2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

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.

----------------

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.

Actually, the Geforce doesn't even show up in the System Profiler anymore:

My problems were also more serious than just graphic issues. My rMBP restarted when using the NVidia Card and mostly after that the screen stayed black after reboots. PRAM reset, SMC reset didn't work. Sometimes the whole system crashed and rebooted. All this on freshly installed 10.8 and 10.9. That's why I searched for a way to disable the NVidia Card from the start.

Thought I'd pass this along...my email to Executive Offices.

[Apple Exec Team]-

I have been operating without any video kernel panic issues since I picked up my Mac from repair. However, the fans are on almost all the time. This is concerning to me and I want it to be part of my case notes (Case #xxxxxxx).

To my point, I am simply surfing the web and using Microsoft Word right now and have the Mac sitting on an active laptop fan in a 72 degree room, yet fans are running at 5500 rpm.

This will be helpful for [Senior Tech Advisor]:

This is not normal behavior of a healthy MacBook Pro and is indicative of excessive heat inside the case.

Hi,

I have a late MacBook Pro 2011 with discrete graphics, and after finding out about this issue I've gotten a bit worried. I've noticed some slight graphical glitches (image attached) from time to time, and always thought it was just a software bug. Now I'm worried that this laptop, my main working machine, will suddenly die on me. I have multiple backups, but I really don't want my thesis work to be sidetracked by this problem. Is this sort of glitch the type of thing I should be worried about? I haven't noticed any glitches larger than this. They usually appear in the titlebar of terminal windows, if that helps to diagnose the problem.

I'm just curious if Apple is doing anything about this problem without requiring the user to pay for the repair?

I feel sorry that some people still don't understand the issue correctly , Here is an example with clear pictures for a HP DV7 motherboard, the first picture show the GPU removed and the old solder still on the motherboard , the second one show how dust and dirt form an isolating layer under the solder that attaches the GPU to the logic board, look at the brown residue on the soldering pads , the last pictures show you the same soldering pads after cleaning the isolating layer of dirt that caused that computer to keep shutting down and restart with no video display, after reballing the GPU chip and reinstalling it the computer is now working as good as new, that is the real cause of all the GPU failure on any computer brand or model, no manufacturer can prevent that from happeneing as long as there is dust in the air and a cooling fan inside the computer, what I say I prove with real pictures so no one can argue its reality or think that I am trying to defend a manufacturer.