MacBook Pro disabling dead discrete AMD chip to resolve thermal issues

Support & Help Requests
#1

Hello everybody,

I’m currently considering installing Ubuntu Mate with the hopes that it will resolve the extreme thermal issues with my late 2011 MacBook Pro. The MacBook was recently hit by the common issue of the discrete AMD graphics chip failing and in order to even get the laptop to boot into MacOS I had to remove some of the files required to load the chip fully.

Unfortunately without some of those files either the chip remains active in the background drawing maximum power causing the laptop to get incredibly hot. With only one YouTube video playing in full screen the laptop quickly reaches low to mid 90C with just 10% CPU usage.

Some people have managed to find older versions of those files which resolved the thermal issue for them, but I don’t have access to these older files.

Is there a better way in Ubuntu Mate to fully disable the AMD chip and only run on intel graphics?

The discrete AMD chip would also need to be disabled as soon as possible while installing Ubuntu Mate because as soon as the chip gets triggered the laptop locks up fully.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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#2

Hmmm… no responses in two days. :disappointed:

Can someone maybe suggest an alternative community to ask this in?

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#3

Maybe Ask Ubuntu? It’s a pretty specific issue, and the solution probably wouldn’t be specific to any Ubuntu flavour.

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#4

Alright thanks, I’m new to Linux and wasn’t certain the process would be 100% the same across all versions of Ubuntu.

Damn, asked on that website 7 hours ago, post is already almost buried on page 6.

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#5

Hi there! I just resurrected a dead MacBook Pro 2011 with this solution. Works great!

I installed Mate 17.10 by the way.

Hope it helps!

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#6

Have you noticed any thermal issues while using this method?

#7

Nothing at all. In fact, for fun I ran some of the Phoronics test utilities to see what the machine could handle. I ran a fairly short Graphics test and the temperature averaged below 60 degrees Celcius after working for two hours. I say go for it!

#8

Perfect thanks, I’ll definitely try it out then. The MacOS workaround of removing drivers/kexts has created a relatively large thermal issue.

#9

If I don’t want to partition my main drive, but rather install Ubuntu directly onto a USB stick, how would I go about doing this?

Every time I’ve gone through the Mate installer so far I can’t select the USB stick or a second USB stick to install onto.

Edit: I managed to select my USB stick as the device to install to, but part way through the installation it tells me The ext4 file system creation in partition #2 of /dev/sdc failed. Any ideas?

#10

Sorry, this is something I haven´t looked into. Maybe I’ll give it a try some day. Good luck!

#11

Three install attempts, each time right towards the end a different error pops up and the install cancels. Maybe Mate can’t be installed onto a USB stick?

On the last one I got the error “Error installing libc-bin”, the installer quit but then a popup came and asked me if I wanted to reboot into the new full install.

I tried selecting it in the boot manager, but it’s not there. Now when trying another re-install the installer is asking me if I want to install Mate alongside an already existing install of Mate, which I can’t access for whatever reason.

Edit, for whatever reason I simply can’t get Mate to install onto a USB stick. Six attempts and every time there has been a different error message which google can’t help with.