Q: Issues with the AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics card on MBP 15" Early 2011

Moin, moin everybody,

after installation of Yosemite I regarded the same problem: Working with graphic intensive applications using the AMD Radeon HD 6750M card for a few minutes the MBP crashes or the display becomes stripes and grizzels.

The Apple support team was very pleasant but want nearly 500€ for the repair. My MBP 15":

  Model Name:    MacBook Pro

  Model Identifier:    MacBookPro8,2

  Processor Name:    Intel Core i7

  Processor Speed:    2,2 GHz

  Number of Processors:    1

  Total Number of Cores:    4

  L2 Cache (per Core):    256 KB

  L3 Cache:    6 MB

  Memory:    8 GB

  Boot ROM Version:    MBP81.0047.B27

AMD Radeon HD 6750M:

  Chipset Model:    AMD Radeon HD 6750M

  Type:    GPU

  Bus:    PCIe

  PCIe Lane Width:    x8

  VRAM (Total):    1024 MB

  Vendor:    ATI (0x1002)

  Device ID:    0x6741

  Revision ID:    0x0000

  ROM Revision:    113-C0170L-573

  gMux Version:    1.9.23

  EFI Driver Version:    01.00.573

The Mac is now 3 and a half years old and it is very ugly if I had to pay for such a problem. BTW the Apple Hardware Test declares a memory error:

Failure Code:    4MEM/61/40000000: 0x843c1218

I hope to find somebody who know how to change the card or to disable it by a software trick.

Regards

Mischa

Hi Mischa

You can disable the AMD chip with a free app called gfxCardStatus - however, it won't prevent it activating during a restart so it's only a temporary solution.

Since you're in the EU you can get the retailer to deal with the problem - see my comments on the previous page. In the UK the legislation is called the Sale of Goods Act: I'm not sure what it's called in other EU countries. It is surprising how many retailers are not familiar with the law. They may well simply refer you to Apple's warranty: if so, just persist. Apple themselves do acknowledge the situation. The relevant page from their UK site is http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/  and I guess they have similar information on other EU sites.

Good luck

Richard

Moin, moin Richard,

thanks for the tip with gfxCardStatus! It works fine as expected ;-) and the restart point is not a big problem. But since I use my machine to present some working results, it is just a work a round for working alone.

I will check with my retailer and reference him the UK page. Unfortunately is the situation in Germany a bit more bearish (2 years vs. 5 or 6 years). Replace uk with de in your link ;-)

Best regards

Mischa

In Germany it`s a problem, two years only or one more with apple care.

I wouldn´t waste my money for such a costly repair. I will wait till the macbook pro is complete broken and buy a new one, but not from apple.

Shame on them how they handle their customers.

I had the same problem 1 year ago and now I continue using my macbook only with the integrated intel gpu.

I hope Apple will find a solution soon!

Processore  2 GHz Intel Core i7

Memoria  4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Grafica  Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB - AMD Radeon HD 6490M

Numero di serie  C02F9940DF8V

Software  OS X 10.9.5 (13F34)

Hi erveryone,

I experience the same Problem. MBP 15" (2,2Ghz i7, late 2011) -   running in integrated mode only at the moment (via gfxcardstatus)

A few days ago strange glitches an stripes started to appear on the screen - a PRAM Reset temporarily solved that, but today, while streaming HD Video through Amazon, the whole system started acting weird and eventually froze to a blue screen.

Now my Mac had a pretty rough year, with 12hour workdays (Graphics Department), but it handled it all very good and without major crashes. Now that I use the mac far less often and for less heavy tasks than I used to, the GPU starts acting weird. How is that possible?

Is there any chance, Apple will acknowledge this as a design flaw and offer free logic board replacements?

Cheers!

WOW!!!!

Well I've got this exact model and have never really tested the graphics card as its a music use mac. After loading up new Yosemite OS it  has flagged up a sensor issue( a kernel problem which is as big of an issue with these models) which has then lead myself down the "Early Macbook pro" logic board issue.

The boards a clearly not made to a good standard resulting them not being "fit for purpose." In the Uk an item has to be "fit for Purpose" for 5 or 6yrs. Im going to my authorised repair agent and handing this back to Apple, of whom I have purchased over the last 4 yrs over £6000 of their product. I will update you on my success or failure. Having spoken to a apple agent over in the states It is clear their is a major problem and some people have had repairs done for free. It would be a great help if people responded with their own outcomes too.

good luck

It is a while since i faced this problem. Mine is early 2011, corei7 and 6750m.

afew weeks ago i finally decided to visit an authorized repair center. They asked for around 700$ for repair or 450$ for flat rate repare. The nice guy told me that apple has a free repair service for mid 2011 models and later. Mine is early 2011, thus too much money!

