2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

It has happened to me too, mine is a 15" early 2011i7 MBP. It started with random lockups a month ago and last week i crashed and got a half resolution purplish apple logo with interlaced lines on startup followed by a purply-grey screen and no OS bootup. I did all the PRAM stuff, hardware tests(all passed ok) and even obliterated my bootcamp partition before I found this thread. I can get the MBP to bootup in safe mode and this is what I see:

The "Genius" bar quoted me $310 to replace the logic board after running their tests on it to verify what I already knew. There is no way I am going to pay apple additional money to give me another logic board which contains the same defect that will fail again in the future. I have read up on as much info as I can about the 2011 MBP issue as I am an effected user.

It has been speculated that apple switched from leaded to unleaded solder for this particular generation of MBP's, but I cannot find confirmation on this. If this is the case it would be a smoking gun to the failure point.

I may try to use a heatgun on the GPU to resoften the solder and reconnect the pins as shown in this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti8LqIHMnlQ

I may also consider doing it correctly and having the GPU raballed, but so far that seems fairly expensive too, as an example: http://www.mobilemactechs.net/Services/Services.html

From apples perspective I can see why they choose to ignore the "2011 MBP issue", it is clearly out of applecare warranty so the consumer is SOL, it's a 3+ year old product, they want you buying the new stuff. In my perspective people buy apples expecting them to not have as much planned obsolenses built in as their competitors do, but maybe that is just not the case anymore.

This whole experience has left me disappointed with apple, I use their products to edit video on final cut to make a living and when they don't properly support those products I can't help but search for alternative hardware and software. I will not recommend apple products to clients as long as this issue falls on deaf ears by apple computer.

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Hello guys!

I suffer a same problem since 2 months and it is very unsatisfying!

I tried to apply the different tricks for being sure after each restart it uses "Intel HD Graphics 3000" but I had many problems and after deleting all the AMD extensions instead of using "Intel HD Graphics 3000", it restarts on AMD And also Gfxcardstatus could not alter the graphic card because of erroneous beliefs about "external display"

Is any person known about this subject? Each time after a restart I have to apply the famous Heating method for resuscitating my MacBook pro 8.2, early 2011, 2.2 GHz i7, AMD 6750! Please help me to be sure after each restart, I won't put 30 min for using it!

I am sorry for my English😎

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Started with me end 2011,beginning 2012 (6 months normal use)

The effects on my screen are everytime different

I have re-installed MacOSX twice, but no:

Every time this happens the ventilator has been spinning before crashing....i use for the time being the integrated circuit only as i'm able to disable the discrete video-card...as soon as i swith on the the discrete, it crashes.....i also found that working from a external FW disk also prevents the problem...so it's as well probably heat-related...

So, finally I got my MBP e2011 from pro repair shop (not Apple). They replaced faulty GPU chip with a new one and now it seems, that computer works again. GPU was reballed with lead solder in October 2013, but after one month symptoms came back. I was advised (from repair shop, that made me reballing) to replace GPU chip, just for the price of a new AMD Radeon 6750m, that was 30€ and shipping back from Germany to Slovenia.

I am still figuring out under which OS (SL or Mav.) my MBP will last longer with a new chip. There are some differences between those two OS, how they are switching between integrated and discrete graphics. Any your experiences are welcome to share with me 😉

I also use Macs Fan Control app to control fans when to kick in.

I will still follow this thread and inform you if I will have graphic crashes again, but so far so good (two days now from repair).

This picture is a render from ACAD (1600x1200p). Before the GPU replacement, I was not able to produce this task without a graphic crash, white, gray, blue stripes, shifted screen picture etc. It looks now that i am able to do these tasks again.

samthing here..almost every model of Apple Laptop...starting form the 2000 Powerbook Pro , first Titanium to 3 aftrewards models of MBP.......so disappointed...so frustrating....

Mine is now 2 i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6490M....and this problem is since end 2011 / beginning 2012...so busy can't even miss my MBP for a week to get analysed....but at the moment can generate the problem at the moment i engage the discrete diplay driver......or freezes, or get blocks ..but most of the time it shows this:

Everything else has been ruled out, OS, drivers, dust...

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Hi folks,

same exact issues (and pics) on my MBP 15" 2,2 GHz Intel Core i7, Intel HD Graphics 3000, OS X 10.9.2, bought in early 2011-Italy.

So far it has been working well, in the last 2 weeks I'm facing the same issues you share; below there are 2 pics (very similar to abelliveau's ones..), need to force the restart, etc

It's pretty much clear to me that a huge amount of reports on the same issue cannot be a coincidence...tomorrow I'll meet the Genius Bar guys let's see what they say

For people who can not immagine what environmental factors mean to this problem, here are some pictures of one of the 2011 MBP I received for repair today, I will let you make the judgment and find one of the reasons your computers are overheating and failing.

