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I have a MacBook Pro early 2011 which suffers the well known problem with the AMD discrete graphic card. There were artifacts on the screen, therefore I decided to disable it by entering some commands I found on the internet (I don't remember exactly which procedure I followed, I think I used a live Ubuntu distro or entered some console commands before start upping the system: I entered something like "kext" and so on...).

Now the Mac works well in MacOS with only the integrated Intel graphic card and I am pretty satisfied by it.

I would like now to dual boot the system installing Windows 10 in a second partition using the hybrid GPT/MBR approach, as well described in the following question: How to install Windows 10 into a 2011 iMac without using the Boot Camp Assistant, an optical (DVD) drive or third party tools?

Unfortunately, I get stuck at point 10). When booting for the first time after having modified the partition with disport, I would be supposed to begin installing Windows 10, but all I get is a black screen. I suspect this is done because of my faulty graphic card.

Could that be that Windows is trying to use the discrete AMD card instead of the integrated Intel? How can I guess what's going when the black screen is displayed? Is there some log I can access through another OS and debug?

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I also fixed my MacBook Pro 15 (2011) by completely removing a resistor that provides energy to the AMD GPU using the realmacmods method.

After this, I tried several ways to install Windows without success. I tried installing Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 using an USB drive, DVD drive, etc. As you mentioned, I think Windows is trying to boot up using the discrete graphics.

In other cases, when I was able to install Windows with the generic VGA drive as soon as I install the Intel HD 3000 drivers, the image appears distorted.

I read somewhere that there is a chip in the logic board that controls how the OS sees and controls the two GPUs, there is one method where you can reflash this chip to disable the AMD GPU but requires to buy a programmer, a firmware from DosDude1 and have advance soldering skills. Not an easy method.

I'm currently experimenting with Ubuntu, in that way I can still have an useful computer with the latest security patches.

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    Your post might be of more value if you could edit it to add some details (e.g. links) regarding the chip reflashing you mention.
    – nohillside
    Apr 23 at 15:07

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