Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Hello everyone,

I just add my own experience to this blog just to let Apple know about this well known pb about Graphic Card and screen bugs.. My computer is a MBP - Late 2011 - 2.2Ghz IntelCore i7. I bought this computer brand new, I took no Apple Care and as Graphic Designer, I have personal and some professional use for this computer. Eversince 5 month, my MBP has strong difficulties to switch on (I have to delete PRAM several times to have access to my desktop).  Otherwise, when i read videos on internet, launch sotwares such as Photoshop / In design or VLC, my screen just split and what should appear in the left is on the right. I have vertical stripes, colors bug, dissapearing mouse on screen and so on..

I just hope that "Pro" on MacBook Pro still means a professional quality, and professional afer-sales behaviour regarding the price of those devices.. Come on Geniuses, let's have a responsible and sustainable behaviour regarding your customers. My call to Apple Support brought me to the conclusion that i should change my motherboard. (almost half of the price of a new generation MBP)

I'm 32, and since I'm a young boy, (thanks to my dad), I'm very proud to say that I never, in my life, owned any PC, runned by a Windows system.. But today I feel like this "Apple community" is only a marketing strategy… Even if technology evolution is running fast, the life of a computer normally used shouldn't be so short, so please now admit your responsability.

Sorry for the possible mistakes, it's not my native language.
Best regards,

Well, it seems I'm in for round two of repairs.

I got my MacBook Pro back from the first logic board replacement about a week and a half ago--the Apple store I went to the first time seems to have a lot of similar cases coming in right now. That's both a good and a bad thing, I suppose...good because the more cases documented by Apple, the better, but bad because this shouldn't be happening in the first place. But I have to say I was pretty pleased with that round of repairs, because they actually seemed to know what they were talking about.

The second round was not so pleasant...I went to an Apple store in a different city where I am visiting (there's no Apple store where I live...sooooooo inconvenient!) and I really had to push my case with them. They didn't believe me until the screen messed up right there on the counter at the Genius Bar, while they were trying to help me perform backup. Since the replacement logic board failed as well, they tried to blame it on the memory--in the end, they are replacing the logic board, memory, display, and hard drive cable (for an unrelated but persistent hard drive problem).

When I tried to talk to them about there are a lot of people with this problem, they told me they are well acquainted...with the problem in 2010, and my model is 2011, so this is "very unusual". But, they were nice enough to let me use the in-store computers to do my work, since I have no other access to the Adobe Suite. I left this forum open on the MBP I was using when I left; it's unlikely, but maybe the person who was so adamant that my problem was "unusual" would see it...

Might try getting a GPU reball if it fails again.

Good afternoon I encourage all concerned to continue to give opinions and make this public until Appel failure is recognized, the union is strength and many of us have had to pay 600 € to resolve an error here as well desnimemos and we did not continue the fight, at least for the rest of potential customers know what type of machine will invest not feel cheated as nocotros.

I encourage everyone.

Here you have a website directed exclusively to this ruling stopping by and support her.

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Well this is sad that my first post on apple customer forums would be about this problem but here goes, this happened to me while using BootCamp Windows 7.Was playing a game then suddenly game was frozen and after that screen was horizontal lines in blue and black lines.Every time after the force reboot I tried to play the game it crashed with another color again and required another force reboot though in Mac OS X I haven't encountered any problems not even while playing Harcore video games or using Adobe photoshop for photo editing.But I am deeply concered about this issue.I hope apple do the right thing about this.

I too have this issue.  Same machine as the original poster.  Video periodically goes "split screen" (which also usually generates a message saying a restart is needed), striped lines, or blank.  It's been infrequent and resolvable by waiting for it to cool down a bit and restarting, but lately it's happening > 1x/day and sometimes requires multiple restarts.  I'm assuming that it's about to die and/or corrupt data.

Based on the litany of problems in this thread, I have a cynical guess as to Apple's likely response, but will make the attempt anyway.  This problem seems common enough that I will add my vote that Apple NEEDS TO TAKE ACCOUNTABILITY and issue a recall and/or free or heavily subsidized repair.  Given the premium that these devices carry, we as consumers expect high quality levels and great customer responsiveness... if Apple is willing to forego that impression, it's quite likely that many will look elsewhere for this replacement and in the future.

So, how about it, Apple?  Can we take care of this, globally, in a mannner befitting the brand reputation?

He said he was VERY familiar with this program and spent 5-10 minutes opening these case and checking the program for details and explaining very clearly to me how the program worked and what the next steps were. He says either way, he will be involved. He said Apple is tracking this problem, so after the Store runs the test and should it fail the test, he will get involved and let me know what will happen. He said if it is the GPU, then the support program will fix it..If not...It will cost me money.

One problem here is that Apples own hardware test they run to detect/diagnose problems doesn't exercise the GPU at all so they symptoms may fall through all the cracks.  Before the second replacement (funny enough it's now the fourth board according to the service notes -- go figure) I had to instruct the guys how to reproduce the problem because they only ran the Apple hardware test and connected an external display and just for fun the machine still kept working.

I'm not sure whether Apple is capable of properly accounting failures that are not detected by the hardware test and thus might be reported in many different ways...

