Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Spot-On, as some Brits would say (I'm American, living in Italy, but worked 8 yrs in Bristol-and even then had trouble understanding the West Country accents of some guys who did work in my labs/home).

The real problem is that it does not matter if the board is new or "reconditioned" - it is a design flaw, pure and simple, which at the moment nobody seems willing to admit

Speculation is of limited value I know, but one would have to say that it is unlikely that an unused board would fail with a fault that typically takes around 3 years normal-to-heavy-use to appear. But of course, in an information vacuum such as this, its impossible to be unequivocal.

Did your paperwork specify 'new board' in writing? If there's a serial number on the 'new' board which would identify its date of manufacture you may have a case under the Trades Description Act. But this is all time isn't it? A factor which has been underemphasised in this whole debacle is the sheer cost in time and trouble for the hapless owner...

And that removal of my post which was not in breach has prompted an email to the admins at communityaccounts@apple.com with the chairman on CC along with the email explaining my 'breach'.

I am not holding my breath as Apple seem deaf to everything over the past year I have emailed, but hopefully some good will come out of it.

GavMackem wrote:

 

And that removal of my post which was not in breach

But that is not your decision to make, nor is it mine. The moderators decide whether or not your post breached the Terms of Use and what action to take. You are familiar with this system I assume?

A couple months ago I read about this.  I didn't think it would happen to my Late 2011 MacBook Pro 17", but I am happy to say, it happened last night!

Yeah no, the repair summary says "new or refurbished parts". There's a repair ID and the logic board has an item number, but I doubt it's worth pursuing :/

I don't think I'm going to bother trying to fix this laptop anymore. Any idea if it could be sold for parts? The battery, hard drive and optical drive have all been recently replaced too.

Still up and running here.

The overheat actually did something (good) to the machine.

That's 4 straight hours running a stress test in the discrete card!!!

     I am going to need a new notebook computer some point soon, and due to this whole situation, I can't put my faith in Apple anymore.

Csound1 wrote:

 

GavMackem wrote:

 

And that removal of my post which was not in breach

But that is not your decision to make, nor is it mine. The moderators decide whether or not your post breached the Terms of Use and what action to take. You are familiar with this system I assume?

I am very familiar with laws and rules as I am a mathematician and physicist by nature. Unfortunately the 'laws of nature' of this forum seem to be producing infinities instead of correct results.  So I can only assume these laws of nature are not being applied as they should by those who enforce these rules.

Hence my email to the administrators and the chairman.

I hope you too are familiar with the discrepancies I have only just realised have been applied on this thread for almost the last year too.

Thanks for making me smile.

But as a mathematician and physicist surely you realise it is simpler to obey rules as they are, rather than as you wish they were?

As obeying rules 'as they are' inferring these rules are not applied correctly? If I had a wish it would be that these rules are applied correctly - to everyone.  Besides there is nothing more distasteful to a mathematician and physicist than errors in calculations.  And if you watch that Feyman documentary I think you will find he had a refreshing way of interpreting those rules.

Though it's a pity that smiles and compassion seem to be remarkably absent when reminding other angry, tearful users of the MBP 2011 of their breach of these rules for solely their own transgressions for almost the last year.

GavMackem wrote:

 

As obeying rules 'as they are' inferring these rules are not applied correctly?

There you go again, my words meant what they said, not more, not less, and certainly not what you may have 'inferred'

You are having a conversation with yourself so I'll step out and leave you to it.

Good luck.

A quick update on my situation:

I finally took my late 2011 MBP to the Greek Apple Authorized Reseller (istorm), in my hometown (Thessaloniki, Greece) and after a day the called me and confirmed that it is an AMD Radeon failure. It seems to me that the technician was aware of the MBP 2011 issue but he declined to comment on that. He told me that officially for Apple this was not an issue.

I was told that the motherboard should be replaced. It costs here in Greece € 645 Euros including taxes (23% VAT, about 120 euros). That means for the motherboard and labour approx. 525 Euros. Of course it is too expensive and i decided to continue working with the Intel HD 3000 integrated card as long as the gfxCardStatus does the trick. If it begins to crash again with the integrated card too then i will have no choice but to pay 645 euros or buy an new machine.

I hope Apple will soon acknowledges the problem and replace the board for free as it is obviously a design or a manufacturing problem. It is unacceptable for a 2.000 euros machine to die in less than three years. My old G4 MacBook is still working!!

Like a physicist rationalising with a politician - choose a quote and interpret that instead of rationalising the entire context of the argument and a constant pattern of behaviour of yours for the past year. Such as one line out of a paragraph which flout the rules to angry users of our MBP 2011's.

You really should watch that documentary and so should everyone else who truly loves to solve problems and help people.  Which is why I thought these user communities existed in the first place.