Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Thanks hi-tech Will try it out

Thanks Again

Wow, I'm getting more and more ******. I went to the Apple Store again today, and I told the guy the story, and he ran the diagnostic. He wanted to hear nothing of how this is a latent defect that needs to be recalled, and insisnted that it has been caused by plugging too many things in too often. Riiiight. I guess that could exacerbate the issue, but it's still a latent defect with the hardware that was originally shipped.

He also quoted $500 PLUS labor to do it there, which is absurd, so $320 flat rate to send it out, but I would have to restore it to it's factory configuration, which is ridiculous, because this is Apple's probablem, not mine, and that amount of effor required would be pretty extensive to take the Optibay out and then put it back in. He also seemed to think that I wouldn't get my money back if Apple later recalled the machines.

I'm going to call AppleCare soon and yell and scream, as this is completely ridiuclous. Apple must know by this point that they have a class issue, but yet they are refusing to do anything about it. I am extremely disappointed in Apple, and I am rather ******. *** am I supposed to do? I have a MBP that doesn't work with my 27" Dell screen that I paid like $600+ for. If I just had the 23", I'd probably just order a USB graphics adapter off Newegg, force it to Intel graphics, and call it a day. But those can't support anything over 1080p or 1900x1200.

Oh yeah, and this guy had the nerve to make the fixed-price repair sound like a deal, because it's a "$500" part, as if Apple was going to give me some sort of deal, when in reality, anything costing more than free is a completely scam for a latent defect that the unit was shipped with. That, and every time I go up there, it's probably $30 between gas and car maintanance and whatnot, and several hours of time. It's over 100 miles round trip for me.

MBP Early 2011, 15 inch. Exact same problem!

Switch to discrete causes problems, I'm using gfxCardStatus right now to stick to integrated. Might even keep the laptop on sleep for extended periods to avoid the startup issues.

I'm submitting a complaint form to Apple right away...this is blatantly a design issue which seems to be kicking in around 2 yrs or a little less after purchase for most of us. That is a silly lifetime for a laptop!

EVERYONE needs to submit a feedback form to clarify to them that this is indeed a fundamental error from their side...and they need to address it.

I complained, and I urge everyone else to do the same. I'm going to call AppleCare maybe tomorrow and complain very loudly about this and demand that my MBP is fixed.

FYI...two other threads with the exact same problem! I'm sure there are more out there.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4637833?start=0&tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2768351?start=1815&tstart=0

We should quote these threads to make our case

I gave up trying the voodoo and took mine in today. It was repaired ex gratia, even though I'm well out of Apple warranty.

The good news for me is that consumer law in Australia states that a product should work for a "reasonable time" so the warranty is all very nice, but you still have a valid claim beyond that.

ANyway, I didn't even have to have a discussion. I explained the problem and mentioned that I'd read about it happening a lot. It was taken in for repair with no charge and I'm picking it up in the morning.

Lucky me.

Wow, I didn't realize that this was even that widespread. I am going to have to call AppleCare soon and be firm about getting a free repair.

Don't get your hopes up. I did the same as you and got it repaired for free, but I'm on my 3rd logic board since the problem got more severe in March. I still have problems. You have to remember that Apple just installs a refurbished (in my case, in a very bad state) logic board, which means that if this is a latent defect it's gonna show up again when the macbook is way out of warranty. But so far they've not even been able to come up with a working logic board for me yet.

I fear that you'll get the same problem in 6/12/18 months or whatever. So it's not a proper solution just to get the logic board replaced by a refurbished one, unless something was changed on that logic board.

I just called AppleCare, and they quoted about the same $320 for a repair depot and $500 for in the store. They said that they can't do anything about it because it's not under a recall program yet. We need EVERYONE to submit feedback on the Apple site so that Apple sees how many of these machines are out there.

What I am also trying to figure out is if there is any legal avenue to pursue. Is Apple legally responsible for a latent defect in their product in the states of Connecticut or Rhode Island? If I can find anything that I think may make them responsible, then I'll consider small claims court for monetary damages so that I can then take the money and pay Apple to repair it (wouldn't that be ironic?).

I have exactly the same issue. Reported using feedback form.

Also I have strange thing, immediately after purchase I upgraded RAM to 8Gb with compatible samsung modules. After I started experiencing problems with graphics, this issue had place every single time system switched to discrete gpu.

Once after another freeze it started beeping "bad memory" code, so I decided to replace modules just in case. I installed old 2x2Gb modules, which were installed initially from factory. Now this issue appears not every time I switch to discrete graphics, but only about once a week or two.

Just an update:

I've taken in my macbook for repair, payed the ~$330 USD to get it sent out for flat rate repair at the Apple repair center. All they replaced was the Logic board and it's as good as new again... So definitely the problem lied within the logic board and it's video card. Hopefully a repair program does arise, I'd like a refund on this repair. But I couldn't do without a computer. (It failed completely on me when I took it to get diagnosed at the Apple store)

Okay, here's an another user with this sort of problem: yesterday evening, while I been browsing internet, my mid 2011 purchased macbook pro 8,2 has shown me a whole screen of blue tinted pattern noise, and froze completely after that.

Restarting the laptop only lead to a white screen after apple logo disappeared, and than fans kicked in, and nothing happened after that.

Mac os could boot only in safe mode, showing vertical blue stripe pattern overlay on screen, but at least it worked somehow, for period of 10 to 20 minutes, before blue graphic garbage filled screen again and everything froze.

Following the guide from here - https://discussions.apple.com/message/16069150#16069150 and disabling AMD card completely, after rebooting MBP I can finally access mac os in normal mode, sans for hardware accelerated features, color management and any screen tweaks (I can't even access brightness controls atm); there's a noticeable blueish tone to everything on screen, but I assume it's due to lack of proper color management coming from GPU.

Booting in safe mode shown a pefectly clean picture, the blue pattern I mentioned above is gone.

Huge thank you to everyone who posted here about this issue, I will be filling a report right now.

Now that I will only have an access to a proper apple store in over a month from now (currently in Russia, where getting a replacement logic board would take a lot of time + unless apple make an official statement that they're aware of this issue, it will cost me an arm and leg), I have a really nice 15" ipad with no flash features, no working phoshop, screwed colors and crippled web browsing. no cool apps either (j/k)

Nice to know I'm not alone with this issue (been using same laptop almost for 2 years for illustration kind of jobs); less nice to know that replacement logic boards come refurbished, because I would not mind paying more for a newer model if apple decides to order another batch of the boards from the manufacturer.

Keeping a faint hope this issue will be properly solved by apple.

I will post a follow up here when I have a chance to have my laptop serviced, but this will be most likely my last MBP purchase - it's been mostly staying at my desk through past year, bundled with a 27" Thunderbolt screen, and this issue, coming out of the blue, made me reconsider paying extra for portability perks.

upd. 1: it's a mbpro 8,2 with radeon HD 6490m videocard.

upd. 2: running an extended hardware test at home gave me no results, but I hope an apple person can later figure it out. same with resetting pram - did all that before resorting to tampering with libraries.

hey guys just got my laptop from a repair shop. they replaced the graphics chip with a new one. YEP you heard it right. REPLACED it. it seems to be working fine right now with the discreet graphics. cost me around 5000 php so that's around $100 they also replaced the cpu thermal paste and cleaned up the logic board really well. i hope this fix lasts.