Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Just officially adding to the thread...

2011 Macbook Pro

Running Lion 10.7.5

2.0 GHz Intel Core i7

AMD Radeon HD 6490M

Current Status:  Not worth the aluminum it is housed in.

Actions:  Will replace the logic board at $611.80

Can only hope:  Apple owns up to this problem due to faulty engineering or whatever and reimburses those affected.  This has certainly not met my expectations for performance

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Hi Kayazuki,

Not sure I agree but as Apple is completely stonewalling on this topics anything is possible....

My "opinion" is that I have confirmation from an Apple Service centre that my logic board needs replacing due to a GPU issue (their words).  This is the second such "repair" needed and this "repair"  failed within 7 months just outside AppleCare (or AppleDoesntReallyCare as it is becoming known). The fact that I have this documentation from Apple service  that shows the logic board "is" broken and needs to be replaced should be evidence enough to take part in the re-call if Apple ever have the decency to start one.

What I do with the device Apple now has certified it is not working is my business and does not change the fact that the Logic board has failed and the device is defective

I will not pay Apple 550UK Pounds to fix it and will go the re-balling route.

In principle that does not change the legal status of the machine which should still eligible because the logic board inside it does not work according to Apple so doing anything with it cannot change the fact that Apple say it needs to be replaced .

Yes .. I posted this a few days back .. as someone responded then ....

Made me laugh ... if only bitterly!

eris23 wrote:

Hi Kayazuki,

...

 

I will not pay Apple 550UK Pounds to fix it and will go the re-balling route.

 

In principle that does not change the legal status of the machine which should still eligible because the logic board inside it does not work according to Apple so doing anything with it cannot change the fact that Apple say it needs to be replaced .

Hi Eris23!

But as soon as your machine works, you maybe can't show a failing machine there, which might opt you out of the chance to get a new one..?

Depends on whether they want to see that machine again on the recall, or if they'll only ask for the older report..? No idea.. Would be a gamble I guess..

When I think longer about this, something that was mentioned before really sounds very logical;

From some moment in time Apple apparently decided to change the soldering method because of environmental issues.

As it seems, with this choice, they changed from old-fashioned strong (tough!) soldering to totally brittle soldering.

Those GPUs get seriously hot and the down side of heating-cooling-heating-etc cycles is possible expansion/shrinkage of the GPU, even if only a tiny bit.

Tough connections can handle that forever because of the tough/flexible property of lead.

The lead free connections seem to be able to handle only so many "movements" and simply break off at some point simply because of fatigue.

As the broken connections are still made of highly conductive material, just toughing MAY be enough to make connection, but any further expansion/shrinkage may cause a disconnection in any of the joints of the GPU. Since random connections in an electrical circuit are being broken (there are a lot of connections under a GPU) strange, slightly varying problems occur.

This does not show the whole MBP is trash, but that they made a serious mistake in a key component: The soldering... Which may affect the CPU as well maybe..? When reballing, maybe it'd be good to do both the GPU and CPU..?

Apple could only do 3 things here I think:

1) Acknowledge the problem + Give everyone a brand new MBP. (Both things seem very unlikely to me.)

2) Acknowledge the problem, do a global call back and reball all GPU's internally. (Still a low chance, since acknowledging a huge problem doens't seem to be the top prio for Apple and also: To do a GOOD job, it seems -altho I lack the specific knowledge to know this for sure- Apple might have to revert back to lead based soldering, which they maybe aren't allowed to do, putting their back to the wall?)

3) Not acknowledge the problem forever because all of us realise it's not correct, but the BEST thing to have our GPUs reballed by people that know how to make good, strong, durable soldering connections (= not Apple), so we turn our Macs into a better device than Apple can make them these days...

Personally I'm seriously wondering: If this happens NOW to all the 2011 MBPs after Apple switched to lead free soldering, what does that mean for all the gazillion MBPs/iMacs/iPhones/iPods/etc they've produced ever since this soldering change.......?

kayazuki wrote:Hi Eris23!

