Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
macOS Big Sur Update Bricking Some Older MacBook Pro Models
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
There won't be a Windows 11 because Microsoft already stated this. Who knows what will be in 2034 ?? We all may not be here anymore and by that time I will be much older and wouldn't care at all.
I've run Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur and Monteray on VirtualBox.
That means that I can compare performance between versions.
Finally updated late 13 MBP Retina from Catalina to Big Sur 11.4 without any problems. Here is a quick summary
- Took MBP to genius bar to run HW test per Apple chat suggestion. All passed of course. Wanted to have on record HW was good before Big Sur update in case of brick.
- Genius Bar said Apple has no formal program for IO board replacement on this MBP due to Big Sur bricking. Basically told me internet forums ware wrong and there are no bricking issues like this. What is clear is since HQ admitted no fault and provided no info to anyone including genius bar. Every genius bar tech is going to handle it differently. The techs I dealt with went with they are highly experienced and customer is wrongly informed by internet approach. Furthermore said late 13 MBP Retina not worth upgrading to Big Sur before reading the machine spec (8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, which ran fine after the upgrade)
- Sounds like 11.1 fixed this brick issue but since Apple published nothing. There is no definitive info. Just Apple put 14-13 Retina MBPs back into Big Sur install list on 11.1 after taking it out in 11.0.1 (Presumably to avoid bricking more machines)
- Post #736 and #747 in this thread provided confidence if somehow bricked, can recover by disconnect/reconnect IO board cable sequence.
- Went through with upgrade, took awhile, reboot multiples times but worked fine.
Hope this helps someone else thats been on the fence on upgrading 13-14 MBP Retinas to Big Sur.
- Took MBP to genius bar to run HW test per Apple chat suggestion. All passed of course. Wanted to have on record HW was good before Big Sur update in case of brick.
- Genius Bar said Apple has no formal program for IO board replacement on this MBP due to Big Sur bricking. Basically told me internet forums ware wrong and there are no bricking issues like this. What is clear is since HQ admitted no fault and provided no info to anyone including genius bar. Every genius bar tech is going to handle it differently. The techs I dealt with went with they are highly experienced and customer is wrongly informed by internet approach. Furthermore said late 13 MBP Retina not worth upgrading to Big Sur before reading the machine spec (8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, which ran fine after the upgrade)
- Sounds like 11.1 fixed this brick issue but since Apple published nothing. There is no definitive info. Just Apple put 14-13 Retina MBPs back into Big Sur install list on 11.1 after taking it out in 11.0.1 (Presumably to avoid bricking more machines)
- Post #736 and #747 in this thread provided confidence if somehow bricked, can recover by disconnect/reconnect IO board cable sequence.
- Went through with upgrade, took awhile, reboot multiples times but worked fine.
Hope this helps someone else thats been on the fence on upgrading 13-14 MBP Retinas to Big Sur.
Last edited:
What a stupid, stupid post.
Apple very likely have a good idea how long a Mac and/or OS will last when they release it. What that means is that they have likely already done the math and included the cost of a good number of future OS releases in your hardware purchase price.
The fact that they weren't any cheaper back then means nothing. As technology matures it usually becomes cheaper and price rises can often be mitigated because of this.
Something about a pot calling a kettle black? I have a 2014 MBP that does not meet the min specs for Monterey, and unlike some naive posters who just assume it is a vast conspiracy, I compared the specs of mint to the 2015 MBP, which actually has the same CPU. Ok, istnt that a darn thing, but mine only has a 2 channel PCIe, versus a 4 in the 2015. Should that matter? Well, it is much slower when you actually use it, so I’m guessing yah, it is not fast enough to do Monterey.
Oh well, would I rather have a slow awkward experience, or stay on Big Sur which is fantastic? Big Sur obviously!
I try to avoid calling people stupid just because they have a different POV than me, even if they are, I can still learn something from them
Standard accounting practice. I read an article on this many year ago on Apple realizing the revenue out several years from the sale of a device. Nothing's free.
100% agree. Something that all businesses do, or should do.
Monterey runs fine on the 2014 MacBook Pro. I suspect that it was de-supported because of the nVidia dGPU option. I've run it on a 2015 MacBook Pro as well. Some folks with 2011 and 2012 MacBook Pros are also running it using OpenCore.
I feel like this conversation has taken a few weird turns.
Apple clearly feels that people with a 2013 Mac are entitled to a free OS upgrade to Big Sur, or else they flat-out wouldn't offer it. The machine's age doesn't excuse bugs so major that you have to send the machine in for repair. If Apple felt the machine couldn't reliably run the OS, they wouldn't have offered the OS in the first place.
Apple clearly feels that people with a 2013 Mac are entitled to a free OS upgrade to Big Sur, or else they flat-out wouldn't offer it. The machine's age doesn't excuse bugs so major that you have to send the machine in for repair. If Apple felt the machine couldn't reliably run the OS, they wouldn't have offered the OS in the first place.
This was true for a while and eventually relaxed.
For example, Apple once charged $1.99 for a software update to enable Wi-Fi; they did so, allegedly, to avoid an accounting rule violation where the value of a sold good would retroactively change. They similarly charged money for iPod touch OS updates for a while.
This isn't really relevant any more, and as such, Apple has been doing major OS feature upgrades for free.
That doesn't work accounting-wise. Or software engineering would show only losses.
No, you simply price part of the hardware sales as software licensing.
If you're suggesting that an OS upgrade like this suddenly makes such a laptop slower then that would suggest Apple is pretty sucky at making an OS.
I'm on Mojave on my old systems. I didn't like Catalina and Big Sur but I do like Monterey Beta.
Yes, I've worked as a SWE for many decades and have worked on products that the company didn't charge for but we had the proper revenue recognition as our chunk of hardware sales.
This. It's very rare that a company is happy to take a loss. Even if they do decide to they will factor it into the numbers in the following years.