abelliveau

Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro (2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory) running OS 10.8.2.  It has two graphics components: an AMD Radeon HD 6750M and a built-in Intel HD Graphics 3000. Since I've had the computer, the screen would get a blue tint when the computer switched between them.

 

However, as of two days ago, the problem has become substantially more severe.  The computer was working fine, when all of a suddent the screen when completely blue.  I had to force restart the computer.  Since then, the screen has gone awry on numerous occassions - each time necessitating a hard reset.

 

I installed gfxCardStatus, and have discovered that the computer runs fine using the integrated card, but as soon as I switch to the discrete card - the screen goes .

 

I am just wondering what my options are (any input on any of these would be appreciated!):

 

1) Replace the logic board.  Would this necessarily fix the issue?

 

2) Is there any way to "fix" the graphics card? 

 

3) Keep using gfxCardStatus and only use the integrated graphics card.  This is definitely the easiest/cheapest option, but to have such a computer and not be able to use the graphics card seems like a real shame.

 

4) Is there any other alternative?

 


MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 GB memory

Posted on Feb 1, 2013 4:45 PM

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Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

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  • by taz_79,

    taz_79 taz_79 Mar 8, 2014 4:08 AM in response to abelliveau
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    Mar 8, 2014 4:08 AM in response to abelliveau

    I give up, today i went out of town 4 hrs driving to fix my macbook...it went toa reballing kind process but not purereballing since he did not remove the gpu chips...in my opinion this engineer is far more wiser than most of Apple Genius who only suggest changing logic board...he said most of the people who did repairs are from mbp 15" 2011, he suggest to change to mbp core i7 2,6ghz for better quality...

  • by HelgeCPT,

    HelgeCPT HelgeCPT Mar 8, 2014 4:25 AM in response to taz_79
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 4:25 AM in response to taz_79

    Is it working again at least? Wonder how long a rapair like this will last, will probably also get mine "reballed" if all else fails. Wouldn't be surprised if this issue is repeated a year or two from now with 650M cards or whichever the new generation of MBP have. Apple probably would'nt replace our 2011 logicboards with 2013 ones hey? Wishfull thinking...

  • by b.pwned,

    b.pwned b.pwned Mar 8, 2014 6:09 AM in response to abelliveau
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 6:09 AM in response to abelliveau

    So, I got my late 2011 15" MBP 2.2 GHz back from the Apple Store. Had the MLB replaced for €510… but in Germany or perhaps the entire EU I now have another 2 years of warranty for the MLB, which should be fine till I can ditch the machine.

  • by luisfromoviedo,

    luisfromoviedo luisfromoviedo Mar 8, 2014 6:14 AM in response to HelgeCPT
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    Mar 8, 2014 6:14 AM in response to HelgeCPT

    I have new budget: reballing for 180€ with 6 months of warranty period. Graphics Chip will be changed if needed after the test of the board. ( not official service).

     

    I think this is what the apple techinicans in Breda are doing for a 3 times higher price.

     

     

    Apple is cheating us, earning a lot of money with their ineffectiveness (¿scheduled?).

    v i m e o   d o t   c o m   79695097

  • by luisfromoviedo,

    luisfromoviedo luisfromoviedo Mar 8, 2014 6:16 AM in response to b.pwned
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    Mar 8, 2014 6:16 AM in response to b.pwned

    Fortunately you have 2 years of warranty period in Germany.

    ¿are you sure?

    Not in Spain. Only three months. Apple conditions. And MLB are not new one. !

    Take care...

  • by taz_79,

    taz_79 taz_79 Mar 8, 2014 6:34 AM in response to HelgeCPT
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    Mar 8, 2014 6:34 AM in response to HelgeCPT

    They repaired it 2 hrs...it works again...can switch to discrete without freeze...but the engineer suggests not to force too hard in 3 days to 1 week...don't do a lot of multi tasking like opening adobe illustrator and photoshop in the same time...although it works normal but cannot force too hard like a new product...

     

    He said some people who repaired at his place choose to change logic board,but the machine fail again within less than a year...so for our model we should extra careful to use it for hardcore jobs

  • by aldar,

    aldar aldar Mar 8, 2014 7:06 AM in response to taz_79
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    Mar 8, 2014 7:06 AM in response to taz_79

    the only i7 2,6Mhz option is the mid 2012 macbook pro, right? so you mean it's possible to upgrade it?

