Small trick for glitches on HD3000

[lunar7]

Advice for glitches on HD3000

Hello all,

I am overall mostly happy after finishing my migration to UEFI triple-boot using Clover.

The worst issue I now have that I didn't have before, is graphics glitches on Mac OS, which I assume is because I have the 4530s using the older HD3000 integrated graphics.

I did notice that the glitches are much reduced on Yosemite compared to Mavericks.

One trick that can help if you have a line or two on the Desktop background after boot:
- Go to Sys Prefs -> Displays -> Color Profiles and change the profile. It will refresh the background and the lines should go away.

I may try and make a script to do this automatically on boot, if I do I will share it here.

I am still curious about the inner details as to why these glitches only occur on Clover but not Chameleon. If anyone else knows the underlying reasons, it would be great if you could point me in the right direction to investigate.

IINM, there are real Macs booting from EFI that had HD3000 graphics and are supported on both Mavericks and Yosemite, so I am wondering where the heart of the issue is.

 

[RehabMan]

Hello all,

I am overall mostly happy after finishing my migration to UEFI triple-boot using Clover.

The worst issue I now have that I didn't have before, is graphics glitches on Mac OS, which I assume is because I have the 4530s using the older HD3000 integrated graphics.

I did notice that the glitches are much reduced on Yosemite compared to Mavericks.

One trick that can help if you have a line or two on the Desktop background after boot:
- Go to Sys Prefs -> Displays -> Color Profiles and change the profile. It will refresh the background and the lines should go away.

I may try and make a script to do this automatically on boot, if I do I will share it here.

I am still curious about the inner details as to why these glitches only occur on Clover but not Chameleon. If anyone else knows the underlying reasons, it would be great if you could point me in the right direction to investigate.

IINM, there are real Macs booting from EFI that had HD3000 graphics and are supported on both Mavericks and Yosemite, so I am wondering where the heart of the issue is.

Try kernel flag slide=0. Make sure your DSDT is freshly patched, and do an EC reset.

 

[lunar7]

Thanks RehabMan,

I think after going through all that troubleshooting (I had gotten that advice from you before), the outcome suggested that I change OSes so often that I can't avoid these glitches if I am coming nearly daily from Windows into Mac OS.

I am developing cross-platform software so it's unavoidable.

I will try the steps again and see if I can avoid the glitches specifically after switching from Ubuntu or Windows into Yosemite, but I think that's when the issues tends to surface.

 

[RehabMan]

...
I am developing cross-platform software so it's unavoidable.

I will try the steps again and see if I can avoid the glitches specifically after switching from Ubuntu or Windows into Yosemite, but I think that's when the issues tends to surface.

Glitches will happen... especially when switching.

Best option: Upgrade to HD4000 or better.

 

[Loreno10]

I managed to get rid of freezes and glithes almost entirely (I had 1 freeze in the last 2 months and glitches? I don't remember when I had them on Yosemite).
If you want to get rid of glitches look for HD3000 VRAM modification. All ou have to do is increase VRAM from 256MB to 512MB. In my case it worked great. Just look for Revogirl's article about increasing amount of VRAM. It's just 2 or 3 lines in terminal if I remember correctly. I hope it helps.

Now the only problem I have with HD 3000 is choppy windows resizing and lags with external monitor connected.

 

[lunar7]

Thanks for the tip! Are you using VGA or HDMI output on secondary monitor? I've been working on a few customizations to make things smoother as I settle into 10.10. One thing I insisted on doing is restoring Window maximize function which will get one of the needless animations out of the way so you don't have to worry about it:

http://rffr.de/fix-mac-os-x-yosemite-green-zoommaximize-button/

You might be able to get rid of some of the others similarly - which ones are bothering you the most?

Another nice add-on is TotalFinder, I think between it and Better Touch Tool I can customize the UI just how I would want it, but we'll see!

Edit: I'm going to link to your recommendation here so that other people have an easier time finding it (in the hope it will work for me too)

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1766384

Edit2: Given that I upgraded my total RAM from 4GB to 8GB, do you think I might be able to get away with bumping up my VRAM even higher from 512MB to 1024MB?

 

[Loreno10]

Thanks for the tip! Are you using VGA or HDMI output on secondary monitor? I've been working on a few customizations to make things smoother as I settle into 10.10. One thing I insisted on doing is restoring Window maximize function which will get one of the needless animations out of the way so you don't have to worry about it:

http://rffr.de/fix-mac-os-x-yosemite-green-zoommaximize-button/

You might be able to get rid of some of the others similarly - which ones are bothering you the most?

Another nice add-on is TotalFinder, I think between it and Better Touch Tool I can customize the UI just how I would want it, but we'll see!

Edit: I'm going to link to your recommendation here so that other people have an easier time finding it (in the hope it will work for me too)

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1766384

Edit2: Given that I upgraded my total RAM from 4GB to 8GB, do you think I might be able to get away with bumping up my VRAM even higher from 512MB to 1024MB?

