2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Same issue here with my Macbook Pro Late 2011 in Singapore. Sent it to A.Lab here and after their diagnostic, confirmed it is the GPU faulty and required a Logicboard replacement at a staggering SGD$1400 which is almost 3/4 the price of a new Macbook Pro 13 Retina. I am not spending that kind of money on a repair that is only guaranteed for 90 days.

Apple deny any knowledge of this widespread issue and refused to cover the repair since I do not have Applecare.

Keeping my finger crossed for a recall even though I guess it is their strategy to wait until all the AppleCare of this faulty batch of macbook pro expires.

MacBook Pro

15-inch, Late 2011

Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB + AMD Radeon HD 6770M

OK, I got a board swap and I've avoided using a second monitor. As an experiment I opened Poser 8 and started to render a scene (one character, hi res textures). The fans started blowing and this appeared on the screen:

Well that's interesting. Previously I can't recall Poser ever triggering the fans or this error occurring, but I also never tried to render that particular character with that texmap before (and other test renders earlier that evening went off without a hitch).

Here's the email I just sent to Tim Cook:

Hi, Tim. I've been a happy Mac user for about 13 years. My business runs on Apple computers. Unfortunately, my otherwise wonderful 2011 MacBook Pro has developed (in the last year, and since upgrading to Lion) an intermittent GPU crash. I'll be working, humming along, and all of a sudden the screen starts becoming corrupted (see attached screenshot), the cursor beachballs, and I'm dead in the water until I force a shutdown by holding down the power button.

Between the time I lose rebooting and the disruption to my workflow, this is very, very painful problem. I've contacted support, and they advised me to bring the machine to a retail store (a 90 minutes trip each way) for evaluation. Based on everyone else's experience in the US, I would then be told I had to pay $300+ for a logic board replacement, and then the new board would eventually fail as well.

This problem is widespread:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/01/report-some-2011-macbook-pros-with-amd-gpus -experiencing-hardware-failures/

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/widespread-2011-macbook-pro-failures-reported -3497935/

http://www.maclife.com/article/news/some_2011_macbook_pros_suddenly_suffering_sc reen_glitches_crashes

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

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4766577?start=0&tstart=0

See how that last one has 196 pages!?

As you can imagine, this is a very frustrating situation. I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars and then have the machine fail again. Please make this right for us dedicated Mac users. If your engineers can actually fix the problem for good, fix our machines for free. If you can't fix the problem, give us new machines, or at least a serious discount on them. If Apple doesn't step up to support its expensive hardware, my next machine will be a cheap laptop running Linux, and my entire company will eventually follow suit.

Thanks for reading this. I would appreciate a prompt response.

Sincerely,

My Name

My Phone Number

Same problem here with a late 2011 15" Macbook Pro and AMD Radeon HD 6770M.

The laptop started glitching recently, after I upgraded to Mavericks and to 16GB RAM, when running GPU intensive applications, such as videogames or WebGL graphics, but also just doing regular stuff like we browsing. Most of the times it ends up freezing or crashing and takes forever to reboot. In some cases I've had to reset the NVRAM to do it.

Here are some bad pictures of the effect:

The computer passed all hardware tests at Tekserve, an authorized Apple service provider in New York. They told me they received notice from Apple acknowledging the issue, although it might not be true.

Split screen, white strips, japanese haunting ghost, you name it..

We need apple to acknowledge the design fault and issue a repair scheme.

It would be unreasonable to ask for a free repair if the failure is due to poor user handling, but surely it is a design fault, not simple wear and tear. Shouldn't apple have tested their product before releasing it?

Few weeks a go i took my macbook to technicians who did a discrete graphics card (AMD Radeon HD 6750M) GPU chip replacement.

It was working smooth for one or two weeks,then i got a hard freeze again, this time just with black screen. This freeze repeated in the same way few times again... while i was working with photoshop or even when i wasnt doing anything,just listening music. No graphical artifacts or something.

So, guys from that repairment shop and i started to believe that maybe its overheating or cooler/ heatsink (or whatever its called) problem?

Is it looking normal for you in my sreenshot? Its while i was saving big file in photoshop...this is when it should freeze usually.
And what do you think about all this situation i have after GPU replacement? I though this will be the end of my problems...but... Should i ask them to replace same chip again? But maybe problem exists not in the GPU ? Im lost, please kind people,help me with suggestions.

in the short words...

Im just lost... i replaced GPU because i though this will be the end for my problems and after one week i had similar issue...freeze,black blank screen and nothing to do... just power off,and on, and then its again working... and i had this situation few times in a week...mostly while working on photoshop and sometimes even doing nothing,just listening music.

I was the one who used MacBook Pro 15-inch. Late 2011 (MacBookPro8, 2).

And found problems with GPU AMD Radeon HD 6750M.

