Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Wow, they added about 2500 signatures within 1 month. 

Yes

I don't know whether to be happy or not that so many others have had this same issue.

I have a 15" early 2011 Macbook Pro and had it fail on me while I was working on college finals a couple weeks ago! I was scrolling and all of a sudden the screen froze. I just forced reboot it, expecting to get back to work, when it showed lines on the startup Apple logo and then went to a blue screen. Needless to say it added a lot of unneeded stress.

I looked online and tried every possible thing to fix the problem (besides a clean install of OSX) and it sounds like that would be pointless anyway since it's obviously a hardware issue. I was able to boot into single user mode and at least check to see if my harddrive was okay, which it is.

I really don't want to give up this Macbook especially after investing so much in it. I might look into having the GPU reballed since that seems to have worked to an extent for others.

It's ridiculous that this is such a wide-spread problem and Apple is refusing to acknowledge it.

Add one more dead Mac to the list. Everything I've read here is exactly what I've experienced with my 2011 MacBook.

DId I read Apple recommended reinstalling the OS? A computer with a bad GPU? How's that going to fix anything?

For what it will cost to fix, I can buy a new PC. I know some diehard Mac users would cringe at the thought, but you have to draw the line on how much you need to spend on a computer.

Apple Australia have really stepped up to the plate with My Late 2011 MBP 2.4ghz 750gb hdd.  after they put two New logic boards in last week (first replacemant was faulty so did not even leave the store!! & then once I got it back with the second board it  only lasted 4 days before it had the same gpu issue,

I have the AppleCare extended Warranty. My system was purschased  May 2012,  Apple have organised a Brand New replacement Machine & the top of the line 15inch MBP Retina Display with 2.6ghz upgarde, 1tb PCIe-based Flash Storage upgrade, a Apple USB SuperDrive.  So asmuch as I was upset with My machine failing Im extremely happy with Apple's customer service, Only issue is a 2 week wait for the New MBP But im fine with waiting.

Mine just went out and will cost $310 to replace.  He said Apple may reimburse due to prevalence of the issue.  Anyone else got there money back yet?

Cheers

It would be great to have my MacBook replaces (especially since right now it is just sitting on my shelf)... But quite honestly I hate The new MacBooks... I don't get it..

You get a $2000 machine... But You can't touch anything inside it.. You can't upgrade or anything... It's as though you don't own the **** thing. Doesn't make sense to me.. I am really loathing apple at this point. Mostly because of this 2011 issue and also because of the way they are going with their new closed hardware systems.

Way to go apple. Bravo.

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KevJbradley wrote:

 

So I actually got my macbook back from the apple store tonight, which I thought was impressive (only dropped it off this morning). After taxes, the new logic board came out to $622.78 (in Halifax, NS, Canada). Outch. Still, the difference is huuge. Even from months ago. The whole thing is running about 20 degrees cooler, just browsing with chrome. And everything just seems to work better. Videos load better, pictures load faster, and OSX boots quicker (and that's with an SSD). So I'm just crossing my fingers that this will actually fix it for a decent amount of time. I guess time will tell. Good luck to everyone else!

An update, 1 week after getting the logic board replaced. The whole thing still runs cooler, although I feel like the temperature may be creeping up. I use Macs fan control, which kicks the left fan on low when the CPU core 0 gets to 60 and it's set to keep the temperature below 75 degrees (beyond 75 they go into high gear). The right fan is still controlled automatically with default SMC. I'm hoping that these settings will prolong the life of this board, but that's only guessing..

So beyond temperature, not much to report. The only thing I've noticed is that It has recently (only today) started showing a blue flash when the graphic cards switch. The old logic board NEVER once did this. I've heard about this with other machines, but I honestly don't know what to make of it. Especially since it started a week after I got the new board...

Wanted to chim in -

I installed Yosemite, and started having the problems described here. I thought it was related, but after formatting the drive and trying to boot from an external disk containing Mountain Lion, all I got was the blue lines.

I had the unbelivable misfourtine of having TWO Macs in my house go bad in the same day. I have a 2006 iMac who served me well and finally started acting up. It always had issues with its NVidia graphics card but after installing a fan booster preference pane it worked well for another several years. I think it is more than fair.

But my 2011 Macbook Pro 17" is fairly new. It was working fine until this week.

I finally managed to get it working by installing OS X Mavericks on an external drive from my sister's Macbook Air. I then booted from her Macbook Air via USB and used the commands shown here to disable the AMD drivers. I couldnt get to a command prompt using Ctrl+S on my mac, so this was the only thing I could think of. It worked! I got the problematic machine to boot from the external drive. I then user Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the drive to the internal fusion drive I setup.

I now have a machine that is kinda working. The graphics are terrible, because it still shows me on the AMD graphics but without the drivers. I can't switch to integrated with gfxcardstatus. It says I have an external display connected, while I don't.

I think the most important thing we can do right now is figure out a way to completley disable the AMD graphics card and force the Intel 3000 GPU. It will make my nice 27" LED Cinema Display useless, but at least I'll have a computer.

Any ideas would be appriciated.

here's another dead with the macbook pro 15 "in February 2011. problem started 2 months ago when graphic works for the screen became striped. yesterday even while on safari. nowadays no longer lights

From Barcelona (Spain),

I have a MacBook Pro Early 2011 with the same graphics card problem. In my case, the MBP cannot start because a blue screen appears.

I would like to thank you all users for communicating this problem.

Without this thread I would have never discovered that my problem applies for a lot of users.

Apple should take on action over this trouble.

Retired now my MacBook Pro 17' Early 2011 repaired at the Apple store in Rome at the "modest" sum of 499 Euros. After repeated blocks accompanied by screens such as those described in the post, I decided to do fix. In their opinion, I was just unlucky ...

Has anyone cleaned out their macbook pro of dust??

This could be the solution to your problems it appears.  I would love to know as my machine is running on integrated only card right now and I know over time this is going to burn the chip out eventually (using gfxCardStatus).

If you have had a clean out of your mac and are in the UK or european union I would like to hear how much you paid for that service.

Dead MacBook Pro 15" 2011 Early here as well. Replacement board is 560 €.