2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

Apple's obligation under the law in most states was for one year.

Dutch law sets higher standards: products are bound to satisfy the standard of comformity, which Apple has repeatedly ignored: Apple's guarantee policy is illegal in The Netherlands, which makes Apple a scam, officially.

Apple further demonstrated by its own actions that replacing the producation main logicboard with another producation main logic board produced the same failure and failure rate.

Nonsense!

When the logic boards were replaced (typically with remanufactured and retested logic boards, as is standard practice in MANY industries) the problems were fixed. They were shown to be fixed by those boards passing the same test that had condemned the previous board.

Your saying all those boards are defective does not make it so.

So, we agree that the notion of the Apple Discussion Forum Terms of Use is moot?

Not at all.

There was a complaint that there was no adjudication or appeal or right of representation when Apple decides your post violates the Terms of Use.

I made the assertion that you don't get a right to appeal, you are a guest here.

Dutch law sets higher standards: products are bound to satisfy the standard of comformity, which Apple has repeatedly ignored:

Then you should sue them in courts in the Netherlands, and if what you say is found to be correct, you would win.

failed to find near future failures

I worked in diagnostic software development for many years, and I always dreamed of being able to do that. At this writing, only the talking screen on the IBM Watson commercials can do that.

You seem to live in a world where that is expected. I think I might like to visit there occasionally. Could you send me some of those 'funny mushrooms" you seem to be ingesting lately?

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

In other words: Apple chickened out.

Ridiculous.

When a court says you appear, you MUST. If you do not, they issue a warrant for your arrest.

The response statement above assumes facts not yet in evidence.

Apple and the legal firm representing the class action effort were free to negotiate a settlement any time up to and including the court date. If the folks bringing the class action suit were satisfied or for any other reason declined to bring the suit forward all efforts cease, the court is not involved. History recorded the announced of the extended warranty and the cancelation of the class action suit were linked in time.

The statement about once the court demands appearance is also partially true. There are consequences for noncompliance, in the case of a corporation arrest is probably not possible, who is arrested? A corporation is an entity that acts like a person.

at a consistent rate

and after a generally consistent time period?

Could you please cite the source for your statements?

And no, I am not interested in your anecdotes based on one or two Macs when the population of all Macs sold in a year is about 20 million -- we had that discussion pages ago.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

failed to find near future failures

I worked in diagnostic software development for many years, and I always dreamed of being able to do that. At this writing, only the talking screen on the IBM Watson commercials can do that.

You seem to live in a world where that is expected. I think I might like to visit there occasionally. Could you send me some of those 'funny mushrooms" you seem to be ingesting lately?

I traveled the world as a Test Engineer for over 20 years creating testing that found problems like solder related issues with Apple's 2011 MacBook Pro main logic board. The reason I traveled so much is because teams of people before me failed to find the solution and my reputation was known.

I didn't dream about being able to it, I spent years of long days figuring out how to find future problems and then did it for customers worldwide.

jimoase wrote:

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

failed to find near future failures

I worked in diagnostic software development for many years, and I always dreamed of being able to do that. At this writing, only the talking screen on the IBM Watson commercials can do that.

You seem to live in a world where that is expected. I think I might like to visit there occasionally. Could you send me some of those 'funny mushrooms" you seem to be ingesting lately?

I traveled the world as a Test Engineer for over 20 years creating testing that found problems like solder related issues with Apple's 2011 MacBook Pro main logic board. The reason I traveled so much is because teams of people before me failed to find the solution and my reputation was known.

I didn't dream about being able to it, I spent years of long days figuring out how to find future problems and then did it for customers worldwide.

Your self promotion means nothing. I'm sure there are many participating here who have far more experience and qualifications than what you say you have. Anyone here can say anything about their experience and qualifications since there is no way to verify the statements.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

at a consistent rate

and after a generally consistent time period?

Could you please cite the source for your statements?

And no, I am not interested in your anecdotes based on one or two Macs when the population of all Macs sold in a year is about 20 million -- we had that discussion pages ago.

"Could you please cite the source for your statements?" according to you Apple one of the sources. That source, Apple, decided to institute an extended warranty program as a result.

BobTheFisherman wrote:

jimoase wrote:

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

failed to find near future failures

I worked in diagnostic software development for many years, and I always dreamed of being able to do that. At this writing, only the talking screen on the IBM Watson commercials can do that.

You seem to live in a world where that is expected. I think I might like to visit there occasionally. Could you send me some of those 'funny mushrooms" you seem to be ingesting lately?

I traveled the world as a Test Engineer for over 20 years creating testing that found problems like solder related issues with Apple's 2011 MacBook Pro main logic board. The reason I traveled so much is because teams of people before me failed to find the solution and my reputation was known.

I didn't dream about being able to it, I spent years of long days figuring out how to find future problems and then did it for customers worldwide.

Your self promotion means nothing. I'm sure there are many participating here who have far more experience and qualifications than what you say you have. Anyone here can say anything about their experience and qualifications since there is no way to verify the statements.

I agree, what we did yesterday means little today, that is why companies blindly hire anyone for any job.