After being lucky for so long without any issues, my MBP 15 Early 2011 has finally started showing the problems everyone else is complaining about.

What is curious is that I only started having problems after upgrading to 10.10.1 and running VMs with Fusion 7.0.1 where 3D Acceleration is on.

Then again this may be only a coincidence...

Since I live in the UK, I reckon changing the logic board is going to be far more expensive than for everyone else in the whole world .

I too live in the UK and a chip reball ended up being cheaper and possibly longer-lasting (fingers crossed) than replacing the logic board.

Found a very professional company on eBay, look for A1286 GPU reball (seller: bga_repairs)

EDIT: no, I'm in no way affiliated with them...just used their service and found it very good.

The exact same issue I had and apple "genius" suggested me to change the logic board. I am paying 310 plus taxes for it. If this is a manufacturing issue, shouldn't apple be paying for it? my apple care expired 6 months ago.

Same problem here in Spain with a MacBook Pro 15" (late 2011) including a AMD Radeon HD 6750M.

After 2 years and 10 months my laptop discrete graphic card seems to be dead. Laptop hangs anytime it switches to discrete graphics, showing a blue screen, gray screen or just off screen.

Apple should take charge of this issue and cover the expense of reparing! Two years and ten months is not the average life expected for laptop which costs 1700 euros!!! I have been a mac user for most of my life and it didn't use to be like this. Apple has defintely lost its quality and reliability making this type of mistakes and not taking charge of them.

In my case, Apple has just lost a client and promoter forever and ever after.

Add my MacBook too in the list.

  Model Name:    MacBook Pro

  Model Identifier:    MacBookPro8,2

  Processor Name:    Intel Core i7

AMD Radeon HD 6490M:

  Chipset Model:    AMD Radeon HD 6490M

  Type:    GPU

  Bus:    PCIe

  PCIe Lane Width:    x8

  VRAM (Total):    256 MB

  Vendor:    ATI (0x1002)

  Device ID:    0x6760

  Revision ID:    0x0000

  ROM Revision:    113-C0170H-521

  gMux Version:    1.9.23

  EFI Driver Version:    01.00.521

I stated this is another thread but want to state it here. We need to overwhelm Apple with (polite) letters so they know just how common this issue is, and hopefully respond with a replacement program...

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Exact same issue here with me. Early 2011 with a 2.3 CPU and AMD GPU. Graphics issues for a few months and then died 5 months out of AppleCare's expiration.

I wrote a letter to Apple telling them of my experience and disappointment given their hardware is generally of better quality than everyone else, and included evidence showing how big of a problem this is. Considering the lifespan and the price I paid (over 3 grand), I could have bought a brand new UltraBook every single year and threw the old one away. Apple's response was a generic cut & paste letter that denies anything is wrong with the design and that they do not make exceptions for products out of warranty, even if the part is in fact defective or flawed. I can't say I was all that surprised, but I can say that I think many PC makers are providing better hardware support than Apple is at this point given most of them will address design flaws and part problems even when out of warranty...on laptops that cost 1/5th the price.

That's not the same Apple of 15 years ago that took the utmost pride in their reputation, and if they saw a recurring issue that clearly indicated a problem with a part, they would jump through hoops to make sure their customers were taken care of. It differentiated them from everyone else, and it was total justification of the premium pricing of Apple products. This will make me think twice about future hardware purchases given there are some very nice Windows laptops I can get for less than half the price, many which have the options of an extended warranty that go past the date that AppleCare does.

I recommend to others with this issue:

• Document your experiences with detailed descriptions, images, videos, service records, and communication.
• Write Apple a letter that is professional, direct, and provides full documentation, and send it via Certified Mail.
• Let others know of your experience and the commonality of this problem.
• Keep an eye on the two current class-action lawsuits against Apple regarding this problem, as it may result in a policy change and/or some type of compensation for affected machines.

I have the same issue - my Radeon hasn't worked properly since November.

Normally I can recreate this by attempting to run any OpenCL/GL application.

For example using Software Bisque's TheSkyX, or Stellarium puts enough load on the GPU for it to crash - one case I had 3 crashes in an evening before switching to the 2009 mac mini to take some astro photos.

[quote]

Chipset Model: AMD Radeon HD 6750M

  Type: GPU

  Bus: PCIe

  PCIe Lane Width: x8

  VRAM (Total): 1024 MB

  Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

  Device ID: 0x6741

  Revision ID: 0x0000

  ROM Revision: 113-C0170L-573

  gMux Version: 1.9.23

  EFI Driver Version: 01.00.573

  Displays:

Color LCD:

  Display Type: LCD

  Resolution: 1680 x 1050

  Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

  Main Display: Yes

  Mirror: Off

  Online: Yes

  Built-In: Yes

[/quote]