 

When I think longer about this, something that was mentioned before really sounds very logical;

From some moment in time Apple apparently decided to change the soldering method because of environmental issues.

 

Apple stopped using leaded solder because it is the law, not on some whim.

kayazuki wrote:

Personally I'm seriously wondering: If this happens NOW to all the 2011 MBPs after Apple switched to lead free soldering, what does that mean for all the gazillion MBPs/iMacs/iPhones/iPods/etc they've produced ever since this soldering change.......?

If it does it will affect every other consumer device sold in the EU since 2006. Regardless of who makes them they are all made using lead-free solder. the law is the same for all manufacturers.

I seriously doubt that 100's of billions of things are all going to start breaking.

Agreed ... if it is due to the lead free solder the issue is not the solder  .. it is the badly designed device from Apple / AMD that didn't take account of the different thermal stresses of lead free solder.

The MPB Pro 2011 was the first to be affected by the requirement to stop using lead in soldering.

Because it was the first, Apple had not perfected the new soldering material being used.

philux wrote:

 

The MPB Pro 2011 was the first to be affected by the requirement to stop using lead in soldering.

 

Because it was the first, Apple had not perfected the new soldering material being used.

The law came into effect in 2006, the 2011 model was not the first, please do some basic fact checking.

Yes, clearly the change to lead free solder is not of itself the cause, but it may be a causal factor. Unfortunately there is hardly any real information in this interminable thread to help out. 6 different Macs (at least) are being referred to in the thread rather than the 1 of the title, there is no visible pattern here unfortunately.

But sticking to the machine in the thread title it does appear that a higher proportion than expected are failing. And it also seems that heat may be playing a part. I believe that it is going to turn out to be an unfortunate confluence of factors behind this issue, and the information needed to identify them is scarce on the ground.

Clearly you have done no research or are just a troll, Apple was exempt from this law for 5 years as some businesses had no viable solutions until some new ones had been designed and tested.

philux wrote:

 

Clearly you have done no research or are just a troll, Apple was exempt from this law for 5 years as some businesses had no viable solutions until some new ones had been designed and tested.

Please supply a link to that particular part of the legislation.

Here is a half hour phone conversation with an Apple Technician who has my Macbook in front of him. Half hour of baiting and he side stepped everything but you will rage at how much they are denying anything.

My Macbook is so slow it is close to unusable and he is telling me the whole time it's fine and only a software fault. He would have to also be using an external mouse as the touch-pad is raised from the battery swelling instantly after Mavericks update last year.

Here is a quick history of my Mac so you understand where I am up when I am calling them:

- Running fine Snow Leopard -> Mountain Lion (2 years) doing graphic design in Adobe CS6

- Mavericks update...battery instantly dead after only 103 cycles and system reports it to be healthy and at 93% design capacity. Swollen after 2 days, ruining touchpad. Told I need to pay for a replacement by Apple over the phone.

- Used Macbook as "desktop" about 10 times over the next year, but mainly just to browse the web as it was so slow I couldn't use it properly.

- Update to Yosemite, Macbook slightly faster but still unusable for one boot. GPU fail on next reboot.

- Cannot see what I am doing anymore except at the Apple logo as GPU isn't being used there.

- Taken to Apple Store. Told I need a new battery & logic board, and after 3 years of life (but only 2 of proper use) I shouldn't expect Apple to cover the costs.

For anyone else in the world I would.

Csound1 wrote:

The law came into effect in 2006, the 2011 model was not the first, please do some basic fact checking.

That's also a way of putting it kindly

But seriously; what do you expect makes the 2011 stand out so much then, since all 2006 devices that would have the same solder method..?

Specific low amount of used solder?

philux wrote:

 

For anyone else in the world I would.

In other words you have no link because there is no link, you make your own facts up as needed.