What caused a Mac Studio M3 Ultra to become bricked?

A MacOS Tahoe upgrade caused a Mac Studio M3 Ultra to become bricked due to a bug involving the Apple Neural Engine driver and a failed hardware check during installation.

How can a bricked Mac Studio be fixed?

A bricked Mac Studio can be fixed using a DFU firmware revive/restore process, which requires another Mac and a specific USB-C cable to reinstall firmware and the OS.

Are MacOS upgrades reliable on new Macs?

The experience of a user's Mac Studio M3 Ultra being bricked by a MacOS upgrade suggests potential reliability issues with upgrade stability, leading to user hesitation for future updates.

Home / Technology / Mac Studio Bricked by MacOS Upgrade: A $3,700 Nightmare

Mac Studio Bricked by MacOS Upgrade: A $3,700 Nightmare

2 Feb

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Summary

Mac Studio M3 Ultra experienced a catastrophic failure after a MacOS upgrade.
A DFU firmware revive/restore process was needed to recover the bricked machine.
The incident highlights concerns about MacOS upgrade stability and reliability.

Mac Studio Bricked by MacOS Upgrade: A $3,700 Nightmare

A recent Mac Studio M3 Ultra purchase turned into a costly nightmare when a MacOS Tahoe upgrade bricked the machine. After approximately an hour of use, the user initiated the upgrade, which subsequently caused the computer to reboot to a black screen, unresponsive to any recovery attempts. This critical failure rendered the $3,700 computer unusable.

Investigation revealed a bug where the installer attempted to load the MacOS Tahoe driver for the Apple Neural Engine, but a hardware check failure aborted the process. While typical rollbacks occurred for some users, this instance led to a complete system failure.

The only viable solution was a DFU (Direct Firmware Update) firmware revive/restore process. This requires a second Mac, a specific USB-C cable, and accessing a dedicated DFU port on the affected machine. The user attempted both 'Revive' and 'Restore' options, which initially failed.