The problem with windows resizing is a little different. I don't really use the green button to maximize - i just double click the top bar of the application. The problem is the animation which is really laggy. Just try this: open Appstore and open its Featured tab. Then grab one corner of the app and try to resize the window - you'll see it's just bad. The same thing applies to any other content-rich application. That just does not happen in Windows 8.1 - everything is smooth there. That's why I don't really use OS X now - it's not comfortable to have such a laggy OS. Another thing is the problem with a pdf file I've got and need to read. On Yosemite this pdf almost freezes the pdf-reading application (I can't even scroll through it, because all I see then is the rolling beach ball). I don't know what's the problem with this file, because on Windows it just opens fine and there's no trouble at all.

I'm using VGA port to connect my external monitor.

It's not me who came up with the idea of increasing VRAM. It's RevoGirl's idea and all credit should go to her. You can find other articles she wrote on the web. Her blog isn't avalable anymore, but some people managed to collect all her posts and it's somewhere on the internet.

Increasing your VRAM to 1GB is possible, but I think it wouldn't really give you anything.

 

[lunar7]

I wish she was still with us to thank... RIP RevoGirl!

Anyways, I am still getting the glitches with 512MB VRAM - I'll try 1GB but as you say I'm not hopeful.

Ah I see what you mean - it just goes to show that I have no real expectations as I was a Windows user forever, and got into Mac mostly to be able to develop for iOS and use certain media-focused apps that work better on Mac. I'm just using it in a really utilitarian way, although now I do that with Windows too (i'm trying to shift over to Ubuntu for my casual computer use).

Like RehabMan implies, I think we have pushed the limit of what these older machines are comfortable running, but since my Windows and Ubuntu experience is so decent on an SSD and with UEFI boot, I guess I'm in no rush to upgrade just yet.

I'm curious which PDF reader you use, because if it's Adobe Reader, then simply due to it having become bloatware over the years, it might not be helping. A lightweight reader like Skim might be more suitable: http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/

I'm pretty much just using Mac for XCode and other dev environments, so if the machine doesn't interfere too much with that experience (and it hasn't, except the glitches which do get a bit annoying after awhile), I guess I can live with the experience.

To summarize for anyone who is coming here looking for glitch-related advice, here was my experience overall:

ProBook 4530s reaching end of life:
1. Mavericks was fine with smc-ping daemon on Chameleon, but originally I had it on an HDD stuck in the DVD bay using a caddy and it seemed bottle-necked doubly, compared to Mountain Lion running off an SSD in the primary slot. That Mountain Lion install was my best Mac experience ever on this hardware, which is why I hung onto it for so long (it's now still accessible from the optical bay thanks to the fact it had an EFI partition set up for it, unlike the BIOS-based Windows install also on there I can no longer seem to boot).
2. I wanted to migrate to UEFI so I got a 1TB SSD and partitioned it equally for Windows, Ubuntu, and Mac (knowing if I could migrate my Mavericks installation, I could update it easily to Yosemite, which I did).
3. Sadly, Mavericks was the only OS I could migrate, my BIOS-based Windows and Ubuntu installations had to get orphaned and I started over on those OSes.
4. Before I did the Yosemite update, Mavericks would have what seems to be a much more brutal form of glitches, the big patchy square all-over-the-place kind of glitches.
5. After updating to Yosemite, it's been a lot better, but I still get smaller glitches alongside the left hand side of my VGA-connected extended monitor, small horizontal slices that occupy about 100 pixels of width, and seem to wrap from one line to the next. I know it's to do with the rasterizing being unable to keep up with the load, but that's about it (the big square glitches seem to be a whole other kind of glitch I am baffled about)
6. It's hard to tell if upgrading to 512MB VRAM had any effect. At first glance it seems to have reduced the glitches. This is what makes me tempted to push forward to 768MB or 1GB and see if it helps or not. If I do and it does, I'll add this to my summary.

 

[lunar7]

7. One last update - I went ahead and upped it to 1024MB... Results:


Update: No luck. Can't get rid of these tiny glitches no matter what.

My conclusion is that HD3000 just isn't up to the task on Clover with either Mavericks or Yosemite - glitches will persist no matter what you do (I am still getting the glitches after following all suggestions and not changing OSes).

 

[BruceLee5000]

I get the glitches too.
I also get freezes. Totally no response from the mouse or anything on screen.
2011 CustoMacMini. Clover. 10.11.6. I'll dicker around in Clover and restart and the glitches go away, but always eventually come back.
I also get the keyboard not recognized intermittently. Not plugged into a USB 3. Not recognized on boot or sometimes after a long sleep. Remove and reinsert the keyboard and it is recognized, but the CONTROL key acts like it is pressed down until you press the actual CONTROL key. They the keyboard works as expected.