I just got off the phone with one of Apple's Corporate Executive Relations people. She said "Apple's position has not changed: this issue is still not recognized as a manufacturing defect" and "There is no internal-only support programs list. If it's not on https://www.apple.com/support/exchange_repair it doesn't exist"

Those people unfortunately don't have direct insight into all the internals. I also had contact with one a couple of weeks ago and he was not only very helpful and got the second(!) replacement handled very smoothly he also said he would make sure to bump this topic internally and try to have someone look more deeply into all the information here and Apple internal information.

Actually that service was much more in line of what I'd seen many years ago and what I'm expecting from Apple...

Good news…

1. Whether Apple is being really nice or trying to cover up this problem I was offered an option.
2. Pay what they call a “Flat-Fee” repair for $310. ANYTHING that is wrong will be fixed, unless it is damaged caused by liquids (Not a problem as my Macbook has never gone swimming).
3. After repair I will have a 90 days warranty on the entire Macbook Pro.
4. Repair takes 3-5 days (including weekends) which means I should have it back by Wednesday at the latest.

Couple of problems with that:

1. $310 is what you pay in the US, in all other countries you will pay significantly more for the "repair".
2. Your 90 day warranty will haunt you night and day until your machine eventually breaks on day 95 where you probably will be happy to pay the $310 again I would presume.
3. My first repair did not take 3-5 calendar days but 21 (excluding the fact that I opted not to go to Apple directly since the "Genius" appointment would have been 10 days later rather than the next day with the ASP). Just the work to transfer the harddrive to a different machine, bringing it in and picking it up, and transferring it back did actually cost me more than the 650€ for the work itself. Now I'm in the lucky position to have a spare MBP available so the loss of productivity during the 21 days was only about 20% due to the much lower specced machine...Now imagine if someone really has a 100% productivity loss for that amount of time and/or penalties for not finishing work.
4. The existance of that problem significantly lowers the resale value of your machine. Only option would be to find someone dumb enough buying the machine for the fictional value it would have without this defect, however if you fail to mention your knowledge about that that might backfire...

Even with AppleCare extension there's nothing to be happy about...

I agree, it's kinda weird to call an offer to pay $310 for a fix that should be free "good news".

I agree, it's kinda weird to call an offer to pay $310 for a fix that should be free "good news".

If it only was a fix. It's a temporary stopgap measure with an extremely high probability of reoccurrence since the boards are mostly (all?!?) refurbished and as far as we know Apple is still not capable of automatically diagnosing that defect with their tools so they're sending out refurbished boards that have this defect already waiting to show up in their new housing...

I do not even have a problem paying for a proper fix outside of warranty. What I do have a problem with is wasting lots of time (and thus money!) travelling around, explaining the problem to service people, waiting for replacement, working without my tools only to receive a device without any certainty that it will work again for a long time.

Yeah, I understand that and I was just lazy to mention that.

$310 for a proper fix is the kind of money I'm also ready to pay, although I believe we're in the situation where we deserve a free fix/exchange.

I am still on the fence as to whether I will pay the $310 to have the MBP repaired in hopes that they will eventually do the right thing and refund.  As others have mentioned, if it is replacing the MLB (which has the GPU soldered on), then with time we are going to see the same defect/issue arise.  It's just a temporary stop-gap to slightly prolong the use of the MBP.  Those who have had the MLB replaced are still seeing the issue come up over time--I suspect it is dependent on how heavily you use your MBP and whether you run any GPU-intensive applications.  I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I certainly did not pay a premium for this product to only have last less than 3 years.  There are those who want to and can afford to buy the latest/greatest machines, but that is not the situation I am in--these are not disposable machines.  The specs on the 2011 MBP are still fine for me and should be fine for at least several more years if not more for my use.

I also see there are those who are looking into solutions to allow the machine to keep running only the integrate GPU.  While that does allow you to use the machine, I would highly suggest that you also submit a case to Apple--not just via the forums, but via a online Applecare Support Chat or with an appointment at your nearest Apple store.  For owners of the MBP with discrete GPU, there is a reason why we picked a laptop with a discrete GPU rather than just an integrated GPU, so you are in essense not getting the full function of your laptop.

For those who are browsing this forum and hoping to see an outcome from Apple to recognize this widespread issue, please contact Apple (again, either via the online chat, phone call, or visit to your nearest Apple Store) so that they cannot deny that the number of issues are indeed on the rise, and that this issue is really not typical of any laptop.  While Apple is indeed monitoring this forum, an issue simply reported here does not count as heavily as an actual support ticket reported.

Lastly, for those who do use the online chat option for support, please save a copy of your chat/transcript.  I suspect it will eventually come in handy to confirm that we are indeed getting the run-around and inconsistent answers.

Those who have had the MLB replaced are still seeing the issue come up over time--I suspect it is dependent on how heavily you use your MBP and whether you run any GPU-intensive applications.

No, not really. Mine came around after 110 days of rather light use even with properly applied thermal conductive compound, much earlier than the previous 2,5 years where the GPU was certainly stressed a lot more.

Thank you degger--appreciate the feedback and information regarding longevity of (or lack of) the MBP after the MLB replacement.