Q: MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze

Estoy teniendo los mismos problemas con mi MacBook Pro de finales de 2011. Al parecer la mayoría de ordenadores de esta serie da ese fallo a corto plazo. El problema es claramente de la fabricación de dicho ordenador por parte de Apple, se están recogiendo firmas para que Apple lo reconozca y comience el programa de sustitución.

Ruego que firmemos todos los afectados:

https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/timothy-d-cook-replace-or-fix-all-early-2 011-macbook-pro-with-graphics-failure

Saludos.

我在2011年，花了差不多3倍于市场其它笔记本的价格，选择了这么款“15-inch, Early 2011”高配的MBP，现在沦落到只能打打字，看张稍稍大点图就会死机，只有经过强行重启几次，才能回到打打字的“正常”状态。 愤怒 + 仇恨积攒中～

Just another one, My MBP early 2011 (purchased July 2011) become to experiment freezes and glitches as cided, when running on AMD Discrete Graphics.

Itś a Shame

Wrong link

This problem come after me, after 3 years of usage - after upgrading to SSD and 16GB (2x8GB PC1333) to my early 2011 MBP, and had a fresh 10.9 installation.  Screen suddenly freezes and sometimes become blue.  Nothing can do other than a hard power rest to reboot the machine.

Surf the Internet for troubshooting, installed "gfxCardStatus" to force some programs like "hugin" that I open frequently, to use the "Integrated Graphic card" to solve the problem.

That means, I couldn't use the AMD graphic card anymore on a such a "Pro" notebook.  Made me sad.

My macbook died with same issue after 3 years of use.

Some links we can show when apple is telling us this is not a widespread issue… is a "feeling"… (this is what they told me on the phone by the way… that I have the feeling that something was wrong on the fabrication process…)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2011mbp/

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4637833?start=435&tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2768351?start=2010&tstart=0

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/14/apples-2011-macbook-pro-lineup-sufferi ng-from-sporadic-gpu-failures

https://www.facebook.com/MBPDiscretegraphics

http://www.macrumors.com/2014/01/17/2011-macbook-pro-gpu-glitches/

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/apple-in-the-enterprise/internet-reports-sugges t-possible-2011-macbook-pro-graphics-issue/

http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/timothy-d-cook-replace-or-fix-all-early-20 11-macbook-pro-with-graphics-failure

http://www.cultofmac.com/262861/early-2011-macbook-pros-dropping-like-flies-heat -issues-blame/

http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1lt38x/discrete_graphics_cards_in_2011_ma cbook_pros_are/

http://www.mbp2011.com

http://www.mactrast.com/2013/10/owners-early-2011-macbook-pro/

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/suddenly-bunch-early-2011-macbook-pro-own ers-running-video-problems/#!7EKx8

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/a-bunch-of-sour-apples-stem-from-2011-macbook -pro-glitch.html/?a=viewall

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33702-more-gpu-failures-on-macbook-pros

http://tidbits.com/article/14385

My early 2011 17" MBP just suffered its first graphics card failure today.  I was simply browsing a static website, the whole computer froze, so I hard-reset it.  When it booted back up, pink and grey vertical lines appeared, and the fans ramped up.  It wouldn't boot, so I did a hard shutdown again.  I couldn't even boot to my recovery disk, or a recovery USB drive.

One commenter here suggested to let the fans run until it overheats and shuts down, so that's what I did, and now it booted up again, but I now know that it's simply a ticking time bomb.  I don't even want to sell it now, because I'll be selling someone a lemon.  This is ridiculous.

I redid the thermal paste about 8 months ago, and I dust the inside of the laptop every other month, so there is no reason my laptop should be experiencing overheating issues.  I can't believe Apple isn't doing anything about this.

