Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card

Hans Kramer wrote:

Hi,

What version of OS X are you guys running?

It is kind of odd that for three years the system runs okay and then suddenly new boards break one after the other.

Bought my Late 2011 MBP 15" 2.2GHz i7 end Dec 2011, running Lion. Ran Lion till approx the begining of Spring 2014, then switched to Mavericks.

Ran Mavericks for abt 8 mths and then the machine died on me. I only saw a very small graphic disturbance once in the beginning of November, but the main problem on my machine was that it would just lock up completely. All I could do then was reset all things there are to reset, which still didn't work. All I had left was a black screen. Disconnecting the internal battery was the only thing that would cause the Mac to run again... But only 4 times. Disconnecting the battery for the 5th time left me with a permanently dead machine..

A reflow, done by a highly skilled expert near Antwerp, fixed my machine and it runs very stable and actually cooler now.

I still suspect that poor soldered connections break open after many hours of use and oxidise eventually.

Add me to the list. 2011 Macbook Pro just started having weird fuzzy graphics and a dark vertical line with the screen shifted over...

Bringing it into Apple Store this Sunday. The sad thing is that my Applecare JUST ended 3 weeks ago. Prior to today, this Mac had been working great.

Sigh...

Same problem here, i bought my MacBoo Pro in July 2011. After two year the first GPU failed and I had to change the logic board. Now, one year and three months after the fist replacement i'm facing the same problems; only boot with integrate card and to fix the assistence charge me something like $750,00 in Brazil! Please Apple, help us, it's your fault!

That's my nearest store too - I'll be very interested to know how you get on.

 

My Early 2011 17" MBP packed up mid October and I had no choice (I use FCPX everyday) but to immediately buy the latest MBP to continue with my hobby/obsession. Much as I love FCPX I'm now thinking of switching back to Adobe Premiere Pro which at least runs on Windows as well as Macs.

I brought my MBP to the Apple store in Geneva and they offered to replace the motherboard for free. We'll see how long it will last. I hope this will help others to get a replacement board. Maybe this issue will eventually be officially recognised by Apple. Lets hope so. All the best.

Wow! This IS interesting. How did it happen? My Apple Care ran out during last year - were you in the same position? Did you speak to a particular person or just the genius you had an appointment with? Were they immediately sympathetic? Are there things I could usefully say...? If you'd prefer not to go into too much or even any detail here then I'd be most grateful if you'd PM me. 

I went there with my MBP 2011. I had an appointment at the Genius bar.

Previously I had spoken to a Apple rep. on the phone. He asked me to take the machine to a Certified Apple Store nearest to me. As I live in Lausanne. I took it to Art Computer (in fact thats where I bought the machine) but was met there with total and absolute incompetence. They wanted me to pay CHF 100.- upfront to have the machine checked by their technicians. I told them that I could show them what the problem was but they insisted. So I gave up.

I then booked a meeting at the Apple Store in Geneva. When I got there the Genius hooked some wires to the machine and ran a hardware test. When it got to the AMD chip nothing showed up. All OK. The Genius asked me if I could show him what was wrong. So I logged in, started Photoshop and poof,... the machine restarted. Basically, every time the AMD chip was accessed the machine shut down. Anyways, he asked me to wait while he went to speak to his superior Genius who was somewhere at the back of the Store. After a couple of minutes he came out and said that they would replace the motherboard.

I did tell him that this was the SECOND machine I had to have checked for the same problem.

After talking with Apple, I took my early 2011 MBP to Apple Store. I showed pictures of the screen to the genius. Genius confirmed it is graphic chip issue and started running their tests. Even before the tests completed, the genius presented two options to me to replace the logic board - flat rate repair / in-store repair. I told him to wait until the tests are done. MBP passed all their tests. But still the genius wants me to pay to get the logic board replaced. I asked him why should we replace the logic board when their tests couldn't find any issue. I rejected the options presented to me and walked out.

Had my logic board replaced back on October 8th. 6 months outside of Applecare but my local store took the hit and paid for it, which was nice. I've been cautiously optimistic that the new board would be solid, but 90 days TO THE DAY after my first repair, the graphics died again. Took it back and it's getting repaired gratis again. I think the payment really varies store to store as I was led to believe the store manager has to pay for the repair out of the store budget if they do it complimentary. It is definitely a known probably to Genius techs at this point, but they weren't able to offer any official Apple comment. I'm guessing if the next board dies (which I'm confident it will) I'll be compensated somehow. I think it's in your best interest to use one of the tools to thrash your graphics card once you get a repair to stress the thing and see if it will hold up. A 90 day warranty on these repairs is absurd.

Call Apple Customer Service in Your area and ask that they replace the logic board for free since their diagnostic test comes back negative for any faults. They know the 2 minute test they offer at the genius bar Does NOT "TEST" the hardware, just id's it so their diagnosis is based solely on visual inspection which technically they can not charge for since there is no diagnostic evidence of faulty hardware.

I can't believe this is true after all that's happened to everybody's macbooks, Apple just won a court dismissal over a lawsuit over 2011 MacBooks with the defective logic boards, it's in the link below.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-wins-dismissal-lawsuit-over-002026636.html?. tsrc=applewf

It talks about the graphics failures, distortions and the horizontal lines that have been experiencing from their laptops.

I cant believe this is true myself, after reading this, I don't think Apple is going to start repair/replacement program.

The plaintiffs have until Jan. 22 to amend the lawsuit, but the way it looks right now, I don't think it's going well.

Same ****** problem only discovered it yesterday on my 2011 MBP. This is sooooo..... frustating!!!

Add me to the list, faulty graphics card on 2011 MBP.  Still debating my options, I hate to scrap it.  I like the idea of stress testing it a lot after a repair, to force an early failure.

just figured i'd contribute to the reply count here. same thing as everyone, 2011 15" macbook pro. throughout all of 2013 i had several intermittent crashes where the graphics card would just completely bug out and shut off. i was using boot camp a lot at the time so i thought it was just a windows emulation bug, and it always worked fine when i restarted, so i didn't think much of it.

flash forward to two weeks ago when it finally crashed for me, and refused to start up. i looked it up, researched it, and found out just what a nightmare this situation is, and just how much it would cost to repair since i'm already out of warranty. my macbook was essentially bricked up until the day i decided to grit my teeth and send it off for repairs, when it magically started working again.

i decided not to send it off and just continue using it as normal since the repair centre wouldn't believe me anyway, but then it stopped working again yesterday. i decided to send it off today, but lo and behold it worked fine this morning. it's like my macbook is making sure i have the absolute worst possible time with this situation. i hate this.

Wednesday my Macbook crashed and today I got it working by putting it on its side and let it run for a while. After three boots it came back.

What also works for me is doing a safe boot. (pressing the shift key while starting up). Okay, it gives you a crippled system, but in case you need some files.. :-(

The law-suite is a bad thing I think. It will only make Apple less likely to help us. The petition is a much better tool.

The only thing that matters is what a consumer will buy. For now there is only that horrible system Windows system (who wants that) and

Linux that is too badly supported by hardware firms around the world. I hope the ChromeBooks will become more popular and make hardware more Linux aware. I am a Linux expert and I love that system, though I still want to have a Mac system too. Right now Apple is NOT helping me with that.

Apple please wake up! Support your loyal customers.

Hans