He also has a solution for the 2011s in the form of a bypass board that permanently disables the discreet graphics, but that's a bit more extreme.
 
Originally Posted by bunnspecial
For a variety of reasons, I'm avoiding Catalina completely on all but my backup-to-a-backup 2012 MBA. I'm sticking with Mojave(or earlier) for everything else-we have a couple more years of security updates on it, I don't want to give up a lot of my older 32 bit apps, and I'll miss Dashboard which I use multiple times a day.

There's no shame in running Mojave, even though a Mac Pro 5,1 can run Catalina without any issues.

BTW, Apple has had two notable cases of GPUs frying-the first was the nVidias on the 2007/early 2008 MBP, and the second the Radeons on the 2011 15 and 17" MBPs. Apple developed a repair program for the 2007/2008 ones and eventually implemented a "permanent" fix. For the ones that didn't get it, dosdude1 linked above for a relatively modest fee will replace the GPU with the permanently fixed one. He also has a solution for the 2011s in the form of a bypass board that permanently disables the discreet graphics, but that's a bit more extreme.


Yeah, Catalina would break Photoshop for me, though I could realistically do without it.

I think it important to note that the earlier MBP's with the NVidia chipsets, it wasn't just a GPU, it was an entire chipset solution provided by NVidia, and this was used in both Apple and PC products. The failure was related to the actual adhesion of the chips to the boards, as THIS ARTICLE details. I have an MBP from that vintage for parts in my basement and dealt with myriad notebook PC's from that era where the failure rendered them paperweights. It wasn't uncommon to get a replacement board assembly and it fail in the exact same manner during that period.

I've not had any experience with the Radeon failure.
 
For a variety of reasons, I'm avoiding Catalina completely on all but my backup-to-a-backup 2012 MBA. I'm sticking with Mojave(or earlier) for everything else-we have a couple more years of security updates on it, I don't want to give up a lot of my older 32 bit apps, and I'll miss Dashboard which I use multiple times a day.

There's no shame in running Mojave, even though a Mac Pro 5,1 can run Catalina without any issues.

BTW, Apple has had two notable cases of GPUs frying-the first was the nVidias on the 2007/early 2008 MBP, and the second the Radeons on the 2011 15 and 17" MBPs. Apple developed a repair program for the 2007/2008 ones and eventually implemented a "permanent" fix. For the ones that didn't get it, dosdude1 linked above for a relatively modest fee will replace the GPU with the permanently fixed one. He also has a solution for the 2011s in the form of a bypass board that permanently disables the discreet graphics, but that's a bit more extreme.

Bringing this back from the dead, I skipped Catalina and used OpenCore to install Big Sur. I can technically run Monterey, but it requires the video drivers to be injected (my old GTX 680 gets dropped after Big Sur).

Fresh install on a new SATA SSD, Trim was natively on (which was interesting) it migrated my data from my old drive quite well, but of course 32-bit apps are now a no-go, so I lost Photoshop and a clutch of Steam games.

Might buy another SATA cable, put in another SSD and install Windows 10 if I find I want to play those games.

I can't believe the life I've managed to get out of this old rig, lol.
 
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