Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Clearning the NVRAM made it possible to grep the log for "error" I didn't see anything useful in the log though.  There were window server erros, but the only message was to add a breakpoint to capture messages.

I still can occasionaly boot into  the os x version installed of the DVD on the clean hard drive, but that's it.  If I try to do any kind of system update it blows up as soon as the gfx utiltiy stops running. Which is anytime an update begins to be applied...

I honestly don't understand how come a recall or repair program isn't in place yet.

There's absolutely no way thousands of people would have the same problem due to misuse. And just exactly what kind of misuse would specifically target the GPU?

I mean come'on, what message is Apple trying to convey here?

"When you buy our notebooks, be reminded that they come with a 2-year expiration date"?

I've purchased another mbp because I need it to work and my old 2011 mbp stopped booting, the only way I could start it was removing the AMD kernel modules, that allowed me to do a full backup. :(

I hope Apple will take this issue as theirs and fix it in some permanent way so our trust on this brand gets renewed

I'm so mad. Invested 3000 in the 17 inch MBP when it came out in 2011 and now they're not admitting this widespread design flaw costing everyone 300 dollars for a new logic board. Mine has been doing this for a month now and I just now found out how it's all related to the 2011 Macs with the Amd chips inside. Obviously this was their fault and they should be doing replacements or free repairs not waiting for us to give in and pay more money or switch to a new mac. I'm a poor college student I can't afford this but I still need the computer for homework dammit!

A bit of sad news.

I am not in the USA, but made contact with someone from Apple's executive relations department. We have been in telephone conversations just about every day this week.  The person was very helpful and kept me informed the whole time.

Bottom-line is that the Apple engineers don't see this as a problem or design fault and there is currently no intention to have a re-call plan or anything.  I pointed them to this forum as well as all the other articles on the web, but they don't want to accept any responsibility.  Their final answer were that I can take it further with the consumer law in my country and make a case against the Apple reseller.

So, I think if their are no big publicity on this, nothing will happen.

Personally I have moved on.  I will stick to MacMini's for future Apple related work, but already ordered a laptop for my work at half the price of the MacBook and twice the warranty period.  I still love OS X and will miss it in my day to day work, but such is life.

Apple (or any other vendor) is unlikely to publicly admit that there is a problem unless/until there is a repair program announced to correct it.  Owners of the 2011 iMacs with bad GPUs were told their problems were unique and isolated... until there was a repair program announced, and their problems were suddenly acknowledged as widespread.  It was literally an overnight change in rhetoric. 

My experiences with other problems with Apple products have been very similar.  It's a major liability to admit a problem but not do anything about it.  Frustrating, but it's the way nearly any company publicly handles these sorts of situations. 

What we can do, as owners of the affected products, is continue to share our experiences and concerns with Apple so that they are documented.  Apple's feedback form and visits to the Genius Bar are much more likely to "count" than posts on this forum.  And publicity doesn't hurt, either. 

Just another early 2011 MBP owner with the same problem.  Clearly a GPU issue, I've had pretty much all the symptoms others decribe and it has been going on for about 2 months now.  I process many many photographs in a given month, and this seems to tax my GPU the most, since I'm working in Aperture with 16.3megapixel RAW files and sometimes processing as many as 15 images to TIFFs then merging those images to a single HDR image.  Eventually my screen splits, or, goes black, or goes white with blue pin-stripes, and I loose my cursor or the curser tuns into a dotted vertical line about 1/2 inch in length.  The computer will ultimately freeze and require a hard re-boot.  It takes several attempts at rebooting before I get my screen back, sometimes, but I eventually am able to access the computer.  I've installed a fan controller app to no avail.  I run the fans at well above the default RPM's as recommended by someone in one of these boards, especially on the left side, the apparent location of the GPU, but I've still had the same problems occur.  Inevitably when I load a new shoot to my laptop that is when I have problems.  I can come back later and work on the photos but right around when I load the images, it is inevitable that one of the aforementioned screen issues will occur.  One interesting side note, this problem seemed to begin shortly after I started using a 4 terabyte external drive connected via Thunderbolt.  I load all of my RAW photos to the external drive since it takes only a few months to fill my 720GB hard drive if I keep them on the laptop.  The Thunderbolt connector gets quite hot so I wonder if that added heat to the already warm GPU when processing large images, and accellerated the decline of my laptops GPU?  Anyone else had this issue or noticed the connection?  Given the fact that the Thunderbolt connector is on the left side of the MBP where the heat problem is at its worst, could this be one reason it has happened since I started using Thunderbolt instead of my Firewire 800 drives? 