Looks like the soldering failing is the most accepted theory, but there is something that I still don’t understand. Why just the GPU?

I am monitoring the temperature of my computer since I bought it, exactly 3 years ago. The temperatures of the CPU are always higher than the GPU. Working in Photoshop the CPU get closer to 85 ~ 90C while the GPU is 75C. In this case the fans are at 6000 rpm.

In the picture below I tried to show how the heat spreads through the heat pipes, and where the cool zone is. Of course the heat of the cpu would go through the GPU, but I don’t believe that it can cause any harm since the GPU is closer to the cooler side of the pipe. In fact, the GPU probably worsen the heat on the CPU side.

Is it possible that the solder compound (balls of solder) used in the CPU be different of that one on the GPU?

So My wife's laptop is also experiencing the same problem, i even opened a discussion about it

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6080875?answerId=25487278022#25487278022

It seems that this is a common problem with early MBP2011, apple really needs to resolve this.

Then again, i don't think they will. No company will admit that they failed when millions of devices were sold world wide. However, if the problems only appear 2/3 years since production, then Apple will have an ear full in the next year.

rguerran,

I found the paperwork for the repair I had reluctantly done back in April. There was a separate sheet that I received when they returned the laptop to me at the store. I'd be curious to see if anyone else has that paperwork which indicates that they reballed instead of replaced.

Here is my update from my trip to Apple store.

Bottom line I am paying another $310 to perform the exact same repair done 142 days ago. While the store employees were sympathetic to my position they could do nothing to offset the cost. They gave me a repair number and suggested I call 1-800-APL-CARE to see Apple would do anything for me - that call went nowhere as well. The store and Apple care kept saying they have never heard of this issue, I said you have support forum with over 589K views and that's only one thread, how could you not know?.

I started my Mac and sure enough five minutes into it screen goes wacky. I asked why would I want to pay $310 again to repair with same parts as before? Will I be here six months from now again? No valid response given.

Warranty on last repair is 90 days but genius suggested I check with my credit card company to see if they offer longer - they do not, 90 days there as well. Suggestion is for this redo I should use Amex as the warranty is likely longer.

When asked if I had purchased extended warranty when origianlly bought, I explained that Best Buy persuaded me to buy there renewing warranty which covers everything - but failed to mention that it only lasts 2 years, expiring ironically 6 months before my graphics attack.

I questioned rep on phone about the fact that graphics failing at two years has never happened on my other machines, and for it to occur again less than six months later cannot be good engineering - he essentially said stuff happens and if they here about it enough Apple will fix it as they have done with other things. Righhhhhhht.

I am in bind, I've got a thousand dollars in Adobe on this machine, I can't afford another $2K for a new MacBook Po, I spent nearly $2K on this machine, paid couple hundred for Best Buy support which expired, put in a new SSD for $400 because that's what seemed to be the issue back in December, paid $310 in January, and will pay another $310 in a couple of days.

Other canned response was to go to http://www.apple.com/feedback/ because nobody at Apple has heard about this issue but they will certainly fix it if it is deemed an issue.

Sad, sad, sad - I've lost a lot of respect for this company.

Here is my 15" MacBook Pro, starting to go haywire at Apple store. Crashed slightly hereafter. I'd show you my January pic of similar ...but there on my other hard drive, actually in January I was seeing concentric pink circles emanating from center of screen 🙂

..and this morning:

Everyone, just get it reballed. Pay using your own money and then never buy an apple product again.

Tell every one who will listen how apple treat their customers.

Wait for their 45.6 billion in revenue to go down as we all slowly start to switch and laugh.

Steve is looking down in disgust at every apple employee. Not one of them is doing anything. Not escuslating in meetings. Every one is being quiet.

Apple hate google and samsung. Lets give them record profits. Bye bye apple. Your rotten now.

I have the same issue 15-inch MBP late 2011, ran the Apple Hardware Test with out any problems detected. Previously I could work for a couple of hours, but next day I tryed to backup and it is completelly unresponsive. This is a real pain

Well, just got a call from a local service, they offered to replace 17" MBP (late 2011) board for about $600.

Does it worth the money or better to buy a new mac for next couple of years?

The screen below I got every time I try to boot in recovery mode. It doesn`t look georgeous!

Here's picture of my MacBookPro8,3 which I forgot to insert on previous posts:-

ABOVE is when the MacBook Pro crashes with a 'blue' screen (with thin stripes), when attempting to Power-up.

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BELOW is also when the MacBook Pro crashes, however on most occasions it's usually a 'grey' screen when attempting to Power-up the MacBook Pro (the colouring on the photo looks slightly bluey-violet tinted, however to the eye it is grey)

The other third main type of graphical glitch-anomaly experienced with system freezes/crashes, is one where it happens when on Desktop and/or in a program and basically the display either goes stripy or the desktop shifts from the center of the screen to one side, or there's dashes running down the screen and even a combination of all three.