  • by D3us,

    D3us D3us Mar 8, 2014 7:42 AM in response to jokokoko
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    Mar 8, 2014 7:42 AM in response to jokokoko

    jokokoko wrote:

     

    moneybag wrote:

    Since all computers at my workplace are on Windows 7, I can tell you that I really hate even the slightest idea of having to use this system as the main OS of my home computer.

    Other than that, I totally agree with you. I can't afford to buy another MBP in the nearest future.

     

    Totally with you there. But there's no option for me. So I'll have to work with Windows and Linux for the next years.

    What's wrong with windows 7?

    It's at least as stable as Os X.

    They both have advantages and disadvantages.

    As does linux.

    If you can get a Windows laptop for half or 1/3th of the price of a mac, even outperforming it...

    Lesser chance of breaking...

     

    Don't get me wrong, don't wanna start a debate of which is the better one.

    That is more personal preference probably, both are fine.

    And if you calculate in the price and the redicilous repair prices...

     

    If you look at it financially, sorry, but they ar overrated in price/performance.

  • by degger,

    degger degger Mar 8, 2014 9:40 AM in response to luisfromoviedo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 9:40 AM in response to luisfromoviedo

    Fortunately you have 2 years of warranty period in Germany.

    ¿are you sure?

    Not in Spain. Only three months. Apple conditions. And MLB are not new one. !

    Take care...

     

    Don't know about Spain specialities but there're a number of rules of general liability rules in Europe with more concrete implementations in different countries like Germany. In Germany there's a general liability of 6 months that can't be denied or reduced and where the seller has to prove that the defect was not caused by the customer. This also covers used goods bought from a dealer and repairs both for labor and replacement parts. Since Apple replaces full logic boards there's no way they can will be able to get around further defects (even different ones) regarding the logic board. Trying to reduce this liability to less than 6 months (eg. 90 days) will automatically void all possibilities for a potential reduction of the usual minimum liability of 2 years. However after 6 months the customer will if in doubt have to prove that the defect has been always there since manufacturing which in this case (especially if it's the exact same failure) shouldn't be too tricky.

     

    So here you're always good for another 6 months, potentially for 2 years. But anything beyond 90 days might need a lot of useless discussion and maybe even professional help. It's actually sort of interesting that no one managed to force Apple to cease those illegal practices like they did with new products all over the world map.

  • by moneybag,

    moneybag moneybag Mar 8, 2014 9:58 AM in response to D3us
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 9:58 AM in response to D3us

    D3us wrote:


    What's wrong with windows 7?

    It's at least as stable as Os X.

    They both have advantages and disadvantages.

    As does linux.

    If you can get a Windows laptop for half or 1/3th of the price of a mac, even outperforming it...

    Lesser chance of breaking...

     

    Don't get me wrong, don't wanna start a debate of which is the better one.

    That is more personal preference probably, both are fine.

    And if you calculate in the price and the redicilous repair prices...

     

    If you look at it financially, sorry, but they ar overrated in price/performance.

    Possibly it's just a habit. However, I'd been using Windows XP for 5 or 6 years before switching to OS X. After I stopped using XP, I couldn't get used to Vista. Vista seemed much worse and even less stable than XP - that was one of the reasons I switched to Mac (another reason was Apple Logic and especially MainStage).

    It may be that Windows 7 is better than Vista, but for me they look pretty similar - as if Windows 7 is the result of the development of Vista, not XP.

    I didn't have much experience with Linux but I used Ubuntu and it looked quite similar to OS X - but that's my opinion once again.

     

    The price is ridiculous, that's for sure. Plus, the customer service (or more precisely, the total lack thereof) is something I could have never expected from Apple. How come that with so many affected machines, with petitions, with spreading the information about this issue all over the Net, they're still being silent?

     

    It's not just our problem. It's the problem of Apple's reputation and production process.

  • by nexuz6,

    nexuz6 nexuz6 Mar 8, 2014 10:01 AM in response to abelliveau
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 10:01 AM in response to abelliveau

    I have not read every post here... But I had similar problems.

     

    My Macbook pro 15" early 2011 (ATI 6750 + Intel 3000) showed a apple logo with horizontal lines all over the screen at power on.

     

    Then the screen went gray/white and it was impossible to boot osx.

     

    Only Single mode worked. (cmd+s)

     

    It all started a couple of days after installing OSX 10.9.2 (dont know if this is related)

     

    I have no idea if its a coincidence or not but my fix have now worked for two days.