As you said there are probably many people with my experience and qualifications. Unfortunately, from the conclusions reached by Apple's internal monitory process, Apple didn't assign them to the 2011 MBP project or problem.

We are here to solve how to get a 2011 MacBook Pro to function for a period of time considered appropriate for such devices, say for something greater than MTBF of 10,000 hours at 95% of maximum performance. Like you said no one can verify anything said here. I had my machine repaired at a private facility in 2013 then conducted testing, that while connected to an external charger, reduced my battery charge from 100% to 65%. The machine was hot. I have been using that machine daily since with no failures.

The charge thing really surprised me. The machine had just come back from repair and I was using a charger for an old MBP which I think has a lower wattage rating then the charger that came with this 17" model. That battery died about a year later.

Please question with boldness ... As a result of bold questioning we know Apple had an internal process that discovered the problem. That many people have the skills needed to fix this kind of problem before it gets into production. We know that because of abnormal failures Apple's extended warranty program without producing a working solution before the product was declared obsolete.

totofrofirenze wrote:

I have probably been deleted from this forum for a few days, while I sent my macbook pro 15 "2011 for repair at an authorized apple center, the estimate is: 180.00 euros for the replacement of the graphics card and 160.00 euros for the repair of the short for almost € 400.00 I am undecided, do you have such important repairs?

Like you many of my responses have been deleted and my access has been block many times over the last few years, including recently. I have read the list rules and consistently followed them. Unfortuately some who monitor this discussion have used their absolute power "sole discretion" rather than the list rules to curtail criticism of Apple behavors in getting this abnormally short life problem with the graphic processor fixed.

Facts are the problem continues to this day on 2011 MBP machines that have been repaired multiple times by Apple's certified repair team. Apple has recently deemed our machines obsolete and no longer their concern without demonstrating the ability to make a repair that meets Apple's standard for normal operation of this kind of device as demonstrated by the frequency of multiple repair comments by Apple customers responding to this list.

This let down of standards is not the characteristics demonstrated by Jobs's when he called asking about our experiences and asked for new orders of the first MacIntosh computers. Had Jobs censored our comments then we probably would not have this discussion list today. Censoring does not fix the problem, non customers are also silent.

Will Apple fix the graphic problem on the a 7 year old machine? Apple has not demonstrated that ability to this day and not likely to put any effort to do so because it does not make business sense. Apple customers, who are aware of this problem and Apple's behavor, we will make choices accordingly.

There are several discussion sites with a growing list of MacBook Pro issues indicating that Apple has not learned the lessons of history and is experiencing the results. It has been years since the iMac was center stage because of reliability issues, those folks seem to have learned the lessons of history.

Premium Product =/= Premium Price.

Our home iMac (early '08) has lasted for five, going on six years now.... It hasn't skipped a beat and runs everything I need beautifully on two screens (native and 22" HP w2207 monitor). I truly have never had an issue with this model and it works terrific. I bought AppleCare for it at the time of purchase, and never used it. My wife's white unibody MacBook (2009) has been used constantly, every single day in her classroom--it hasn't skipped a beat, and has not needed repair since she got it.

The punch line here is that both the iMac and the MacBook each cost approximately 1/2 (if not less) of what my then-premium Early 2011 MacBook Pro cost. I realize technology is a gamble, much like automobiles, but one cannot help but notice the irony of this.

The unit failed on me, quite literally, overnight and halted my workflow in VMware. Not pleased. This will be the second logic board replacement for this computer since I bought it; it is covered under AppleCare but that doesn't help for lost time without the machine.

This happened when I booted my MBP last week, without warning....

Then it started doing this once I got logged into OS X.

....and then it would lock up with a double-image. You get the point.

Shutting down....

Anecdotally, it has now been five days without my MBP, I have yet to receive a telephone call or update from the local Apple Store regarding the machine. The repair status on their website has been unchanged: "Repair in Progress." I have no idea what this means--there is no estimated time of completion or notes as to what exactly is going on.

I'm certainly trying to be patient with Apple about this but not even my car dealership takes this long for a repair, nor does it leave me hanging as to when to expect it back.

I removed my HD entirely, and was able to get this screen when attempting to boot up. Nothing was plugged into the machine, and no DVD was in the optical drive:

I got this screen when booting from an external Firewire HD in safe mode. The graphics within the pink bars were moving around rapidly:

I was also able to boot with no symptoms at all, both from the external drive (without gfxCardStatus installed), and Apple's original system DVD.

Update.

Just picked up my MBP from the Apple Store. They replaced the main logic board and the display to the tune of $1,036.73. 😮 I have AppleCare so there was no cost for the repair. I asked the genius who brought the MBP out to me what, if anything, caused this, and if it is/was common for my MacBook? Very nice dude, he said that he doesn't see it very often--if anything, it's usually a horizontal bar across the screen. "It's rare to see main logic boards go out but it does happen."

I've been running the MBP almost full-steam for the past hour and haven't seen so much as a blip, either in VMware (GPU intensive) or in anything else.

If past experience is anything, Apple has reimbursed people in the past for repairs performed prior to any announced repair program; I would suggest getting the computer fixed and save the receipt--just in case.