Help with GPU please!

Hi,

I am a technological Luddite so I thought this would be the proper place to solve a few problems that I have been having with my powerbook.

I apologise in advance if I have not posted it in the proper forum, but I couldn’t decide if this is a software or hardware problem.

When I view a streaming movie on Netflix, it comes through with a choppy frame rate and my cpu usage, according to the activity monitor, goes to 100%. I have searched this and other forums and it seems that there is an issue with my GPU. It seems that the CPU is doing all of the work instead of the GPU.

It has been suggested that people experiencing this problem, should install a new driver for their GPU. I have tried to do this at the NVIDIA website, but it seems that they only support Window’s computers which is strange given how large Apple has become.

What should I do to fix this problem on my computer? (please keep in mind that I am a pretty basic user so I probably won’t understand an super complicated response).

Also, should I be concerned that the NVIDIA GPU doesn’t seem to be plugged into any display?

Thanks a ton for the help!



This is the computer that I have:


Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 8 GB
Processor Interconnect Speed: 4.8 GT/s
Boot ROM Version: MBP61.0057.B0C
SMC Version (system): 1.58f16

The system profiler shows me has having two different GPUs:

Intel HD Graphics:

Chipset Model: Intel HD Graphics
Type: GPU
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Total): 288 MB
Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
Device ID: 0x0046
Revision ID: 0x0018
gMux Version: 1.9.21
Displays:
Color LCD:
Resolution: 1680 x 1050
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes

NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0a29
Revision ID: 0x00a2
ROM Revision: 3560
gMux Version: 1.9.21
Displays:
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected

Are you sure it's not just a slow connection

via either your wifi or ethernet connection?

Not an internet connection

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think it is an internet connection problem. I can use one of my other computers just fine and this one still has the problem. I can also download multi gigabyte files for work relatively quickly via my wifi on this computer so i really doubt that is the problem.

Have you tried different web browsers and made sure your software was up to date?

Drivers are handled by Apple - they all come packaged in the OS and subsequent updates.

As for Netflix, I've found that different browsers handle Silverlight (the plugin used by Netflix to stream content) better than others. For instance, Safari is considerably better than any other browser (for whatever reason) when it comes to Netflix. Which browser are you using? Do you have an updated version of Silverlight?