     

    1) Boot into single mode (press cmd+s at chime)

    2) move all AMD* from /S/L/E to Desktop

    3) Reboot

    4) Now I can boot into osx but with horrible graphics

    5) Install gfxCardStatus (Just to monitor what graphics card is used)

    6) move these files from Desktop back to S/L/E

     

    AMD6000Controller.kext

    AMDFramebuffer.kext

    AMDRadeonVADriver.kext

    AMDRadeonX3000.kext

    AMDRadeonX3000GLDriver

    AMDSupport

     

    7) reboot

     

    Everything now works as before.

     

    Maybe its all a coincidence or maybe it works for some of you guys aswell?

  • by D3us,

    D3us D3us Mar 8, 2014 11:11 AM in response to moneybag
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 11:11 AM in response to moneybag

    Stability often depends on the used components in a computer, in combination with the software/drivers of course.
    Built my system last quarter 2009. An Intel i7-920, normally runs at 2.66GHz, started with 12GB of ram, upgraded to 24 later.
    Has 8HDD internally, 2 External boxes, 1 for 2HDD on e-sata, the other 2 HDD on USB, not in use constantly, switched regularly.
    Runs Win7x64 from day one, Also, from install, it was overclocked to 3.8GHz. It runs 24/7 starting it's 5th year now.

     

    Used for some minor photo viewing, sometimes editing them a bit. Running electronic design software, cad  and 3d programs sometimes.
    Often a browser (opera) open with 5-10 woindows (sessions) containnig over 20-30 open tabs often. (I know, but when I start searching....).
    And the  regular mail, direct messaging etc apps, which are allways open too.

     

    Also gaming sessions for hours on it while all those things still run in the background.
    For hours, I mean 6-8-10 hours, sometimes even more in the past on some competitions.
    Never had any problems with it.
    The blue-screens or freezes it had, I can still count on 10 fingers. When it did, it was allready running for days/weeks, caused by programs eating memory.
    Like my webbrowser, opera, keeps eating memory, but I love the interface.

     

    Not saying this to convince you to switch. Mac OSX is good too and if  you like it, stick with it.
    But you really can't compare win7 with xp, which was pretty stable too, or other older versions.

    It really is very or even super stable.

     

    Win 8 however... sability wise ok. Also very, maybe even more, stable, secure et all too. But the interface... oh dear... I will never ever use it.

  • by ofan,

    ofan ofan Mar 8, 2014 4:03 PM in response to nexuz6
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 4:03 PM in response to nexuz6

    1) Boot into single mode (press cmd+s at chime)

    2) move all AMD* from /S/L/E to Desktop

    3) Reboot

    4) Now I can boot into osx but with horrible graphics

    5) Install gfxCardStatus (Just to monitor what graphics card is used)

    6) move these files from Desktop back to S/L/E

     

    AMD6000Controller.kext

    AMDFramebuffer.kext

    AMDRadeonVADriver.kext

    AMDRadeonX3000.kext

    AMDRadeonX3000GLDriver

    AMDSupport

    Thanks for the ideas, unfortunately it's not working for me.

     

    After moving AMD* files and reboot, my screen became a bit blueish, but I can still use it, gfxcardstatus shows that I can use discrete card without problems, I can even play a game but at very slow fps.

    After moving files back to /S/L/E the problem came back.

     

    So I guess the problem is either the graphic driver or there's fundamental design problems with the GPU chip.

    Also this problem only shows up after updating to 10.9.2, so it's just very recently.

     

    Now I need to stick on using integrated graphics card, but I really want to solve the problem, any other ideas?

  • by SaMiChi,

    SaMiChi SaMiChi Mar 8, 2014 11:49 PM in response to abelliveau
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 11:49 PM in response to abelliveau

    Early 2011 MBP • 10.9.2 • 2.2 i7 • 8GB

     

    Noticed mine acting funny a month or two back. In photoshop, I could see my files change with wierd filters that I didn't apply. Can't undo the glitch, which is horrible when you haven't saved in a while. It completely ruins a layer.

     

    This past week I've been getting blank colored screens. They are cause by various events. I've noticed connecting to my secondary monitor makes it freeze up. After restart, it will take a few before it will actually boot up. Otherwise it stays on the gray screen, with the fans speeding up. PRAM reset seems to help, but it could just be coincidence.

     

    This is really bumming me out, as I'm reliant on my MB for freelance. I hope this gets attention.

  • by hsmiths,

    hsmiths hsmiths Mar 9, 2014 3:42 AM in response to @Rohan
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2014 3:42 AM in response to @Rohan

    hi i found someoe n in pune he will replace the gpu put a new one and has done lot of repairs on mac 11000 is what he will charge 6 days to do name is prashant - 9923337005. i am planning to do this and check it he says there is 70 % chance its a permanent fix.

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