Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

sorry, yes, I am in the US.  That was exactly my line of thinking as well.  New board might even exhibit the same problem right off the bat.  I haven't looked on ebay yet but I can live with $299 versus $600+.  Glad to know you were able to do that kayazuki.  In the windows world this is not possible unless you have exact same underlying hardware.  The temp. Macbook I am planning on using is a newer retina macbook pro, not the exact same hardware (doesnt have the built in ethernet chipset, graphics chipset is not AMD, it's the nVIDIA obviously, and so oviously the underlying hardware is different but it's good to know OS X should just work regardless.  I still have my reservations, specifically for when I bring the drive back to the old MBP, I hope it works. If it doesnt, at least I have a TM backup (or a SuperDuper! one as well).

by the way, my MB took a turn for the worst last night.  Before i could let it "cool down" for a while and boot back up,  Now I get the banding and screen artifacts upon turning it on and it no longer boots all the way.  bummer...

Evil8Beezle wrote:

 

Funny isn't it, 714 pages and still not a peep from Apple???

 

Sadly Apple died the moment Steve Jobs passed away... What you have now is a company that wants your cash, and pays lip service to everything that follows....

 

Thanks Apple!!!

You couldn't have said that better.. This is sad beyond belief..

Oh, but I guarantee you it'll work back and forth. It's because of the structure of Unix. Like Linux will run on anything, osx doesn't build an OS installation with a specific set of copied drivers related to specifically found drivers. It simply copies the entire OS package with everything included and therefore will run from any Mac.. It simply doesn't care abt the specific hardware. I switched my one installation disk (500Gb SSD) between my 2011 MBP, my girlfriends 2009 MBP and my friends 2012 MBP. Seamless.. back and forth. That will never be a problem.

as much as you want to believe that,. Apple products and services weren't always perfect under the helm of Steve Jobs.  One could especulate over how SJ would have handled this particular issue but, I am not entirely sure he would have been the type to publically declare a massive recall.  I am with you 100% that this is a disgrace to apple's history of quality design and obsession over the build/manufacturing process but at the end of the day, they have an image to preserve and lots of $$$ to lose.  It's a corporation.

For the second Time in 5 months exactly the same problem. How long will be the next repair.

Update to my woes:

Today got a call from apple that my macbook pro has been repaired from the depot.

I picked it up. 90 day warranty on the whole laptop she mentioned.

At home installed photoshop and heaven. Graphics failed again.

Had a quick chat with the support, who set up an appointment with store.

After depot fix, the laptop stays predominantly on integrated graphics, so have to run photoshop

or heaven to see the discrete graphics issue. Any suggestions to properly show the problem to

apple store geniuses

And Yes hit again for the second time by the GPU problem.

And Apple doesn't want to repair it. Last repair was done within the Apple Care 'time' one year ago.

When is Apple (sitting on enough money!) going to act upon this problem and keep us customers satisfied?

BTW: An Authorised Service Provider in the Netherlands asks € 635.- ($ 780.-) for the repair. Unacceptable!

FYI.

The rule is simple. A Mac will not boot from a version of OSX that predates the Mac itself.

ie: If it shipped with 10.9 it won't boot with 10.8

I finally opted for the reflow, not the reball.

if it fails, or when it will, I might go for the reball with a new ship, will see when that happens.

many thanks to D3us for the wondeful job, patience and explanations.

of course I highly recommend hiring him to anybody who can bring its computer/logic board to him in Belgium or sending it.

and have a chat with him, you'll learn plenty.

kayazuki explained perfectly his overall and same experience so I won't do it again.

finally I can use this expensive computer as it was intended for in the first place.

my advise to everybody in the same situation, register your problem with Apple so it counts (or whatever) but unless you want to try and get a computer replacement, don't waste time, money or energy but simply send it to a good technician.

good luck to everybody still struggling.

Since the problem is so random and nearly impossible to replicate, I would take a picture every time my MacBook messed up.  I also included an picture with something that shows the current date, ie newspaper, cellphone.... Just something to eliminate any question of when it happened and it's your computer.  You don't need to show them how to make if fail, just show them when it did.

TJ

I just started having this same issue right after my warranty ran out. Screen goes white for three seconds or so and then splits in half and freezes with black and white horizontal lines. I also installed gfx. Any news on a recall?

ack8jf wrote:

Any news on a recall?

Nope.

Doubt it will happen.

Unless they are forced by the class action law suit.

If you want it working, best option is 3th party fix.

Unless they are forced by the class action law suit ???

I removed my logic board last night, getting ready to ship it.  It was a bit painstaking but not too bad if you use the iFixit.com guides (or app).  I will post an update on my experience with them, but I spoke to them this AM and it is a flat fee of $299 if yo ship the board yourself.  They also claim all boards get reflowed.  fingers crossed...

I am still going to report my issue to apple as suggested.  Regardless of the outcome, it should be reported to help the overall case over this major issue.

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