When switching to the Intel HD 3000 GPU from AMD Radeon HD 6750M, and remember to turn off, restart, and when the display cannot be used as shown.

Sometimes not be used for anything, and sometimes when you login to access it soon returned to its original state.

Restart first time

+Enter

and Restart again.

before login

when login, can't Press any key or click.

Mr.Arnon Manosagoon

<Personal Information Edited by Host>

Hi Guys, I joined the happy club of screwed macs just yesterday.

It is a mbpro 8,2 Early 2011 15'' MC721LL/A (with maverics).

It happened for the first time while I was launching Photoshop, the screen suddenly turned black. I forced the shut down and rebooted.

After I powered the computer back on I could see the normal gray screen with the apple logo in the center. As soon as the wheel started spinning the screen turned blue, and there was nothing else I could do.

Tried to boot from usb, but I got the same result.

The computer looks just dead. I haven't been able to boot since the first time it happened. I tried many times with no result... and it sounds quite annoying that after an expensive repair it could even run into the same issue again 😟

nisrak wrote:

Also, has anyone tried repairing the loose solder manually? I'd assume its very intricate micro-solder, but I'm just curious if anyone out there has had any luck...

If you can do this And then solder it back on to the logic board.:

(This is from a macbook pro 2008, only reballed to test something. Put a new chip on it instead of this one)

Looks like I'm one of the unlucky few Late 2011 MacBook Pro owners with this problem--just like the Early 2011 2.2GHz model, it has an AMD Radeon 6750M inside. There were always minor graphic blips in my experience, but none of them were anything moving the mouse or clicking the window to "wake up" the Mac wouldn't fix (it usually occurred after coming out of sleep mode). For the past 1 1/2 years I've been more focused on hard drive issues (my lemon of a laptop has been in for repairs 7+ times; eventually the hard drive and cable were replaced which temporarily fixed the problem for a few months).

However, last night my mac started having more serious graphic issues and hard freezing which required hard shutdowns to temporarily alleviate the problem...only for it to return even worse a few minutes later. Artefacts, grey screens, split/shifted screens, extreme blur, banding, etc. when performing even the most simple tasks, such as web browsing...

Now, OS X won't boot. I tried to recover my files through Bootcamp, but the graphics issue soon spread to that partition as well, and Windows won't boot either. Within an hour, the problem escalated to the point I'm convinced the graphics card is toast. Aside from the Recovery HD and Windows's Safe Mode (discovered this when I decided to run the usual disk tests, which came up clean), my MBP is brick'd, which means I can't used the gfxCardStatues workaround. Lovely.

At least I can say for certain it's not OS X Mavericks at fault, because I still have OS X Lion.

I have booked a Genius Bar appointment for this weekend, but...thinking back to how many times the "genius's" advice for my hard drive woes was just a band-aid tactic and didn't actually solve the problem, I have my doubts as to whether or not they'll actually help with the graphics card/GPU. I am so, so glad I bought AppleCare so I haven't spent a fortune repairing my MBP yet, but lately I wonder if the beautiful hardware is really worth having to bring it in for repairs so often. I do a lot of heavy graphics work (Photoshop, After Effects, Maya, 3DSMax, etc.) so I want a portable computer that can handle these tasks somewhat smoothly, and now since I've read that sometimes getting the logic board replaced won't help, I just want a computer with graphics that work.

This is my first experience with OS X, and I'm feeling inclined to switch back to Windows. At least I can fix the problems that OS has by myself...

Mi caso Nº 56****187:

MacBook Pro 15 Early 2001

Comprado en Apple Reseller de Oviedo (España) en Marzo 2011.

Primeros fallos de pantalla en Noviembre 2013
Primer contacto appelsupport en Enero 2014

Intentos con formatear el HD, Reinstalar OS, Recuperar Datos… Tiempo perdido.

Diagnostico en Servicio Técnico de Apple: Fallo del dispositivo Gráfico.

Propuesta: Cambiar placa. Presupuesto 595€

Apple no acepta responsabilidad.

Mi opinión: Han fallado por envejecimiento las soldaduras del chip.

APPLE DEBE HACER ALGO. QUIEN RECLAMA CONMIGO? EXISTE ALGUNA LISTA? DONDE? GRACIAS

My case No. 56****187:
MacBook Pro 15 Early 2001
Bought at Apple Reseller of Oviedo (Spain) in March 2011.
First screen failures in November 2013
First contact appelsupport January 2014
Attempts to format the HD, reinstall OS, Data Recovery ... Lost time.
Diagnostics Apple Technical Services: Graphic device failure.
Proposal: Change board. Budget € 595
Apple accepts no responsibility.
My opinion: They missed chip aging welds.
APPLE TO DO SOMETHING. DOES A COMPLAINT LIST EXIST? WHERE?

