2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

even my Mac has the same problem

MacBook Pro 15-inch, Early 2011

Processor 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory 10 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 (original 4GB)

Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB

Software OS X 10.9.1

serial: c02fd6n4df91

The screen goes crazy, lines appear or I move the screen, and sometimes as the monitor goes to sleep, will not turn back ... more a disaster!!

apple support told me to change the graphics card (probably the problem is due to this) cost me € 400! crazy

Today I faced this problem again =(

The computer has freezed. I turned it off and then it keeps freezing on start... I tried a "safe mode" starting and then I get this:

And after that screen, this one:

After try restarting the machine a couple of times it back to normal... But once a while I have to pass through this process =(

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook Pro

Model Identifier: MacBookPro8,2

Processor Name: Intel Core i7

Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 4

L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

L3 Cache: 8 MB

Memory: 8 GB

Boot ROM Version: MBP81.0047.B27

SMC Version (system): 1.69f4

System Version: OS X 10.9.1 (13B42)

AMD Radeon HD 6770M:

Chipset Model: AMD Radeon HD 6770M

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

PCIe Lane Width: x8

VRAM (Total): 1024 MB

Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Device ID: 0x6740

Revision ID: 0x0000

ROM Revision: 113-C0170L-573

gMux Version: 1.9.23

EFI Driver Version: 01.00.573

Intel HD Graphics 3000:

Chipset Model: Intel HD Graphics 3000

Type: GPU

Bus: Built-In

VRAM (Total): 512 MB

Vendor: Intel (0x8086)

Device ID: 0x0126

Revision ID: 0x0009

gMux Version: 1.9.23

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

Same issue here as well... It happens when I switch to "fullscreen display mode" within Final Cut Pro. As you can all see, the screen freezes and splits the image, causing a system crash.

Seeing this many post and no response from Apple, it seems to me that this issue is falling on Apple's "billion dollar" deaf ears, I sincerely hope that I'm wrong and this major issue will be promptly rectified.

paul from south plainfield wrote:

If you are starting to have problems, there are many how-to's online on removing and re-applying the correct amount of thermal compound to your graphics chip and processor (again: if it hasn't completely failed).

True. After MONTHS of dealing with degrading performance and increasing ocurrances of black screens, blue screens, white screens, striped screens (you name it!), and 3 trips to the Genuis Bar (all hardware passing all tests), I decided to open 'er up and re-apply the thermal compound. To little too late, I suppose. The performance was a little better for a while then sank back to terrible. I guess the damage to the GPU was done. I got to the point of NEVER letting my macbook go to sleep and I NEVER shut it down. Ultimately I had to reboot and was completely unable to log back in unless I used asyncro's instructions to remove the AMD kext files and rebuild the kext cache. That works, but then the macbook always thinks it's connected to an external monitor. Besides, this is not how one should be expected to "use" a $2000 laptop.

Instead of waiting for Apple to step up and do the right thing I decided to skip APPLE (and the depot) all together and get the GPU replaced by a local shop. Maybe that's what APPLE wants. Yeah, this laptop may have been my last APPLE purchase. BTW - $220 to replace the GPU locally, not $330 for Apple to replace a faulty GPU with another faulty GPU (via the depot).

Hopefully this GPU replacement will get my macbook working again for a little longer until it's a reasonable time to replace it.

I'll post an update when I get my re-vitalized laptop back...

Update: Like I mentioned in the post above, I had my GPU REPLACED (thanks to nyclaptoprepair via ebay). I shipped my macbook to them (the entire laptop, not just the logic board), they replaced the GPU with an AMD 6750M:

Here is the OFFENDING Chip (removed and sent back with the laptop):

I Stress tested the laptop for 24 hours using the Heaven benchmarking utility (utilizing the Unigine engine - thanks to @D3us) and Prime95 (again, thanks to @D3us) on all cores simultaneously and the temperatures never exceeded 83 deg. Celsius. I've only had it back for a couple of days, but so far it's working like new. Only time will tell if the fix is actually permanent, but I have confidence in this machine again - I don't feel like I'm on borrowed time waiting for the next freeze/crash/bricking.

Considering that I did NOT opt for applecare almost 3 years ago, I feel the $200 repair cost was justified and reasonable - I know that I don't have to worry about this repair failing like so many Apple depot replaced logic boards. No, this does not change the fact that Apple should still do the right thing, but I wasn't going to hold my breath, not to mention the likelihood of Apple providing a permanent solution (like GPU replacement) is slim.

I realize that having this repair done third party may exclude my machine from any repair/replacement programs that Apple may institute, but I have a functioning machine NOW and no white screen/blue screen/no screen issues that ate up so much of my time. Perhaps I can get my repair cost re-imbursed should Apple step-up...

I will continue to monitor this thread and provide updates/input about this repair.

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

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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

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