Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Furthermore, GFX does not re-know the active card !!!

Thanks for your help !!!!!

I fixed it by myself for about 2 bucks expense by baking logic board in the oven. Well I'm extremely happy and typing this message on my MacBookPro 8,2 now.

I set the temperature to 210C and baked it for 15 minutes.

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hype1 wrote:

Thanks, Antwerp is pretty near from my place actually. But first I'll hand it over to Apple once again... The more fails they receive and register, the better.

Hi Hype,

I don't know man... That way you're basically assuming that it'll hurt Apple more to spend some more time on it then it would help you if you'd get your machine properly fixed...? Or that your machine might tip the Big Mighty Apple over on it's side and make them recognise this problem worldwide..?

I think you're mostly hurting yourself by wasting your precious time to Apple to be very honest....?

Csound1 wrote:

 

I also linked to the Dutch Civil Law equivalent, which appears to be identical to the EU minimum standard.

But if it is not practical to enforce them it doesn't matter.

I guess the sad bottom line would always be that Apple can always talk itself out of any mess like this by simply stating that it's written nowhere that their devices "should minimally last X years". I guess they are officially entitled to sell anything for any price they like and they can probably never be held accountable for any kind of lifespan..

All in all, I guess what everything boils down to is this:

- Either you're really charmed about how a Mac works (concerning the OS, the nice trackpad, keyboard+illumination, etc) and take possible mess for granted where u might have to fix some errors yourself, or

- You choose to not accept the service (or better: lack of it) of Apple in situations like this and turn your back to them.

So far, my personal experience + opinion lets me still choose for the first option. I don't like the company, I don't like their mobile devices, but I honestly do like their computers. Whether I have to let a 3rd party fix what Apple messed up or not... It's all about that (sad) choice I guess..

Depends where you are, some countries have strong consumer laws, others don't.

prageethk wrote:

 

I fixed it by myself for about 2 bucks expense by baking logic board in the oven. Well I'm extremely happy and typing this message on my MacBookPro 8,2 now.

I set the temperature to 210C and baked it for 15 minutes.

Hehehe, u made urself a McPie

But seriously now, I am quite sure you kind of repeated the procedure which Apple already did for you; create reasonable cold welding due to the fact that the tin does NOT melt completely. (at all actually)

Pure tin has a melting point of 505.08 K = 231.93 °C = ​449.47 °F

Lead free solder may be Sn95Ag5. Check the pdf below and notice the melting point range.

Also, notice the thermal expansion coefficient. This may indicate why all those Macs first work fine and then  don't work fine anymore, when they have cold welding joints under their GPUs instead of true solder joints!

I expect your GPU to fail again at some point, but you could of course bake your motherboard again.

Just beware that you don't delaminate the PCB, because then you can chuck the logic board in the trash.

Maybe you'd better preheat the oven to 200ºC, then insert the board, make sure the board is ABSOLUTELY HORIZONTAL and then crank up the temp gauge to 240ºC and leave it there for only a few seconds and then open the door bit by bit to let the board cool off as soon as possible, but without giving it an extreme thermal shock (then parts can crack). All assuming the thermostat of your oven is remotely reliable.. ;) If the solder is truly molten, you better also not cause vibrations, or parts may come off, of cause short circuit.

Best is to shell out some €125 and have an expert do it good in one go.

Each time you heat up your board insufficiently you won't solve the problem permanently, but you do wear out the board gradually.

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation and precautions I should take whenever I do that. Really appreciate the amount of time and information you have put in responding. I seriously take your advices before I make my motherboard unusable next time. Hope this helps others too.

I just received my early 2011 MBP back from it's 2nd logic board repair in as many weeks.  I was glad to get it back, repair was covered under the 90 day warranty from my first logic board replacement which was done just over a week ago.  I took the opportunity to upgrade to Yosemite as well as update other apps.  The machine worked flawlessly, well almost.  Stepped outside for a couple of minutes, when I came back in and woke up the machine this is what if saw.

I'm self employed and I can't run a business with something as unreliable as this!  I am quickly loosing all faith in Apple.  Any chance this can be caused by something other than the GPU?

Sorry to hear your situation, but this looks just like the issue I saw in mine.

Thank you for taking the time to explain my exact problem.

TJMooseman wrote:

I'm self employed and I can't run a business with something as unreliable as this!  I am quickly loosing all faith in Apple.  Any chance this can be caused by something other than the GPU?

Hi TJ,

This is pretty sure the same "cold weld" problem of your GPU.

The reason people have different symptoms here and there is because there is a level of randomness in which tin balls under the GPU were completely molten and which not during the production process.

Changing motherboards via Apple will not make you happy, probably ever.

New motherboards come with fresh bad connections right out of the box.

Meaning: getting new motherboards from Apple doesn't really mean anything.

This counts for all people...

The replacement fits in their service protocol, but it offers little solution.

It's all about luck then.

Have your GPU reflowed and you'll have a more permanent solution.

Deja Vu — exactly the same thing happened to me: after 3rd logic board replacement and upgrade to yosemite, I put my computer to sleep while I left for a snak and when I returned and lifted the lid I saw this "beautiful" screen:

Let me give you some good advice.

If you want to keep your macbook logic board alive stop putting it in the oven.

If you're lucky, it keeps working.

If not, it fails again. You bake it again, And it fails again.

After a few times you can't get it working again.

Send it out for repair of course not telling them it has been baked a few times.

The repair technician starts working on it, put's on the rework machine.

LIfts the chip and sees some bubbles under it, called delamination.

Of course you blame the technician for where in fact you are the one to blame, you created the problem yourself.

Or the technician doesn't see anything but can't get it working again, reflowing, reballing or placing a new chip.

No visible damage to see.

This can be the same problem, delaminition which is not allways visible.

Or you fried some other components baking it.

Reworking has to be done following some rules.

Preheating an oven to 240c and then put your logic board in it isn't one of them.

Can be in fact a good way to destroy a lot of components at once.

D3us wrote:

...

Reworking has to be done following some rules.

Preheating an oven to 240c and then put your logic board in isn't one of them.

Can be in fact a good way to destroy a lot of components at once.

I fully agree here!

Just to clarify; I only wrote that to him as he already had chosen to stick his logic board in his kitchen oven

I'd like to stress out that in the end, I did mention it'd be the best to go to a professional.

So just to be clear, to everyone reading this: please never try to melt your logic board yourself in your home oven.

The chance of ruining your equipment is much higher then fixing it..

And then a cheap repair attempt will directly turn into much more expensive mess then when you'd go to a professional immediately for a reflow.

Got the same problem on my Macbook 15' Late 2011. Paid almost 800 dollars for the logic board replacement. Thank you for scamming me apple, I'll never buy another Mac.