I agree that Apple needs to get off their collective rears and do something about this.  I have a laptop that cost me about 3G's here, and really expected to get 3 to 5 years out of it before replacing it.  I may have to give in an spend the cash to get the GPU replaced, but I need to know that this is going to give my MBP long life.  If the new GPU is going to fail in a few months, under high stress, then I'm not replacing it yet.  This is very frustrating for me, and has stopped my potography in its tracks.  I would very much like to resume this my most passionate of avocations.  Hello Apple, are you listening?

Here is my email to T.Cook. I do not expect this to change anything but I like to know I did all I could :

Good evening Sir,

I would like to report a massive problem with 2011 MacBookPros failing on hundreds of users because of what seems to be a GPU / heat / soldering problem...

... which Apple refuses to aknowledge.

Common symptoms on identical computer series and really close timing.

No long term fixing can be provided by your technicians. (Newly fixed computers still going wrong within weeks presenting the same exact problems).

This is not due to a misuse.

Sir, 2 years is a really poor standard for professional grade 2500$+ computer "Designed in California".

Everyone is gathering over this daily-basis growing thread at your very own Apple Support Communities : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4766577?start=1050&tstart=0

A large amount of them has tickets pending in your stores and technical services.

German press has started spreading the word, French IT press will be given a copy of this email, and I do not doubt many of us, while buying new MacBookPros as we can not stop working, will do their best in every possible way to make you aknowledge the "mbp 2011 GPU fail" and do the right thing like you did recently for the oddly similar iMac GPU issue.

As if needed, here is a little reminder :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsBrI_ftKXw

Sincerely,

Greg D.

Just got mine back after getting the logic board replaced.  SMC firmware is listed as 1.70f5

im still covered till March 2014 so im gonna run it as normal and let the card switch to see if the issue comes up again, I rather have it happen soon than after March. 

S

One more way to get heard:

If you're an investor in Apple stock, contact Investor relations: http://investor.apple.com/contactUs.cfm

They should be listening to what the company's owners have to say, and be aware if the Apple name is loosing it's value because of disgruntled users, and all the internet furry they are stiring up.

Also, I figure if you're going to send an e-mail message to Mr. Cook, you should send him an iMessage too. 

Fingers crossed that someone is listening.

I did the same thing.  The e-mail do get to them and they came back to me withn a day.  That is how I made contact with Apple's executive relations department as mentioned in a previous post.

I suggest everyone with this problem should:

1. Take their MacBook to a repair shop to get the problem logged (even if you don't repair it).

2. Report it on Apple's feedback link.

3. Sent an e-mail, as it seems that they do read it and talk to the engineers about the issue.

Apple must see that it is not isolated cases, but widespread.

Tonight I accidentally switched users, and the other one didn't have gfxcardstatus set to "integrated", so I got a system hang and had to reboot about 5 times until I could get to the logon screen.

When I finally got to OS X, I moved all the ATI* and AMD* kexts to another folder and rebooted. Now gfxcardstatus is permanently set to DISCRETE, and it won't allow me to change it, stating that I can't use integrated graphics while using an external monitor (although I'm not, I don't have an ext. monitor and I'm always using the MBP screen).

No hangs so far, but graphics are slow. Slower than when set to "integrated". So far I think I'll manage...

Come'on Apple.

Another macbook pro affected here. Last year, my MBP's usb ports failed so my apple reseller replaced the logic board for the first time. 9 monthss later, the logic boards fails again due to the gpu... I think the timing of everyone's failure is very curious and all happens around the same time, just after using it 2 years. It's such a coincidence that reports of the gpu failure are peaking the last month.

like everyone else in here, I'm very mad to pay so much money for a macbook pro that never managed to last a year without logic board failure. I could replace it again and pay $700 again, but eventually it will fail again, that's for 100% sure now since so many people are reporting the same problem!

I'm going to send in another ticket/case number next week, and link to this thread.

But I really don't think Apple will ever respond to this thread - it would be a huge operation and a recall for all MBP's should be happening... Which won't happen I'm affraid.

Amazing, such an expensive laptop dies after 2-2,5 years use... I'm pretty disappointed to say the least.

While I agree there is a design flaw in these models of mac book pro that leads to a heating problem and a soldering problem, I must say that I believe that the fact that everybody's laptop is breaking at the same time can't be explained by such fact. Indeed, most of us have been happily using our macs for two years without an issue (at least me). That should mean that after replacing the logic board, we would get another two years of usage without any problems. But the truth is that I had my logic board replaced three times already (after paying an 500euro replacement repair, which is about $700 us) and none of the times the computer lasted more than a day without giving me problems. All three times I updated the software following the normal procedure (App Store) which implied upgrading the firmware. All three times the computer was working before the upgrade and broke after the upgrade. I do think this is the real cause of the problem. Otherwise I would expect to get another two years of usage until the computer would break because of the design flaws mentioned earlier.