THANKS

<Personal Information Edited By Host>

Hi

Are there updates on this situation yet?

I am experiencing ALL of the symptons described in this thread, mainly these

1. System hangs with graphics distortion

2. Hard power off and on, but unable to get past grey screen

My Apple Care is estimated to expire on 24 March 2014. It is just bizarre that so many users of the early 2011 MBPs are suffereing the same symptons as well, but no response from Apple as yet.

Just before a crash, the following message is occasionally logged in system.log

$ zgrep -C12 "GPU hang" system*gz | tail -n12 | sed 's/G.*\-Macbook\-Pro/Macbook\-Pro/g'

Feb 23 19:06:09 Macbook-Pro kernel[0]: Trying restart GPU ...

Feb 23 19:06:09 Macbook-Pro KiesViaWiFiAgent[295]: CPU Usage = 0.0

Feb 23 19:19:25 localhost bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME 1393145365 0

Feb 23 19:19:42 localhost syslogd[22]: Configuration Notice:

ASL Module "com.apple.appstore" claims selected messages.

Those messages may not appear in standard system log files or in the ASL database.

Feb 23 19:19:42 localhost syslogd[22]: Configuration Notice:

ASL Module "com.apple.authd" sharing output destination "/var/log/system.log" with ASL Module "com.apple.asl".

Output parameters from ASL Module "com.apple.asl" override any specified in ASL Module "com.apple.authd".

Feb 23 19:19:42 localhost syslogd[22]: Configuration Notice:

ASL Module "com.apple.authd" claims selected messages.

Those messages may not appear in standard system log files or in the ASL database.

My system info for reference

Hey guys, just wanted to update you on my experiences again:

February 23rd: MBP started showing signs of the GPU failing. Attempted a reflow. Everything worked great until this fell out.

February 24th: Took the MBP to the Apple Store here in Phoenix, AZ (Arrowhead). They sent it off for flat rate repair. Ships overnight.

February 25th: Repair Depot reports repairs are complete, overnights it back to Phoenix.

February 26th: Apple sends me an email to come pick up my Macbook Pro. Here I am at home typing this up.

So despite having taken a heat gun to my own board and frying it, Apple still replaced the logic board for $329 ($310 + Tax). So far so good, though later tonight I'll still take it apart and look at it. I want to replace the thermal paste.

Early Macbook Pro 2011 w' matte screen. Original OS, only updates have been RAM to 16GB.

Replaced Ram back to original 4GB, ran all trials - same problem.

Daily Photoshop & After Effects work.

Same Kernalling Issues varying levels of broken displays (a few attached).

Out of Warranty.

This has happened to three of my machines now, 2 Tower G5's (2005 & 2008), each 1-4 months out of old apple care warranty, each one's HD or boot disk failed, the second Tower, apple technician couldn't even diagonose what the problem was, each one had to be recycled due to the expense of the parts to replace and not be guaranteed a fully working machine)

I've already switched to an Android Phone, but the actual work machine isn't quite as easy to do with Software etc.

Purchased: Bondi Apple Store, 2011.

Another Failed Apple Product...!

Sad to say that I have also joined the growing number of individuals with MBP's plagued with this issue.

The machine I have now is the MBP (15", early 2011, i7, discrete AMD 1GB). The laptop worked great for the first year or so but in the past year I noticed that there were times when I would get the dreaded "spinning beachball" lockup which required me to do manually power-down and restart. I didn't think much of it at the time but after doing some research online, it seems like it might be related to the issues I am seeing with the laptop today.

Just to give you a little background, I use OSX as my primary OS and maybe use Bootcamp to run Windows 7 Professional maybe about 10-15% of the time. When I run Windows 7 using Bootcamp, I would notice that the machine runs a bit warmer, the fan is on more frequently, and the battery life is shorter. I figured this was due to how Bootcamp works (defaulting to the discrete GPU and not allowing the switch to the integrated GPU). When I use the machine, it is typically elevated on a computer stand to allow for adequate ventilation.

Here is where I am now seeing issues. I recently tried to run Windows 7 using Bootcamp and saw the screen show (as I can best describe it) discoloration and distortion. I thought that there may have been something wrong with Windows 7 and shutdown to restart using OSX. When I booted with OSX, I saw (as I can best describe it) banding, distortion, flickering, and screen shifting. I also noticed a few times where the screen would go completely dark during use, or where the display would remain dark during start-up even though I could hear the laptop running. This was a few days ago. As of yesterday, my machine is stalling at a grey screen (for OSX) and a complete black screen (for Windows 7 via Bootcammp).

No Applecare for me--did not expect a pro/premium laptop to die out in less than 3 years. With the growing number of incidents, I hope that Apple does the right thing as a company to stand behind its products and offer repairs or replacement.