EEaudio08, in my experience (mine has had 3 logic boards fail), the failure has nothing to do with user processing load.  The overheating appears to be a result of the failure.  It might boot after PRAM SMC resets and letting it cool down for 20 minutes.  The problem does not originate from the disk, because a disk from a crashed 2011 MBP will boot another computer if transplanted into an external enclosure.  When I put the drive in an external enclosure or got mine to boot, verify permissions on the disk with Disk Utility revealed the GPURestartReporter file had the wrong permissions.  Repairing permissions didn't solve the crashing problem though.  (5th photo here i7 MBP 8.2 AMD 6750M 2011 Crashes, Red Horizontal Lines, won't boots)

As far as I can tell, there is no official word of the cause of the failure.  So it is best to make it Apple's problem.  Depot repair is $310, which is less than Apple Care.  The genius had mine 'fixed' three times at Apple Depot repair.  The warrantee period is 90 days from the last repair attempt, and time resets with repairs.  On the third repair the Apple Store Manager refunded the $310, telling me the 90 day warrantee will continue, telling me he knows I need it to work, that I might put the refund toward another computer.  I got a MBP Air without GPU.  I had bought a Mini on the first repair.  The 2011 MBP has been working a year so far.  I also bought a new power supply for it to try to stop the cycle of failures.  On the last repair, more than the logic board was changed, including the bottom case.

Good luck.

Yeah, my MBP 17" is failing much more frequently now - even though it just started yesterday.  Had to hard reboot about 15 times today, and some of those times I had to wait about 10 minutes in between to get it to actually boot back up.  This is definitely maddening.

Making plans on building a PC next, since I'd rather have 3-5 year warranties on all my parts than the 1-year warranty on my Apple products.  I've been an Apple user since my BlackBook in 2006, but this is definitely making me move in a different direction.

EEaudio08, I also thought about going to alternate hardware.  Searching images.google.com for GPU failure shows all sorts of PCs failing.  So my constraint was no discrete GPU.  I wanted Linux/UNIX.  So I looked into the Dell XPS, but the price is higher than the MB Air and reviews comparing them favor the Air.  I considered building, but felt the price of assembling an i7 PC plus the risk was more than the cost of a Mac Mini.  I got a Mac Mini with i7 (without discrete GPU) on the first MBP 8.2 repair.  I bought a MB Air i5 on the third MBP 8.2 warranted repair.  The i5 on the MB Air ran a lot cooler than I expected.  (I was afraid an i7 would be too hot, but the Air runs cooler than any laptop I have had).  I like them and neither has failed in the year I have had them. 

$310 depot repair is cheaper than another computer.  I do think an alternate computer is needed for the repair time(s).
 
I did get some android devices, on which I am playing with Linux, as toys.

When I google 'GPU Failure', I get results on the first page all about this 2011 MBP, actually.  My point in building my own hardware is that most GPU's (PCIe) come with multi-year warranties, whereas Apple's overpriced hardware only comes with one-year of attached warranty.  And if a GPU fails on a desktop I build, I can RMA it and replace with another one - not losing the entire machine's functionality, like the case with this MacBook Pro.

I am so upset that this computer basically only lasted 2 years (I got it in 2012).  It is failing more and more often, and I'm pretty sure within the week I won't even be able to turn it back on.

EEaudio08, after doing that search, click on "Images" option.  Then you will see what I am talking about.

Karl Ihrig, you are totally missing my point.  Buy an NVidia Titan card, and you get a three year warranty with it.  It dies within those three years?  RMA it and get a new one. It dies after those three years?  Buy another video card for much less than the cost of the entire machine.

You buy a MacBook Pro with no AppleCare, and the video card dies after one year?  The whole machine is now a paperweight.

I understand that GPU's fail.  What I don't comprehend is how Apple gets away with only offering a 1-year warranty on their products, and I especially don't understand how they're getting away with doing nothing about this thread's specific problem, when so many people have been affected.

EEaudio08, I see your point now that a removable card is easier and cheaper to replace.  That would be a PC rather than a laptop, like you said.  Another alternative is a Mac model with no discrete GPU, which is about half the cost. 

Entities get away with things until a judge says otherwise.  Lawyers cost more than laptops. 

My last response was deleted for "questionable information".  So Apple, what is your answer to EEaudio08's question?